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Methods of reviewing progress - international indicators

Data were collated from the databases of various international organisations including the OECD, Eurostat, the UN Statistics Division, and World Bank.

Geographical coverage

Data were collated for the UK and 12 other developed countries:

Australia

Belgium

Canada

Denmark

France

Germany

Italy

Japan

Netherlands

Norway

Sweden

United States

Countries were selected based upon whether there was high data availability and whether the country was deemed to be sufficiently comparable to the UK i.e. in economic terms.

Regional averages such as OECD averages or EU averages were collated when available so that the UK's progress could be put in a regional perspective.

Progress assessments

Unlike with the regional and national indciators, traffic light assessments have not been produced for the international indicators owing to the difficulties of applying UK methods of assessment to other countries.

Indicator presentation

The indicators are presented in a similar way as the national set of indicators. Each presentation comprises charts displaying the data and a short commentary.

Depending upon data availability, each indicator is presented using two charts. The first shows, where appropriate, an index of the measure for 5 or 6 selected countries since 1990, in effect showing a percentage change of the measure over time. Therefore, these charts only enable comparisons of the trend over time to be made, rather than comparisons of the magnitude of the measure.

A bar chart shows the most recent absolute value of the measure for all 13 countries. This enables comparisons of the magnitude for each measure between countries and gives a snapshot of the current status of the measure in each of the 13 countries. To enhance comparability these data are usually expressed as a percentage or per person to negate differences in populations between countries. The bar charts are ranked from the left of the x-axis in order of the numerical values of the indicators.

Updated: 07 March 2005