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Independency and ethical
issues.
New challenges after the reshaping of official
statistics and use of smart data.
By Olav Ljones
Statistics Norway
IAOS Shanghai 16 – 16 Oct 2008
Concurrent session 29
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1. Introduction
• Official statistics has always been close to government
and administrative data.
• From Description of the state – to the Era of Social
Statistics
• The modern official statistics- National accounts and
other systems for overall coverage
• The history of sample surveys. The theoretical
foundation
• The history of registers – the theoretical foundation –on
its way?
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2. Ethics for statisticians and corporate ethics for
NSOs
• The ISI Declaration (see http://isi.cbs.nl/ethics.htm)
• Statistics Norway
(http://www.ssb.no/english/about_ssb/strategy/ethics_s
tatistics.pdf)
• Statistics Finland
http://www.stat.fi/org/etiikka/eettinenopas_en.pdf )
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3. Principles for official statistics. Quality
definitions
• Good methods
• Confidentiality
• Independency
• UN Fundamental Principles, IMF, Eurostat Code of
practice
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4. The concept of independency
• Recently been developed to be more precise and with a
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legal foundation.
Independence is understood intuitively but even so be
difficult to define precisely.
Some key words to understand independency:
The legal status for NSO as an autonomous entity in the
Government
The DG and the NSO have the full responsibility the
statistics they produce, without interference from political or
others.
The legal right to collect data
Access to sufficient resources
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5. Modern Government
• The Welfare State
• New Public Management
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User prices
Outsourcing and tender competition
Introduction of new accounting standards, and budget principles
More distinct roles in government, production, transfers, and control
and inspection.
– Result oriented management.
– Indicator based budget
– Unit based budgets (Hospitals (DRG), schools and universities)
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NPM
• New Public Management is data oriented, since data is
used for decisions and budgets
• It may also be observed that the NSO is more directly
involved in building the data system used, both for public
management and official statistics
• The culture and tradition behind new public management
may also influence on the management of NSO.
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6. Will smart data from public sector have the
sufficient quality and independency?
• Many examples of administrative data from public sector
that are of high quality and well suited for official statistics
• Be aware of the possibility that the administrative system
and model for data collection may have influence the
phenomenon we are observing (D R Cox)
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Do we need an extended definition of
administrative data?
• Traditional administrative data
– Individual data used for decisions taken concerning the individual
and generated by the decision process.
– Examples. Income data collected about the individual and the
taxation result
• New public management administrative data
– Observed indicators for example based on aggregation of individual
client reports. Resources used, Accounts for administrative unit.
– Indicators are used for decisions regarding g the individual client but
the administrative unit.
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7. Conclusions - points for discussion
• Reshaping of official statistics is on the agenda in many
countries
– Efficient collection and use/reuse of data
– Standardisation of processes in official statistics, data collection
(preferably electronic) editing, storing and processing.
– Efficient cooperation with other government bodies in electronic
communication with data providers and users of information
– Reshaping of official statistics is on the agenda in many countries
– Efficient collection and use/reuse of data
– Standardisation of processes in official statistics, data collection
(preferably electronic) editing, storing and processing.
– Efficient cooperation with other government bodies in electronic
communication with data providers and users of information
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• Should the NSO accept to have mixed roles – data
manager and independent producer of official statistics?
• Data that is not normally included in official statistics. These
data (statistics) may however be published or made
transparent to the public (but without ambitions to be
labelled official statistics).
• More official statistics may be produced on contract with
other government t bodies
• Cooperation between NSO and other government agencies
will often involve micro data
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Conclusion
• Independency has been improved during the last decades.
New traditions for government management may have
effects on the role and setting for the NSO. It is important to
be active and discuss how these new trends may be made
consistent with further development of independency for
official statistics.
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