The UK ranks tenth, one place up on last year, but behind Australia which came top, as well as Sweden, Canada and the US.

The survey ranked more than 30 countries on criteria such as income levels, health, safety and housing.

When asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10, British people gave it a 6.8 grade, slightly higher than the average of 6.6 of the world’s most advanced countries.

The Better Life Index – compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – used data taken from 2012 – the year in which the capital hosted the Olympics.

Experts say the Games had a “unifying force” which helped increase the nation’s happiness levels.

The report shows that, while money cannot buy happiness, it is an important means to achieving higher living standards. In the UK, the average household net-adjusted disposable income is 26 904 USD a year, more than the OECD average of 23 047 USD a year.

In terms of employment, over 70 per cent of people aged 15 to 64 in the country have a paid job, above the OECD employment average of 66 per cent. Some 76 per cent of men are in paid work, compared with 65 per cent of women.

However, young people aged 15-24, face difficulties, with an unemployment rate of 20.0 per cent, higher than the average of 16.2 per cent.

I find it really interesting that it considers the importance of employment, incomes and youth employment all issues which are more challenging in rural than urban England.

This article profiling the results of the first ONS happiness index tells us:

“The most satisfied person in England is a middle-aged woman in good health, with a job, who owns her own home and lives in the rural county of Rutland or the honey-coloured city of Bath, according to the first attempt to measure national wellbeing.

People’s perception of their quality of life is affected by where they live and what they do as well as their gender, health, relationships and ethnicity, according to the Office for National Statistics which was asked by the Prime Minister in 2010 to develop a measure of human happiness. The aim is to provide a picture of what makes a successful society as a focus for policy-makers….”

Interestingly my CRC work involved an example of rural economic well-being from Rutland and the RSN Chair comes from there so we must be doing something right! My concern is that work like this only gets us to first base. The next challenge is to think about how we create the conditions to replicate the success of Bath and Rutland in places like Merseyside and Watford.  Perhaps our initial work in looking at some projects in these places which have helped underpin well-being was not a bad place to start. If you want to see the report we produced in 2009, which still has some currency, particularly for rural places, let me know.

“My belief is that the best state of society is the one where there is the most happiness and the least misery. And if we think happiness is what policymakers should aim for, it is critical to measure it. If you go back 30 or 40 years, people said you couldn’t measure depression. But eventually the measurement of depression became uncontroversial. I think the same will happen with happiness. We’re at an early stage, but I don’t see how you can argue this isn’t a scientific project.”

To read more about the happiness index follow this link to an earlier Guardian story.   There has been a debate about measuring happiness and well-being in terms of public sector impact for a number of years. Regional Development Agencies were advocates of the Index of Sustainable Well-Being as a “softer” approach to measuring their impact than simple economic growth.  This link on the South West Observatory website provides more information.  We ourselves did some work for the Commission for Rural Communities on rural economic well being, you can view it here.

 Why is well being/ happiness important? The old days of having to measure lots of inputs and outputs are behind us. The challenge of identifying the difference we are making however remains.  If we are going to “measure what matters” going forward I wonder if this might not be a good place to start?