/ EUROPEAN COMMISSION
EUROSTAT
Directorate E: Social and regional statistics and geographical information system /
Doc. Eurostat/E0/02/DSS/4/EN
ROOM DOCUMENT
structure of working groups, task forces and leadership groups
in social statistics
annual meeting of the european directors of social statistics
luxembourg, 22-23 april 2002
bech building, room “ampère”, starting at 10.00 a.m.

1. Introduction

The terms of reference for the sector group on social statistics DSS (Directors of Social Statistics), as approved by the Statistical Programme Committee on 22 November 2001, include the following : To assess the work and functioning of Working Groups in social statistics, setting up new groups and disbanding existing ones as necessary. (CPS 2001/43/10Cbis/EN, p.6).

As part of the implementation of the terms of reference, a list of the currently-existing working groups has been drawn up (see below). In the interests of completeness, it also includes task forces and leadership groups.

The availability of this list makes it possible for the first time to examine the way in which the social statistics element of the ESS functions, and to make any proposals for improving the present organisation. In particular it might be considered useful to exercise the authority conferred on the DSS by the terms of reference to reorganise the structure of working-groups.

2. Issues for consideration

In this process, a number of considerations should be borne in mind:

1.The total number of groups obviously has budgetary implications. The existence of unnecessary groups may therefore prevent the creation of new groups which might be needed. This observation was made by the Partnership Group in October 2001, which consequently decided to examine the possibility of reducing the number of groups by 20% by eliminating unnecessary groups or merging them. The total expense will of course increase further with the enlargement of the EU from about 2004 onwards.

2.The list indicates that far more groups exist in some fields (for example Health and Education) than in others (for example Labour Market and Demography). While in many cases there are sound reasons for this, it may be easier to justify the creation of certain groups if the balance is seen to be more equitable.

3.It may be possible to adopt alternative methods of working, some of which are suggested below.

Written procedures

More decisions could be taken through written procedures, especially as e-mail offers the possibility to contact all members of a group much faster than previously.

Video-conferencing

This is widely used by Eurostat for contact with other Commission services. It could be more widely used with other members of the ESS, depending on the availability of the equipment. However it is currently limited to about 5 participating sites simultaneously.

Virtual meetings

This ‘chatroom’ facility is offered by CIRCA. It could therefore be used immediately throughout the ESS, and has the advantage of providing instant ‘minutes’. However it obviously requires some typing skills (in a foreign language for most participants). It also implies that although they are in their office environment, participants are fully engaged in this activity (as in a working-group) and not available for parallel activities, so that the savings are only in terms of travel cost, not working time.

Newsgroups.

This ‘bulletin board’ facility is also offered by CIRCA. The advantage over a virtualmeeting is that each participant can make their contribution as and when they wish. However the success of this method depends on participants feeling sufficiently ‘involved’ in such a procedure to make contributions.

Others

There are other technological possibilities (desktop video, webcasting) for which the necessary hardware is not yet widely available.

3. Proposals

As enlargement of the EU draws nearer, a new work organisation seems to be required. Instead of the increasingly cumbersome procedure of discussing basic documents in large meetings with long tours de table, such documents might be prepared by smaller groups. This would make it possible to restrict working groups, which might meet only once a year or less.

The smaller groups (comprising possibly four or five Member States working with Eurostat) might prepare documents (including legal texts for discussion by working groups or the SPC), making maximum use of the methods suggested above. (For example, video-conferencing would be a practical possibility among a group of this number; contact with the other Member States would be maintained by regular e-mailing or newsgroups). It should be noted that none of these alternatives offers the possibility of simultaneous translation, as is available in working groups, so that all contact would probably have to be in English.

Translation of documents into three languages (EN, FR, DE) would follow only when the result of this work was submitted to the SPC.

Any other suggestions aimed at reducing the total number of working-groups or making other improvements in our mode of working would be welcomed.

1

Working Groups, Task Forces and Leadership Groups in Social Statistics

Unit E0

Meetings / Origin / Mandate / participants / other related structures / Frequency
European Directors of Social Statistics / Decision of the SPC on Sector Groups:
need to set up an intermediary level between the SPC and the specific working groups / Terms of reference specify:
  • Definition of strategy
  • Review of statistical programme
  • Assess work of working groups, task forces and LEGs
/ Directors of Social Statistics in EU and EFTA NSIs
Invited:
  • Directors of Candidate Countries NSIs
  • Representatives from ECB, DG EMPL, DGECFIN, DG EAC, DG JAI
/ According to terms of reference, specific task forces may be set up
(none yet existing) / At least, once a year (two days);
possibility of extra meetings for specific purposes

Unit E1: Labour Market

Meetings / Origin / Mandate / participants / other related structures / Frequency
Working group on "Employment statistics" / Organise harmonisation and regular production of quality statistics on employment / NSIs + some Employment Depts.
ECB - EMPL
ILO - OECD / Task forces on technical aspects (LFS, job vacancy survey …) / 2 days twice a year
Working group "Wages and labour costs statistics" / Organise harmonisation and regular production of quality statistics on wages and labour costs / NSIs + some Employment Depts.
ECB - EMPL
ILO - OECD / Task forces on technical aspects (LPI, …) / 2 days twice a year
LEG SAM / 1999 SPC decision / To define a common framework and to present it to all interested bodies through a Seminar in 2002 / Labour statisticians and national accountants from NL, B, I, P, EL,FIN, UK and N / None / 3 x 2 days in 2001
------
1 Seminar in 2002
Friends of Labour Statistics / 1999 request of ECB and EMPL / To define users' needs and discuss statistical priorities / ECB, EMPL, ECFIN / None / 1 day twice a year
Time Use Surveys Working Group / Decisions of SPC
  • Dec 1994
  • March 1998
/
  • to launch Time Use pilot surveys
  • to develop guidelines on harmonised European time use surveys
/ Delegates from all Member States
Invited:
  • Delegates from all Phare countries
  • DG EMPL
/ Task Force to develop a methodology on Satellite household accounts / yearly

Unit E2: Living Conditions

Meetings / Origin / Mandate / participants / other related structures / Frequency
Working party “Income, poverty and social exclusion” /
  • RE-LAUNCH following High level think tank, Stockholm, January 1998
  • (Previously working party “Indicators of poverty”, created prior to October 1992)
  • High priority subject (eg. forthcoming Laeken Summit)
/ Approved at 31st meeting of Statistical Programme Committee in November 1998:
  • Income concepts and definitions
  • Social exclusion concepts and definitions
  • Measurement and sensitivity analysis
  • Quality assessment
+ Dissemination of results /
  • EU-15 NSIs
  • EFTA-3 + CAN-13 + Balkan-5 NSIs
  • DG.EMPL
  • Invited experts
  • OECD, Council of Europe, Luxembourg Income Study
/
  • Expert group “homelessness”
/
  • First meeting October 1998.
  • Periodically 12-18 months.

European community household panel (ECHP) Working Group / SPC meetings held on 25 november 1992 and 25 March 1994 / to produce comparable data on income and living conditions to evaluate the impact of the single market / Responsible persons for the ECHP project in the EU NSIs
Invited:
DG EMPL
DG ECFIN
DG RESEARCH / Once a year
Community statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) working group / Meeting of the directors of social statistics held in luxembourg on 1 and 2 June 1999 / to become the reference source for social exclusion and income distribution analysis / Responsible persons for the launching of the EU-SILC project in the EU NSIs + Norvegian NSI
Invited:
DG EMPL
DG ECFIN
DG RESEARCH Invited:
DG EMPL
DG ECFIN / Task Force / - Working Group: once a year
- Task Force: three times a year

Unit E3: Health, Education and Culture

Meetings / Origin / Mandate / participants / other related structures / Frequency
Working Group Public Health Statistics / The WG was created in 1996; its activities and workplanning (mandate), were endorsed by the SPC in 1997.
The WG was established in order to develop a general and consistent system of health statistics at EU level.
In addition, the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam placed health policies higher on the agenda of the Commission. / (1)Propose goals and agree on programmes and proposals for implementation of Public Health statistics which Eurostat and the Member States continue to develop.
(2)Discuss and provide advice on any other statistical developments closely linked to health-related issues.
. / For EU and EFTA countries: 1 representatives from NSI, 1 from Ministry of Health (or mandated institute, such as National Public Health Institute).
Candidate Countries - all invited.
DG SANCO; other DGs (according to agenda)
International organisations (WHO-Euro, WHO-HQ, OECD. NOMESCO) / Health Monitoring Committee.
LEG Health Management Group;
LEG Health Task Forces / 1 time a year, 2 days
LEG[1] Health Management Group (LEGMAN) / Established by the SPC in 1997 / Support the restructuring, development and implementation of EU health statistics taking into account the relation with other social statistics in particular and other related economic statistics in general. Each of the leading LEG partners takes responsibility for a specific topic/TF (see below). / Experts from 4 MS
(NL, F, D, UK) and Eurostat, unit E3 - section Public Health Statistics / Working Group Public Health Statistics;
3 specific Task Forces on:
Causes of Death Statistics,
Health Care Statistics, Health and Health-related Survey Data / 5 meetings a year, of which 3 TELE meetings
Task Force on 'Health and health-related survey data'
(TF/HIS) / Decision (1996) of the WG Public Health Statistics to mandate 3 Task Forces under the LEG Health / To develop/harmonise statistics on health, morbidity, determinants, use of health services; based on population surveys and 'morbidity registrations' / Experts from 12 MS (B, DK, D, EL, E, I, NL, A, P, FIN, S, UK) and from 1 EFTA country (NO).
Representatives from DG SANCO, EuroREVES, WHO, OECD / LEG Health Management Group.
Working Group Public Health Statistics / 2 times a year.
Possibility of extra meetings, for instance 'workshop' on specific topic.
Task Force on 'Causes of Death Statistics' (TF/CoD) / Decision (1996) of the WG Public Health Statistics to mandate 3 Task Forces under the LEG Health / To develop/harmonise statistics on Causes of Death (harmonising of certification, codification as well as dissemination) / Experts from 9 MS (F, IRL, I, L, A, P, FIN, S, UK) and from 1 EFTA country (NO)
Representatives from DG SANCO, EMCDDA, WHO, OECD / LEG Health Management Group.
Working Group Public Health Statistics / 2 times a year.
Possibility of extra meetings, for instance 'workshop' on specific topic.
Task Force on ‘Health Care Statistics’ (TF/CARE) / Decision (1996) of the WG Public Health Statistics to mandate 3 Task Forces under the LEG Health / To develop/harmonise statistics on health care resources, outcomes and financing / Experts from 9 MS (D, DK, EL, FIN, I, IRL, L, NL, UK) and from 1 EFTA country (IS)
Representatives from DG SANCO, WHO, OECD / LEG Health Management Group.
Working Group Public Health Statistics / 2 times a year.
Possibility of extra meetings, for instance 'workshop' on specific topic.
Working Group on Cultural Statistics / At its meeting of 25 Nevember 1999, the Statistical Progeamme Committee decided to set up within Eurostat a Working Group on Cultural Statistics in the context of adoption of the final report of the LEG – Culture. / The goal of the Working Group is the identification, collation, analysis and dissemination of cultural statistics that are comparable at European level and which are of sufficient quality to meet the needs of the European Union and the public and policy makers at European and nationial levels. / Two representatives per member State coming from the administrations responsible for the production of cultural statistics and/or government users. All member States nominated representatives. / The Working Group will report to the SPC. The Task Forces set up will be managed as projets by the WG with specified outputs, workplans and timescales / At least once a year.
Task force Statistics on Cultural Employment / Task Force created by the Working Group on Cultural Statistics, at its first meeting held on 30-31 March 2000 / To deal with the employment issues arising from the mandate of the Working Group on Cultural Statistics. / Experts from 7 MS (B, DK, EL, E, FIN, F and I) and from 1 EFTA country (N) / Working Group on Cultural Statistics / 2 meetings per year
Task Force on Cultural expenditure and finance / Task Force created by the Working Group on Cultural Statistics at its first meeting held on 30-31 March 2000 / To define the "state of the art" of statistics on cultural expenditure and finance. To deepen the methodological work already carried out in order to be able to collect more exhaustive and more comparable data. / Experts from 5 MS (A, D, F, I and NL) and from 1 EFTA country (CH) / Working Group on Cultural Statistics / 2 meetings per year
Task force on Participation in cultural activities / On 30 March 2000 the Working Group on Cultural statistics decided to create a Task Force on Participation in cultural activities / To continue the harmonisation work for statistics in cultural partecipation field, taking advantage from the previous Leg's work, in order to produce comparable data on participaton behaviours at EU level. / Experts from 11 MS (A, B, D, EL, ES FIN, I, IRL, NL, P and UK) / Working Group on Cultural Statistics, TF on employment, TF on financing / 2 meetings per year
Education and training statistics Working Party
ETS WP / Commission Decision for the Leonardo da Vinci action Programme
Reporting to the SPC / Strategy and orientation group
Support to implementation of statistical part of Community action programmes
Evaluation and discussion of strategic plans
Co-ordination / For EU countries : 1 representative for education and one for training statistics
IS+NO
Candidate countries
DGs: EAC, EMPL, RTD
Agencies: ETF, CEDEFOP,
Network: Eurydice
ILO, OECD, UNESCO / CVTS working group
UOE subgroup
Education in LFS (LFS-E) subgroup
Vocational Education and Training (VET) subgroup) / At least, once a year (two days)
ETS WP technical subgroup on the "Vocational Education and Training" data collection
VET sg / To support the implementation of an action under the Leonardo da Vinci programme and to act as an expert forum for the VET data collection
Reporting to the ETS WP / Expert group
Implementation of the VET data collection. Relation of VET with other data collections and surveys like the UOE and CVTS.
Eurostat will launch a consultation of users and producers of VET data with a view to evaluate the data collection.
On the basis of this consultation the mandate of the VET sg will be reformulated / EU countries
IS+NO+CH
Invited :
Candidate countries
DG: EAC
Agencies: ETF, CEDEFOP
Organisations: ILO, OECD / ETS WP / Annual (no meeting in 2001)
The VET data collection is under evaluation.
ETS WP subgroup (Working Group) on the "2nd Continuing Vocational Training Survey"
CVTS WG / The working group has been created for the preparation of the 1st CVTS carried out in 1994. The WG on CVTS 1 met for the last time in June 1997. The SPC decision of November 97 (27th meeting) has concluded that another CVT survey should be carried out. This led to a first meeting of the CVTS2 Working Group in December 1998. / The mandate of this group is to prepare and implement the 2nd CVTS. / EU countries
Candidate countries
DGs: EAC, EMPL
Agencies: ETF, CEDEFOP,
Organisations: UNICE, ETUC, ILO, OECD, UNESCO / ETS WP / Annual (no meeting in 2001)
ETS WP technical subgroup on "Education in the EU Laborur Force Survey"
LFS-E sg / Decision of the ETS WP (November 2000) / 1. Improvement of indicators
2. Improvement of questions in the core LFS
-3. Development and use of ad hoc modules
4. Improvement of synergies / Voluntary participation
EU countries
Candidate countries
DGs: EAC and EMPL
ETF, CEDEFOP
UNESCO, ILO, OECD / ETS WP / Annual (met twice in 2001 focusing on the 2003 LFS ad hoc module on LLL and on the 2000 LFS ad hoc module)
ETS WP technical subgroup on the "UNESCO-OECD-Eurostat" data collection
UOE sg / Decision of the ETS WP (November 2000) / Specific tasks, which constitute the core of the work programme of the subgroup, are the following:
- Technical issues related to the UOE data colelction (eg coverage, Eurostat tables etc)
- development of EU-specific indicators in cooperation with other Commission DGs (Education and Culture, Research etc);
- improvement of the complementarity with other Eurostat sources
- cooperation with the Eurydice network and with other European networks or agencies to develop synergies.
- improvement of the policy relevance and the readability of the statistical indicators included in the joint publication Key Data on Education in Europe. / Voluntary participation
EU countries
Candidate countries
FYROM, Albania
DGs: EAC, EMPL, RTD
ETF
UNESCO, OECD / ETS WP / Annual (may need more times if it is necessary to focus on certain issues)
Task Force on Measuring Lifelong learning
TFMLLL / ETS WP decision (April 1999) and decision of interservice group (February 2000) / He task of the group was to prpeare a methodolgical report on measuring (released in March 2000).
It may continue to follow up the recomemndations of the report and of the Parma CEIES seminar on lifelong learning, in particular if the proposal for an Adult Education Survey is supported. / Germany, UK, Finland, Portugasl, Netherlands, UK, Denmark, Switzerland
DG EAC, EMPL, RTD
ILO, UNESCO, OECD / ETS WP / Nothing planned
European Statistics on Accidents at Work – ESAW
Working Group / Request from DG EMPL on the basis of :
- Council Resolutions 88/C 28/01 and 95/C 168/01 that called upon the Commission to carry out work on “harmonising statistics on accidents at work and occupational diseases”
- Directive 89/391/EEC (introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of the workers at work) / - Define an harmonised methodology and programme for collection of data on accidents at work at EU level (mainly administrative data, gentlemen agreement procedure)
- Advise Eurostat on the collection, assessment, analysis and dissemination of data / According to the Member States, representatives from:
- Working Environment departments of the NSI’s
- Statistical departments of the Labour Ministries
- Statistical departments of the relevant Social Security or Insurance Federation bodies
Also invited similar representatives from :
- EFTA countries
- Candidate countries
Representatives from :
DG EMPL, Dublin Foundation and Bilbao Agency, ILO, other experts according to the agenda / ESAW Task Forces / At least once a year (two days from 2001), in general twice a year
European Statistics on Occupational Diseases – EODS
Working Group / Request from DG EMPL on the basis of :
- Council Resolutions 88/C 28/01 and 95/C 168/01 that called upon the Commission to carry out work on “harmonising statistics on accidents at work and occupational diseases”
- Commission Recommendation 90/326/EEC (adoption of a European schedule of occupational diseases) / Define an harmonised methodology and programme for collection of data on occupational diseases at EU level (mainly administrative data, gentlemen agreement procedure)
- Advise Eurostat on the collection, assessment, analysis and dissemination of data / According to the Member States, representatives from:
- Working Environment departments of the NSI’s
- Statistical departments of the Labour Ministries
- Statistical departments of the relevant Social Security or Insurance Federation bodies
Also invited similar representatives from :
- EFTA countries
- Candidate countries
Representatives from :
DG EMPL, Dublin Foundation and Bilbao Agency, ILO, other experts according to the agenda / EODS Technical Subcommittee (Task Force) / In general once a year (two days from 2002)
European Statistics on Accidents at Work – ESAW
Task Force / ESAW Working Group / Technical recommendations to prepare the ESAW Working Group discussions and decisions / Some members of the ESAW Working Group / ESAW Working Group / Once a year
European Statistics on Occupational Diseases – EODS Technical Subcommittee (Task Force) / EODS Working Group / Technical recommendations to prepare the EODS Working Group discussions and decisions / Some members of the EODS Working Group / EODS Working Group / Once a year

Unit E4: Population; Social Protection