Transcript Best Practice Template Experiences in Austria, Statistics Austria

Wolfgang Bittermann
Directorate Spatial
Statistics
Best Practice Template
Experiences in Austria
Canberra
2 May 2011
www.statistik.at
We provide information
Executive Summary
• I am very much in favour with a comprehensive documentation like it is
proposed in the “Best Practice Template”.
• We use it since 8 years but call it “Standard Documentation” and it is still
under development
• Quality reports in a standardized format are very useful for both users and
compilers
• In general the proposed “Best Practice Template” structure looks good but
concerning some details improvements could help both users and compilers:
 a clearer structure
 by regrouping of topics and
 by a higher degree of specification and clearer wording in some cases
• The 2 parts of my presentation
 Our experience
 Proposals for improvement
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slide 2 | 23 July 2016
The Austrian development
• 01.01.2000: The Austrian Central Statistical Office was privatised
and changed to Statistics Austria.
• 2000: The Statistical Council was founded and established the
subgroup of quality assurance.
• 2002: System of detailed quality reports
• 2003: Standard documentation for all products
• 2003: Feedback talks based on standard documentation
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slide 3 | 23 July 2016
The Beginning
• Standard documentations existed already taking into account all
(known) user needs, but not following a standardised format
• A quality reporting system following the definitional concepts of
Eurostat was planned to be established
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Introduction
Relevance
Accuracy
Timelines and Punctuality
Accessibility and Clarity
Comparability
Coherence
Additional aspects effecting quality
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The chosen Solution
• A standardized „compromise“ format for all statistical products
1. Important hints
2. General information
3. Statistical concepts, Methods
4. Statistical processing, Quality insurance
5. Publication (Accessibility)
6. Quality
6.1 Relevance
6.2 Accuracy
6.3 Timeliness and Actuality
6.4 Comparability
6.5 Coherence
• Feedback talks
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slide 5 | 23 July 2016
Adopting Energy Balance Report - a six
Years Match
• 2003 Energy statistics was invited to present the Methodological Report
on Energy balances as first accounting scheme in a feedback talk to the
quality board
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Therefore the report was (more or less) adopted to the standard format
No energy experts and users were invited to this feedback talk
The report was refused as not meeting the requirements of a quality
report
• Six years of (step by step) adaptation
• 2009 Energy Statistics was invited again to a feedback talk
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This time also the main users and energy experts were invited
After a heavy discussion the report was accepted with minor adoptions as
compromise fulfilling all requirements of the Standard Quality Reporting
Scheme
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slide 6 | 23 July 2016
The experiences
• The format is tailor made for surveys and primary statistics
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The users were happy to get all information needed in a
standardised and clear format
For the compiler it was helpful to get a complete overview and to
have it handy in a manual
• For accounts like energy balances the format is problematical
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The former standard report followed the balance structure and
provided all background information needed in a logical order to
the users
The new format contains a lot of aspects which are not relevant
and its standardisation destroys the logical sequence.
www.statistik.at
slide 7 | 23 July 2016
Lessons learned
• It is possible to adapt a methodological report on an accounting
scheme to a standardized format tailor made for quality
description of primary statistics.
• This adaptation presents also more comprehensive information to
the readers than the former standard documentation, but it is
more difficult to extract technical information needed by serious
users.
• The report is available on the website of Statistics Austria
http://www.statistik.at/web_en/statistics/energy_environment/en
ergy/energy_balances/index.html and includes hyperlinks to all
other relevant quality reports available in English.
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slide 8 | 23 July 2016
Proposal 1: Clearer structure
• General information
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Objective, purpose, history
Contracting entity
Main users
Legal basis
• Statistical concepts and methodology
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Concepts and methodology
Production , processing and quality assurance
Publication
• Quality
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Relevance
Accuracy
Timeliness and punctuality
Comparability
Coherence
• Outlook
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slide 9 | 23 July 2016
Proposal 2: Deeper Specification and
clearer wording (examples)
• National and international reporting instead of
International reporting only
• Population could be split into Reporting unit and
Respondents and Observed unit
• Collection of data could be split into Survey techniques,
Survey questionnaires and Survey participation
• Additional documentation instead of Documentation only
(this is the documentation!)
• Use the word flowchart instead of model in connection
with illustration
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slide 10 | 23 July 2016
Proposal 3: Overview table
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slide 11 | 23 July 2016
Please address queries to:
WOLFGANG BITTERMANN
Contact information:
Guglgasse 13, 1110 Vienna
phone: +43 (1) 71128-7315
fax: +43 (1) 71128-8155
[email protected]
www.statistik.at
Best practice Template
Experiences in Austria
slide 12 | 23 July 2016