§ Miss Quennellasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his Department's formula for measuring the United Kingdom's gross domestic product conforms to those employed for the same purpose by the OECD and the International Monetary Fund.
§ Mr. NottResponsibility for compilation of these statistics rests with the Central Statistical Office. National accounts data are reported to OECD and the United Nations in terms of the UN System of National Accounts (SNA) The system is intended to provide a uniform basis for making international comparisons and is thus concerned with concepts and definitions; the methods of measurement used by individual countries in attempting to compile estimates according to the system may vary considerably and are not, generally speaking,94W the subject of recommendations by those international bodies.
The definition of gross domestic product followed in the United Kingdom national accounts, as published in the National Income and Expenditure Blue Book, differs in certain minor respects from that recommended in the SNA, but the figures are adjusted as far as possible to international definitions when reporting to OECD and the United Nations.