Publications & Documents

International regulatory co-operation (IRC) provides an opportunity for countries to consider the impacts of their regulations beyond their borders, to expand the evidence for decision-making, to learn from the experience of their peers and to develop concerted approaches to challenges that transcend borders. This review documents the context of IRC policies and practices in the United Kingdom. It covers both the UK’s unilateral efforts to embed international considerations in domestic rulemaking and its bilateral, regional and multilateral co-operative efforts on regulatory matters. In addition, the review provides a snapshot of IRC in practice in the United Kingdom with four case studies on financial services, nuclear energy, medical and healthcare products and product safety. At a time when IRC is an increasingly essential, yet largely untapped, tool for addressing transboundary policy challenges, this review offers valuable lessons to countries within the OECD and beyond.

This paper outlines the rationale, methodologies, key findings and policy implications of the national Value of Travel Time Savings (VTTS) study conducted in Britain during 2014-15. The study found VTTS varied with distance, trip purpose and mode of travel but not with worthwhile use of travel time. Using two case studies, the paper discusses the approach to implementation of the new VTTS estimates and lessons for other countries.

The first five years of a child’s life is a period of great opportunity, and risk. The cognitive and social-emotional skills that children develop in these early years have long-lasting impacts on their later outcomes throughout schooling and adulthood. The International Early Learning and Child Well-Being Study was designed to help countries assess their children’s skills and development, to understand how these relate to children’s early learning experiences and well-being. The study provides countries with comparative data on children’s early skills to assist countries to better identify factors that promote or hinder children’s early learning. Three countries participated in this study in 2018: England (United Kingdom), Estonia and the United States. The study directly assessed the emergent literacy and numeracy, self-regulation and social-emotional skills of a representative sample of five-year-old children in registered school and ECEC settings in each participating country. It also collected contextual and assessment information from the children’s parents and teachers. This report sets out the findings from the study as a whole.

The first five years of a child’s life is a period of great opportunity, and risk. The cognitive and social-emotional skills that children develop in these early years have long-lasting impacts on their later outcomes throughout schooling and adulthood. This report sets out the findings from the International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study in England. The study assesses children’s skills across both cognitive and social-emotional development, and how these relate to children’s early learning experiences at home and in early childhood education and care. It is enriched by contextual and assessment information from the children’s parents and educators. It provides comparative data on children’s early skills with children from Estonia and the United States, who also participated in the study, to better identify factors that promote or hinder children’s early learning.

This paper presents and discusses the general findings and key policy messages of the 2019 OECD Open, Useful and Re-usable data (OURdata) Index, and provides a detailed analysis of the results for each pillar and sub-pillar. Additionally, it assesses the main advancements and challenges related to the design and implementation of open government data (OGD) policies in OECD member and partner countries by comparing the results for 2019 with those of the 2017 edition. This policy paper contributes to the OECD work on the digital transformation of the public sector, including digital government and data-driven public sector and open government data.

This paper reviews the different definitions and measures of skills use and shows why it matters for local development policies. Based on findings from the Annual Population Survey and the UK Employer Skills Survey, it provides unique local analysis on how the Leeds City Region compares on skills use relative to other Local Enterprise Partnerships. It then outlines opportunities for new actions that could be implemented in the Leeds City Region to work closer with firms to promote skills use in the workplace.

Core Cities is an association of eleven cities in the UK: Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, and Sheffield. Altogether, Core Cities and their surrounding regions account for around one quarter of the UK population and economy. Given their size and assets, Core Cities have the potential to boost national growth. However, unlike second-tier cities in most other large OECD countries, Core Cities have low levels of productivity by national and international standards. With the right policies and sufficient investment in public transport, housing, skills and other key policy areas, Core Cities could become centres of economic activity that pull their regions and the entire UK to higher productivity levels. This report unpacks the causes of low productivity in UK Core Cities and offers policy recommendations for the local and national level to achieve higher productivity and more inclusive growth.

This profile provides a concise and policy-relevant overview of health and the health system in the United Kingdom as part of the broader series of the State of Health in the EU country profiles. It provides a short synthesis of: the health status in the country; the determinants of health, focussing on behavioural risk factors; the organisation of the health system; and the effectiveness, accessibility and resilience of the health system. This profile is the joint work of the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, in co-operation with the European Commission.

Twenty-first century governments must keep pace with the expectations of their citizens and deliver on the promise of the digital age. Data-driven approaches are particularly effective for meeting those expectations and rethinking the way governments and citizens interact. This report highlights the important role data can play in creating conditions that improve public services, increase the effectiveness of public spending and inform ethical and privacy considerations. It presents a data-driven public sector framework that can help countries or organisations assess the elements needed for using data to make better-informed decisions across public sectors.