UK National Accounts, The Blue Book was first published in August 1952 and presents a full set of economic accounts (national accounts) for the UK. These accounts are compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). They record and describe economic activity in the UK and are used to support the formulation and monitoring of economic and social policies.

In most Blue Books, volume series are updated so their reference and last base years are moved forward by one year as part of the process of annual chain-linking. However, in Blue Book 2023 the reference and last base year have remained at 2019 for a third consecutive year.

The effect of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has led to very large movements in industry-level estimates of gross value added (GVA), so these structures are unlikely to reflect more “normal” times. Moving the last base year on to 2020 or 2021 would likely lead to some atypical movements in some of our volume series because the industry weights generated would not reflect the pattern of the economy in the following periods. In line with international guidance, we have kept the last base year under review and will inform users of our plans for Blue Book 2024.

In the UK, priority is given to the production of a single gross domestic product (GDP) estimate using income, production and expenditure data. Further analysis is available on:

• income analysis at current prices
• expenditure analysis at both current prices and chained volume measures
• value added analysis compiled on a quarterly basis in chained volume measures only