Workshop on the modernisation of statistical
production and services
Annual report of the UNECE High Level Group on
Modernisation of Statistical Production and
Services
Pádraig Dalton
June 16, 2015
What am I going to talk about?
 Environmental context
 Modernisation – broad perspective
 Collaboration
 Modernisation activities
 Modernisation challenges
Environmental context
 Only constant - change
 Pace of change
 Increased user demand
 Emergence of global user
 Digital age – technology, sources, strategic alliances?
 Skills: Re-profiling, outsource?
 Availability of skills?
 Politicisation – crisis, targets and indicators
Modernisation – Broad perspective
 Common perception - Technology, Big Data, CSPA,
Visualisation – but its more than that!
 “Modernisation” is a relative term
 Needed to broaden our understanding of what
modernisation means
 Also need to broaden our minds about what it will
take to modernise
Modernisation - Collaboration
 Many active participants on modernisation front
 NSI’s, UNECE, Eurostat, UNSD, OECD etc….
 Individually we can develop our own strategies and
reactions to the challenges
 But really to meet the challenges we must work together
 At a global level one of the best examples is HLG MOS
 “Collaboration of the willing”
UNECE HLG MOS
• Created by the CES bureau in 2010
• Strategic vision endorsed by CES in 2011/2012
• To oversee and coordinate international work relating to the
modernisation of official statistics
• 10 heads of national and international statistical organizations
(Australia, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, Republic of Korea,
Slovenia, Ireland, Eurostat, OECD, UNECE)
• Engagement goes way beyond formal membership of MOS
• Over 40 countries involved in HLG MOS activities
HLG Activities 2014: Wider involvement
HLG modernisation activities: Achievements
 Generic Activity Model for Statistical organisations
(GAMSO)
 Guidelines on privacy, partnership and quality issues
related to Big Data
 Generic skills profile for data scientists
 Valuable experience and learning from sandbox
experiments
 8 new CSPA-compliant services
 CSPA service catalogue (hosted by Eurostat)
HLG modernisation activities: Plans
 Sandbox: Produce and release a set of internationally
comparable statistics from one or more Big Data sources
 Sustainable model for future sandbox-type shared
working environments (sprint in Cork)
 More CSPA services
 Enhanced catalogue
 Sharing of investment plans: based on capability
enhancements
 Modernisation Maturity Model: roadmap for
modernisation
HLG modernisation activities – Sustainability
 Becoming victims of our own success
 This is a positive thing!!
 Has implications - structures, governance and perhaps
even shared agreements
 What might the future look like
 Recent meetings in New York and Canberra surfaced
some thoughts
“Blue Skies” in New York (!!) and Canberra
 Branding for HLG products and services to be developed
 Establishing a “Statistical Modernisation Community”
 Formalising “more or less” what already exists
 Open to all
 Collaboration of the willing
 Statement of intent for subscribers
 Identify expectations for those wanting to engage
 Provide mechanism for deeper engagement on specific issues
through agreed “manifests” (e.g. CSPA, Big Data)
Modernisation Challenges
 Existence of an appropriate institutional setting
 Standards based modernisation

Development for development sake

Proliferation of actors

How can we collaborate to influence modernisation relevant
standards
Modernisation Challenges
 Exploitation of secondary data sources - access, technology,
skill-sets, quality, partnerships
 Privacy & Data Protection

Linking secondary and primary data sources

Possibility of strategic alliances

Privacy & efficiency debate

Ensuring public trust in this new environment

Perception is the challenge
Modernisation Challenges
 Behavioural – not all about technical challenges
 Leadership, openness to change
 “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”
 Influencing – but who do we need to influence
 Communications - One voice
Challenges – Not all are technical
“Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And
change has its enemies”
Robert Kennedy
We need to be focussed and relentless and yet see, and
address, not just the hard/technical/tangible challenges but
also the soft/behavioural/intangible challenges
Want to get involved?
 All outputs on the HLG Website
 4 Modernisation Committees
Conclusions
 Modernisation means different things to different people
 Are challenges and opportunities
 Nature of the challenges are varied
 Culture
 Collaboration
 Change
 Influence
The Conference is asked to:
 Approve the annual report of the High Level group
 Take note of the formalisation of the “Statistical
Modernisation Community” and express your views
 Express views on how we can continue to develop
coordination and collaboration