A group of 40 people from a range of backgrounds in business, academia, government and the voluntary sector have been drafted in by the Office for the National Statistics (ONS) to help measure the nation's wellbeing.
The National Statistician, Jil Matheson has convened the Measuring National Wellbeing Forum to engage directly in the debate with key stakeholders, including policy makers, analysts, business leaders and academics in the UK and abroad.
The forum's role will be to discuss the main themes emerging from the national debate which concludes in April and provide advice on how to deliver credible measures of subjective well-being, and of wider national well-being, to meet policy and public needs.
Matheson, who chairs the Measuring National Wellbeing Forum, said: "Through the Measuring National Wellbeing Programme, ONS is leading a debate in the UK about how best to provide a picture of 'how society is doing', that doesn't simply rely on economic data.
"We want to develop measures of national well-being based on what people tell us matters most."
The first stage of the national debate is underway and will run until April 2011, and the findings will inform the development of the measures that will be used to track the nation's wellbeing.
The second stage of the debate will be from April into the Summer 2011 and will concentrate more on how measures should be developed.
