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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Central Statistical Office
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(CSO, London SW1) Exexcutive agency deriving from the government department set up in 1941 by Winston Churchill to provide better statistics for managing the war economy. The office has since then researched on an increasingly wide range of economic and social subjects, though it is only since 1989 that it has had responsibility for the index which attracts the most attention, the Retail Prices Index. The CSO publishes the monthly Economic Trends and its leading annual titles are: Annual Abstract of Statistics; Social Trends; Regional Trends; and United Kingdom Annual Accounts, known as the Blue Book.
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The department was greatly enlarged in 1989, when it absorbed the Business Statistics Office (BSO) and other research groups previously in the Department of Trade and Industry, and also the section working on retail prices in the Department of Employment. The CSO reports to the chancellor of the exchequer.
For anyone needing British statistics, an invaluable introduction to what is available is provided in Guide to Official Statistics, published by *HMSO for the Central Statistical Office.
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