On Implementation of Principles Governing Activity of the State Statistics Offices
(Mr O. Osaulenko, Chair of the SSCU)
During many years, international statistical organizations and statistical services of different countries tried to develop standards regarding the organization of activity the adherence to which would permit to ensure the high quality of statistical information.
In the 80-90s of the last century, the world and the European countries actively disseminated the ideology of the total quality management (TQM). The different modes and management systems were in wide spread, particularly Model for Perfection of the European Fund of Quality Management (Model EFQM), standards for system for quality management ISO 9000, etc. These tools have one aim to ensure the output of high quality products, thus in some issues they crossed and supplemented each other.
International statistical community has already become involved into these processes. The statistical institutions wanted to create such standards which would take into account the specifics of statistical production and ensure the compliance with basic principles of guarantee.
The first of such standards was the Declaration on Professonal Ethics developed by International Statistical Institute in 1985.
In 1994, the UN Statistical Commission developed and approved the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics (UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics) that declared the general approaches that the statistical services should stick to in order to ensure the confidence of the state and the society to statistical information. Though, none of the ten principles directly provided the qualitative characteristics of statistical data, the performance of these principles create the conditions for the production of such information.
In 1999-2001, according to initiative from the EC Committee on Statistical Program, the ESS Quality Declaration was developed and approved. This Declaration includes the brief description of the European Statistical System (ESS), identifies its mission and objectives, and sets the ten principles of the European statistical cooperation which are based on the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.
In 2005, following up the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, the UN Committee on Coordination of Statistical Activity adopted the UN Principles Governing International Statistical Activities aimed at upgrading the effectiveness of the functioning of international statistical system. The mentioned document includes a list of principles for activity of international organizations which develop and disseminate statistical information.
All these developments created the pre-conditions for the next step within the framework of the ESS: the development of the uniform documents that would cover the different aspects of statistical offices activity and include a set of indicators reflecting the recommended norms for statistical practice and provide for the frameworks to assess the compliance to them.
In 2005, on the basis of the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics, the ESS Quality Declaration, the Governing Principles of international statistical activity, with the purpose of integration of institutional systems (to which belongs the Model of Perfection of the European Fund of Quality Management) and systems of quality assurance (ISO 9000), the EC Committee on statistical programs developed and approved the European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP). This CoP established the principles of the ESS activity regarding the institutional environment, statistical processes and products of the European statistical services. The three components of the CoP are based on 15 principles, each of which is characterized by 3-7 relevant indicators. Thus, the CoP is the interrelated system of indicators grouped in separate blocks which establish the rate of results of statistical activity and permit to assess the compliance of these results to the main objectives and functions faced by the statistical services. In other words, the CoP is so-called standard of quality adapted to the specifics of the state statistical activity.
The CoP is aimed at reaching the two purposes mentioned in its preamble: on one hand, the promotion of confidence to the statistical services by the way of implementation of institutional measures, on the other hand, the improvements to statistical data quality due to the implementation of the best statistical practice and methods.
In May of 2005, the European Commission considered and approved the recommendations on implementation of the principles of the CoP for statistical services of the European countries and the conduct of the monitoring of the adherence.
To examine the situation regarding the implementation of the CoP in the statistical services of the EU countries and its accomplishment, the Questionnaire for self-assessment was developed (Questionnaire CoP) which is a system of indicators permitting to monitor the performance of the CoP. This Questionnaire gives the possibility to obtain the response on to what expend the practical activity of the national statistical service comply with the CoP principles. it also enables to make comparisons between the countries and the main thing: it identifies the directions for further development and improvements to selected statistical services and the ESS.
Also, with the purpose of ensuring the conduct of independent assessment for implementation in practical activity of the CoP principles, the Regulation 235/2008/EU of the European Parliament and Council of March 11, 2008, envisaged the creation of the European Advisory Council on issues pertaining to statistical management. The main objective of the Council was to launch the observations over the implementation of the CoP principles in the ESS, the assessment of this work and preparation of the relevant report to the European Parliament an Council.
On March 11, 2009, adopted the Agenda (EU) 223/2009 on the European statistics which set out that in order to upgrade the confidence in the European statistics the national statistical services should have the professional independence and insure the impartiality and high quality of official statistics according to principles set out in the CoP. The Agenda also mentioned that the CoP in necessary must be revised and updated by the Committee on the European Statistical System (ESS Committee). This ESS Committee should ensure the management of the ESS for the development, production and dissemination of the European statistics in compliance with such statistical principles: professional independence, impartiality, reliability, statistical confidentiality, cost-effectiveness. All these principles are mentioned in details in the CoP.
In 2008, with the purpose of adoption of the normative legal base in the area of statistics according to the EU requirements and the performance of the Strategy to Develop the State Statistics till 2012, approved by regulation 1413-p from the Cabinet of Minister of Ukraine of 05.11.2008, the SSCU launched the work on preparation and implementation of the national principles for the state statistics offices.
To implement this task. in accordance with Decree 263 of 01.08.2008 On self-assessment of the SSCU activity according to the CoP, the Committee set up the work group on preparation and conduct of self-assessment. the measures were developed and time-table was compiled to conduct it.
First of all, on the basis of the CoP Questionnaire the work group developed the national questionnaire to conduct self-assessment for the SSCU activity according to the CoP. the indicators of which were used to conduct the self-assessment.
The conduct of self-assessment allowed the SSCU to obtain information on the compliance level of the national statistical system to the European requirements. It helped obtain certain experience in the conduct of monitoring for the further development of the state statistics due to identification of areas that require improvements.
It should be noted that the successful work on the preparation of this document was due to the developments on implementation of system for quality management. Thus, according to regulation 614 of the Cabinet of Minister of Ukraine of 11.05.2006, On Approval of the Program to Implement the System for Quality Management in Executive Authorities (with amendments), the SSCU during 2007-2008 launched a number of organizational measures during which the main documentation on system for quality management was developed and approved, namely: policy and objectives in the area of quality, regulation on quality, list of key processes of activities, the responsible persons were identified, as well as list of services provided by the Committee and list of users.
During 2009, the work on implementation of the system for quality management was under way at the level of regional statistics offices. According to its results, SSCU's Decree 500 of 30.12.2009 approved the typical documentation for the system of quality management for regional statistics offices.
On the basis of these materials about the mentioned operations performed by the state statistics offices at the national and regional levels, the SSCU started the compilation of the integrated list of services and users of these services and also the formation of the general list of processes for the state statistics offices which are based on the General model of statistical business process (GSBPM) presented by the UNECE Secretariat during the Work session of UNECE/Eurostat/OECD on statistical metadata (METIS) in Luxemburg in April 2008 and approved by METIS Coordination Group.
During 2009-2010, on the basis of results of work on implementing the system of quality management in the state statistics offices and self-assessment, the SSCU prepared the national principles for activities of the state statistics offices harmonized with CoP (Principles Governing the Activity of the State Statistics Bodies of Ukraine).
At the final stage of preparation of Activity Principles, this work involved the experts from the National Institute of Statistics Denmark. In February-April 2010, within the framework of Twinning Light Project On Harmonization of Official statistics of Ukraine with the EU Statistical Standards, the project for the Activity Principles was discussed in details with the mentioned experts and in May of this year, the final version of this project obtained their positive estimate and was recommended for the approval.
At the beginning of June the project for Activity Principles for the state statistics offices was considered at the meeting of Board of the Committee and approved by Decree 216 of the SSCU of 14.06.2010. It should be noted that Ukraine was the first country among the CIS countries that started the work on development, implementation and putting into practice the harmonized with the CoP of the national principles of activities of the state statistics offices.
The Activity Principles were implemented with the purpose of providing foundation to the further intensification of the SSCU ability, the implementation of the best practice of the European statistics into the national statistical practice and on this basis, upgrading the high quality of statistical information and positioning of the state statistics offices with ESS.
The Activity Principles comprise of three sections:
1. Institutional structure (principles of general management of the state statistics offices). The principles of this section deal with the aspects of the state statistical activity connected with professional independence of the state statistics offices, their competence regarding data collection, resources, quality and confidentiality of statistical information, impartiality of the state statistical activity and also estimate of its effectiveness and efforts aimed at developing and continuous improvement according to the world best statistical practice.
2. Statistical processes (principles behind the implementation of statistical processes). The principles of this section cover the aspects of the state statistics offices activities which related to the implementation of the European and other international standards and recommendations as well as the best practices in particular modern scientific methodology and the relevant statistical procedures; establishment of partner relations with all entities that participate in state statistical activity including burden per respondents, expansion of interchange of information resources with bodies that collect and us administrative data, coordination of actions of co-producers of statistical information, establishment of cooperation with international organizations and statistical services of other countries, etc. This section include also harmonized with the CoP the activity principle that declare cost-effectiveness.
3. Statistical products (principles behind the production of statistical products). This section includes the principles that identify the criteria for quality of statistical information according to the ES quality components, namely: relevancy, accurateness/reliability, timeliness and punctuality, accessibility and understanding/clearance. consistency/coordination and comparability.
The Activity Principles are based on the principles of the Code and include the system of PARIS 21 indicators that are used for the global assessment of statistical systems, indicators for implementation of the 2012 Strategy, other monitoring of activity, that can be used to assess the compliance with the ESS standards and for inner revision of the sate statistical activity organization.
It should be stressed that the Activity Principles are fully consistent with the Code and at the same time in contrast to this, they include 18 principles. The Activity principles include all 15 principles of the Code. 12 principles are supplemented with a number of indicators characterizing cooperation not only with respondents but with all other entities that participate in implementation of the state statistical activity. This was reflected in the name of the principle which corresponds to the priority of the 2012 Strategy Partner Relations in Implementing the State Statistical Activity (in the Code it is principle 9 Moderate Burden per Respondents). Also, a range of indicators was widened in principle 13 Cost-effectiveness. Also the Activity Principles include the three principles in addition: Management of activity and professional ethics (4 indicators), Effectiveness of activity (3 indicators), and Continuous improvement (3 indicators). The mentioned additions are necessary to implement into the stat statistical activity of approaches identified by TQM, EFQM, ISO 9000 and GSBPM to create the relevant environment and clear mechanism for continuous improvement and to ensure on this basis the development of the state statistics offices.
In future, the Activity Principles will serve as the basis to form the Procedure to cay out self-assessment by the state statistics offices, the development of which is envisaged by the 2012 Strategy. This document will identify the rules, procedures and tools for self-assessment and also establish the means and methods to analyze its results to determine the compliance of the state statistical activity in Ukraine to the CoP. Also, the self-assessment should became a tool to determine the directions of activity of the state statistics offices that require further development and improvement. The self-assessment will be based on the results of Per Revev 2008 in statistical services of the European countries and also the national experience obtained during the functional survey of the SSCU and regional statistics offices, the development of system for quality management in the state statistics offices, the conduct of self-assessment in 2008 as to the compliance of the SSCU activity to the CoP principles, etc.