Monitoring Desk
The obsession of many young children to scoot is affecting the way the cost of living is calculated in the UK.
Children’s scooters have been added to the basket of goods used to measure the UK’s inflation rate.
It has replaced the swing, which was being sold less, particularly during the winter, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
The price movements of 700 goods and services are measured in 20,000 UK outlets to calculate inflation.
Also added to the basket were gin, flavoured ciders, non-dairy milk (such as soya or almond), men’s fitness tops, and jigsaw puzzles for adults.
Gin comes back into the mix after a 13-year absence from the basket – the result of new craft distilleries popping up and rising popularity.
Bicycle helmets also return after a 12-year absence, and council tax is being added.
Senior ONS statistician Phil Gooding said adding council tax to CPIH, the headline measure, would “ensure it remains our most comprehensive measure of consumer inflation”.
Disappearing from the basket are alcopops, old mobile phone handsets, menthol cigarettes, and the fee for stopping cheques.
The basket of goods reflects contemporary habits and technology to calculate the changing cost of living, as measured by the inflation rate.
A series of changes have been made, but the replacement of the swing with the scooter is perhaps the clearest signal of how families have changed their habits regarding gifts for children.
Officials at the ONS have decided scooters have moved on from being a fad to become everyday items.
History of the scooter
Thought to have originated in the late 19th Century. “Most scooters would have been homemade, using wood or whatever people could find. The simplicity of the design encouraged that,” says Esther Lutman, assistant curator at London’s Museum of Childhood
Surge of interest in the 1930s and, to a lesser extent, in the 1950s and 1980s
Trend for modern scooters dates from 1996, when Wim Ouboter of Micro Mobility Systems in Switzerland produced a foldable aluminium model
