EUROSTAT
Directorate A: Cooperation in the European Statistical System; International cooperation; Resources
Unit A-3: Statistical cooperation
Doc. PGSC/2017/08
Meeting of the
Policy Group on Statistical Cooperation
19 - 20 October 2017
Durres, Albania
Report on implementing AGA/LPR/PR recommendations
Point 3 of the Agenda
1
1 Introduction
This document gives an overview of how the recommendations from the Peer Reviews (PRs) and remaining recommendation from the Light Peer Reviews (LPRs) and Adapted Global Assessments (AGAs) were implemented by the enlargement countries. Whereas Eurostat is currently conducting Peer Reviews in the enlargement countries based on the methodology of the Peer Reviews conducted in the European Statistical System in the period 2014-2015, the report also cover the AGAs/LPRs which were conducted in the enlargement countries in the period 2010-2013. Hence the current monitoring round was conducted and presents an overview of these different type of reviews/assessments.
The monitoring is conducted on an annual basis. The countries reported progress in implementing improvement actions referring to the calendar year 2016.
As the report indicates, the progress of implementing the AGAs/LPRs has slowed down as a lot of progress was already demonstrated by the countries in the first years after receiving the recommendations. Remaining recommendations and improvement actions prove more challenging either in terms of resource constraints or time required and others are challenging from an institutional point of view. This is also a signal that new reviews resulting in renewed and perhaps more relevant improvement actions would benefit further development of the NSS.
The monitoring conducted in 2017 largely followed the methodology of the previous rounds, however, a few points should be noted before studying the report and tables:
- The results and the status of implementations are presented without consideration of the timing of implementation. Thus, the tables reflect overall progress compared to the start of implementation.
- The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedoniawas not covered in the current monitoring round, as a Peer Review was conducted in February2017. Future monitoring will be based on the recommendations from this Peer Review.
- The Peer Review conducted in Turkey in December 2015 based on the methodology from the ESS Peer Reviews was included in the monitoring for the first time.
- The reference period for reporting was changed from mid-year reporting on progress over the previous year (eg. Mid-2016 – mid 2017), to reporting on progress from the previous calendar year (2016).
The final reports from the PRs, LPRs and AGAs of all the enlargement countries are published on the Eurostat CIRCABC website as well as the dedicated section for statistical cooperation with the enlargement countries:
2. NEW DEVELOPMENTS
The monitoring of the improvement actions of the enlargement countries has been conducted annually in the period 2012-2017. The monitoring is currently undergoing two transitions:
- The recommendations and actions from the previous round of LPRs and AGAs are gradually being replaced with new recommendations as the new round of Peer Reviews is progressing. Old recommendations are still included in the questionnaire in situations where these are either not completed or not covered by recommendations from the recent Peer Review.
- Eurostat is in the process of developing a technical and process description on how the monitoring can be incorporated into SMIS+, the tool used for regular compliance monitoring of the enlargement countries. This development goes in the direction of adding a new separate module in SMIS, and Eurostat will decide shortly if this functionality should be implemented. If the monitoring is introduced in SMIS+, Eurostat considers that the timing and reference period of the monitoring should be aligned with the regular compliance monitoring performed in SMIS+.
3. Summary of the reports
2.1 Progress overview
In total,54 per cent of the improvement actions from the LPRs and the PR can be considered completed in mid-2017. 8per cent of the actions are considered ongoing work without any specific deadline. For the majority of the remaining improvement actions (about 23per cent of all actions)the implementation is progressing as planned. Only 3per cent of the improvement actions are either delayed within the National Statistical Institute (NSI) or progress depends on authorities outside the NSI.The recommendationsrelated to the principles of impartiality and objectivity, cost effectiveness, accessibility and clarity, relevance, coordination all show the relatively high completion rate, however, the highest number of improvement actions was by far highest for accessibility and clarity thus demonstrating a high level of commitment by the NSIs to developing dissemination. On the other hand, completion rate for actions related to accuracy and reliability, sound methodology, timeliness and coherence and comparability are relatively low, but these are also principles with a relatively low number of recommendations/improvement actions.
The results of the monitoring of the AGAs yield similar results, although the rate of completed improvement actions are lower compared to the LPRs with about 39 per cent of the improvement actions implemented. About 50 per cent of the improvement actions for institutional and organisational aspectswere completed, whereas the implemented actions related to the Code of Practice is low, with only 26 per cent completed. In total about 29per cent of the improvement actions can be considered either progressing as planned or continuous work without a particular deadline. About 12per cent of the improvement actions are not yet implemented because of delays within the NSI or implementation depends on authorities other than the NSI. This is a relatively high share compared to the corresponding share for the LPRs/PRs. For 16 per cent of the improvement actions no status was reported.
2.1 Progress in implementing Code of Practice (CoP) Improvement Actions
The following section provides a brief description on progress in implementing improvement actions and recommendations from the PRs, AGAs and the LPRs related to the CoP principles. While the countries have made substantial progress since the start of implementation, the description below focuses on the most recent developments.
The recommendations in the AGAs to revise the statistical lawinclude measures to secure the principle of professional independence, strengthen the mandate for data collection, statistical confidentiality and the coordinating role of the NSI. The recommendations to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo[*]on strengthening certain provisions in the Law on Official Statistics are not yet implemented although some are in progress. These include the appointment, mandate and rules for selection and dismissal of the Director General and easing access to administrative data. Other recommendations on these areas date back to the LPRs or are from the recent PR in Turkey. Turkey should initiate a legal amendment on the institutional status of the NSI as well as establish clear criteria on the appointment of the President of the NSI. Serbia expectsamendments to the Law on Official Statistics to be adopted in 2018 after creating the next strategic programme for Official Statistics. This was considered a prerequisite for amending the Law on Official Statistics in Serbia. Albania expects to amend their legislation by the end of 2017. In addition Albaniapublished a common multi-annual statistical programme for the NSS in 2017 incorporating activities of all producers of official statistics.
Regarding the mandate for data collection, in all countries reviewed, it was recommended to strengthen the role of the statistical offices in the development of existing and new administrative data sources and their influence on the content of such data sources so that administrative data can be used for statistical purposes. Further recommendations included to improve cooperation with private enterprises andto introduce more effective ways of collecting data. In Turkey the PR recommended to sign protocols with owners of administrative registers, which is in progress, and to strengthen the focus on administrative registers. Turkstat created a group with a set of responsibilities with regards to registers. Albaniais preparing to amend the Law on Official Statistics to enable mandatory responses to surveys, to draft MoUs with register owners and to improve data sharing. Most of the recommendations in this area in the AGAs are considered progressing as planned, ongoing work or in a few exceptions delays in the implementation.
Recommendations related to adequacy ofresourcesconcerned financial and human resources, IT infrastructure, organisation or strengthening competencies or conditions for staff. Turkstat is taking various measures to develop a more explicit staff mobilityprogramme which includes strengthening the training process of assistant experts and undertakingstudies on staff mobility. Serbia developed a concept for changes in the organisation which is related to possible reallocation of staff from regional to central office. Albaniaprepared a training strategy and work is now ongoing to prepare its implementation. While some progress was observed in implementing the recommendation from the AGAs in this area, remaining actions concern development of adequate budgets, establishing common strategies on IT and strengthening resources. Strengthening capacities and level of resources usually depend on authorities outside of the NSI.
A relatively high number or recommendations were given to improve the quality commitment. From the recent PR in Turkey several actions were already undertaken or initiated, including publishing quality reports, adopting a directive on quality evaluation and a quality assurance framework that was already published. Many other improvement actions related to establishing quality management or provide training to staff on quality issues are considered completed or continuous work.
On appropriate statistical procedures, Turkey reorganised the Official Statistics Programme working groups with the aim to make them more functional and efficient and as part of a broader plan to resolve quality issues with certain administrative sources. Montenegro published a revision policy.
Relatively few but important recommendations were given on the principle of non-excessive burden on respondents. Important progress was made by Montenegrowith the upgrade of the web portal allowing notification procedures and introduction of electronic questionnaires for three surveys. An improvement action in Serbia was to develop electronic data collection for at least 90 per cent of the business surveys. Now all business surveys for which electronic questionnaires have been defined can provide data according to this method. Achieving full implementation of these recommendations often requires significant investments in technology.
The recommendations concerning cost effectiveness were often related to data collection methods, streamlining production processes or measures in the IT sector or the general organisation of the NSI to gain efficiency. While some NSIs already implemented several actions in this area, Montenegro reported that ICT usage for households and surveys in two municipalities in the area of agriculture statistics were conducted using CAPI. Albania is in the process of introducing a data warehouse with the support of EU and Sweden.
On the principle of relevance, Turkey reported progress based on the recommendations from the recent Peer Review most notably with establishing a policy for social media usage and corresponding principles for employees, holding meetings and trainings for media as well as with academia, NGOs and the business community.
The highest number of improvement actions concerned the principle of accessibility and clarity, and it is also the principle with most actions implemented. From the recent Peer Review in Turkey, implementation of several actions are underway and Turkstat now provides annual briefings to the media, it prepared a handbook on preparation of press releases in order to standardise their content and started sharing more diversified content in social media. Whereas Serbia and Montenegro consider several actions completed or part of ongoing work, some actions are underway in Albania including improving the advance release calendar, developing a dissemination policy and others are pending implementation of a national IPA programme. The Kosovo Agency for Statistics (KAS) completed most of its actions related to improving its dissemination standards and its website based on the AGA. Some actions such a user satisfaction survey is in progress in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but others related to the dissemination database and the coordination of publication program remain open.
The new round of Peer Reviews also considers the coordinating role of the NSI in the statistical system. In Turkey this resulted in recommendations to review the role and functioning of the Statistical Council to optimise its coordination and governance of the statistical system, and clarifying the required staff and other resources for the implementation of statistical projectsby ONAs included in the five-year programme and reporting on their availability and adequacy. Some actions were already undertaken in these regards, such as reorganising the working groups of the Council, conducting an annual survey of ONAs to collect information on the resource situation.
For severalprinciples some progress was already achieved earlier and no or only minor new developments could be reported. This holds for the principle on statistical confidentiality, where Turkstat implemented a secure connection system to critical databases, impartiality and objectivity where KAS is in the process of documenting products in the ESMS format as part of a larger recommendation to improve use of metadata, sound methodology, accuracy and reliability, timeliness and punctuality and coherence and comparability.
2.2Progress in implementing Recommendations from the AGAs
In addition to recommendations on the CoP, statistical domains were assessed in the AGAs. Although the number of improvement actions unresolved is seemingly high, the NSIs often add new improvement actions in statistical sectors following the assessments. This reflects the ongoing development of the statistical sectors.
With regards to economic statistics and national accountsimplementation of the ESA2010 regulation has been and is still a key priority. While there was no particular actions considered closed in the reporting this year some actions are underway or considered ongoing work in different areas of economic statistics. Albania published back-casted GDP estimates with ESA2010 and NACE rev 2 implemented,and started submitting some national accounts and EDP-tables to Eurostat. Preparation of general strategies with the Ministry of Finance (MoF) on GFS and EDP tables is considered work in progress. While several developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina depends on adoption of the updated Master Plan for National Accountswhich was not adopted by all statistical institutes in Bosnia and Herzegovina some progress was done in terms of preparing GDP and GFS according to ESA2010. Similarly Kosovoreported some progress in this regard as well as in publishing quarterly GDP. Other actions such as compiling supply and use tables and publishing quarterly GFS estimates are in progress. Progress was also made with implementing HICP methodology.
Recommendations in the area of business statisticsmostly deal with establishing or improving regular structural and short-term business surveys, as these are of high importance for national accounts. All countries made significant progress in addressing the recommendations since the reports were published, however, over the previous year Bosnia and Herzegovinaand Kosovo started developing the methodology to implement enterprise groups in the SBR and made progress producing Business Demography data. Bosnia and Herzegovina also developed a monthly industrial turnover index and quarterly turnover indices for services. Further progress in business statistics is expected in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the availability of important data from the Indirect Taxation Authority.
Recommendations in the area of social and demographic statistics very often focused on the population and housing census, the Survey on Income and Living Conditions statistics, Labour Force Survey and the Household Budget Survey. Countries are now in the process of introducing the SILC as a regular activity.While all countries which undertook an AGA completed the last round of population and housing censuses, remaining recommendations in this area concern utilising administrative data which are highly relevant for the 2021 census.
Recommendations in the area of agriculture statisticswere mostly related to conducting an agricultural census, and based on census data,upgrade or establish a farm register or the recommendations were related to the quality of the indicators produced for this sector.In Bosnia and Herzegovina the agriculture census was not conducted yet, however, the data from the population and housing census was used together with other sources to create an address list of agricultural units to serve as a frame for a future agriculture census and agriculture surveys. Whereas Kosovo conducted the census the actions related to upgrade ta farm register is consideredongoing.
Recommendations concerning classifications were mostly implemented.
4. Summary observations
The monitoring report for 2017 gives similar conclusions as in previous reports and demonstrates that from the time the recommendations were made available to the countries to the time of the 2017 monitoring round, all the NSIs made substantial progress. At the same time several improvement actions remain unresolved.
The report shows that the progress of implementing the AGAs/LPRs slows down as a lot of progress was already demonstrated in the first years after receiving the recommendation. These are typically the easier actions to address and actions that are within the NSIs authority to implement. Remaining recommendations prove challenging depending on specific conditions in each country but these are sometimes related to significant resource investments or time required to implement. Others prove challenging because of issues related to institutional matters or national legislation.
This clearly indicates that some recommendations require updating. This could take the form of increasing their relevance by looking at a particular issue from a new angle or simply by redefining the main priorities. The report can be used as input for the new round of Peer Reviews in terms of identifying areas which proved difficult to improve in the previous round. However, the new Peer Reviews are obviously also about assessing compliance with and implementation of the Code of Practice in areas not covered in the previous round.