International Seminar on Modernizing Official Statistics:
Meeting Productivity and Data Challenges
Tianjin, China, 24-26 October 2013
Modernization of Management and
Structure of Statistical Organization
(Session 2)
Stefan Schweinfest
Acting Director, United Nations Statistics Division
“Never has so much been expected from
statistics; never have statisticians had
such means at their disposal; and never
has there been so much willingness to
learn from each other and standardize
internationally the outcomes of that
learning.”
Handbook of Statistical Organization, Third Edition, 2003
The Operation and Organization of a Statistical Agency
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/publication/SeriesF/SeriesF_88E.pdf
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Institutional Set up Today
•
Centralised systems
•
Decentralised systems
•
Centralised/Decentralised
• As administrative data is increasingly used for
statistical purposes, more work is undertaken outside
of NSOs
• Even in these systems, there is always a central
statistical agency
• Tendency to improve coordination to improve
reliability and cohesion of statistical system
• Recent trend is for these two approaches to be
coming together
• Not the issue anymore but we need to:
•
•
•
Coordinate
Modernize
Communicate
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Why Modernizing the Official Statistics?
•
Opportunities
•
Demand
• Huge volume of data become available – IT revolution
• New methods and technologies provide opportunities for
significant efficiency savings
• Integration of statistical and geospatial information gains
importance
• Users want MORE: more data, more detail, more rapidly,
more access
• New measures e.g. wellbeing
• Instant web access
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Competition by the Private Sector
•
Private sector understands the value of data
• Google
• Store cards
• Credit agencies
•
Could they provide alternatives/complements to
official statistics?
The Official Statistics has to react to the new realities or
it will risk losing its relevance
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Addressing increasing demand:
Restructuring of the NSOs?
•
All reorganizations should accomplish the
following:
• Create new ideas
• Lead to efficiency gains
• Improve the organization’s focus on strategic
objectives
•
However, an organizational restructuring is not
necessary to achieve these goals in many
circumstances
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How to Modernize?
•
Modernization of products
•
Modernization of production processes
•
Modernization of organizational and human
resources dimensions
•
•
•
•
Detailed and integrated datasets; geocoded data
Available more rapidly
Combination of various data sources
Data solutions created by the users
• Use of new devices for data collection
• Use of SDMX to facilitate the integration of IT systems
• Use of common generic business processes across all
statistical domains
• Organization to adapt to the new data environment
• Staff to be trained and equipped with relevant new
skills
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The larger picture: from NSO to NSS:
Improving Coordination
•
As demand for data increases, consistency
across data sources becomes more important
(quality assurance framework)
•
Improved efficiency can result from sharing
infrastructure across statistical agencies within
a National Statistical System
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NSOs Driving the Modernization
•
•
Leadership, vision, strategy
Adequate Statistical Legislation
•
Improved structure and coordination – vertical
and horizontal
•
Rethought business processes along which
data are produced and disseminated
•
Modernized resource management – human,
financial and IT resources
• Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics endorsed
by the ECOSOC and General Assembly provide a
strong foundation of NSOs
•
upgrade computers – upgrade human skills
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To do list
• Differentiate between needs and “wants” and
focus on needs
• Review relevance of existing data vs. user
requests
• Pilot test new statistical collections
• Explore new partnerships
• Find new/sustainable funding sources in order to
increase statistical dissemination capacity of
NSOs
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Key points
• National Statistical Offices should modernize to
survive
• Modernization is not only IT related
• Modernization is strategic – to define the future of
Official Statistics
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Thank You!
Stefan Schweinfest
Acting Director
UN Statistics Division
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