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Quality in StatisticsOverall objectives / Phare Countries / Results / Conclusions / Recommendations
- To further develop the methods for measuring quality of statistics, taking into account the needs of the Beneficiary Countries (BCs)
- To give support on quality reporting (and systematic quality assessment) to BCs
- To improve guidelines for quality assessment in the BCs.
Signed Service Contracts with each Beneficiary Country.
Follow-up of Service Contact implementation: including the preparation, by each BC, of:
-the self assessment of 6 surveys
-a synthesis report
-an inventory of Quality Reports & Quality Indicators
-inception and final reports.
Two methodological documents about:
- Sampling issues,
- Coverage errors.
Support missions in the ten Beneficiary Countries
Reviewed mission reports with country & domain specific recommendations and global conclusions.
Suggestions to improve quality assessment tools:
- Standard Quality Report
- Self-assessment checklist
Final workshop (Estonia, 20&21 June). / All envisaged activities have been completed.
The Project objectives have been achieved.
The Project has had a beneficial impact on quality programmes and initiatives in the BCs.
The BCs have been very active in making their contributions to the Project.
For each BC a list of potential quality improvements have been formulated, related priorities and implementation plans have been documented.
The DESAP self assessment checklist is a valuable quality measurement tool and is likely to be quite widely used by the BCs in the future.
Standard quality indicators are gradually being introduced, but need to be supplemented by country specific indicators; there is need for further work in this area.
The standard quality report in its present form is too demanding; suggestions for simplifying and streamlining the report were presented.
The Eurostat Unit 02 will ensure that:
-the Project results are communicated inside the ESS
-suggestions for improvements to quality measurement tools and in the BCs are followed up and taken into account when budgeting coming ESS activities on quality issues. /
- For the short term, it is recommended:
to continue the analysis of the ‘metadata’, (collected, through the service contracts and during support missions), the monitoring and updating of the recommendations.
This should be undertaken as soon as possible, in order to benefit of additional exchanges with the different BCs, in the same constructive atmosphere which was perceived during the project. - In the medium and longer term, it is recommended:
-to pursue the improvement of the standard quality documents (standard quality report, standard quality indicators) and associated guidelines
- to align quality reporting more towards "user focus" and thus to gain more knowledge about customer perception of statistical data quality, in particular, about how the quality reports and metadata concepts are used/understood by users of statistics.
Macro Economic Statistics Constant Price Estimates
Overall objectives / Phare Countries / Results / Conclusions / Recommendations
The project aimed to assist the Beneficiary Countries in implementing the Commission Decisions on Constant Prices, to eliminate the use of “unacceptable methods” and to incorporate methodological developments and recommendations produced as a result of Eurostat’s on-going work with the Member States. / All Countries / Preparation by the experts of a summary report for each BC. Presentation of these reports in the initial 1-day meeting.
Conduction of missions in the ten Beneficiary Countries.
Organisation of a workshop (Luxembourg, 30-31 May 2005)
Organisation of a 1-day final meeting.
Preparation by the experts of a final country report.
Preparation of the Beneficiary Countries of a final report. / For the main activities, the new methods either have been fully implemented or are in the process of being implemented, and substantial results have been obtained. Main achievement during the Phare 2002 project period has been the constant price compilation within the framework of detailed SUT tables, with more product details and more detailed valuation matrices. In a number of countries, the work was supported by the use of standard software packages: the Norwegian package “SNA-NT” in Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Slovenia, and the Dutch package “IAS” in Estonia and Latvia. In conclusion, the activities carried out in the framework of this Phare 2002 project have consolidated and built on the work carried out under earlier Phare projects and have met all the objectives of the project. / In order to improve the reliability of the national accounts, it is important to compile Supply and Use tables (SUT) each year in current and constant prices according to a time schedule, which makes it possible to have these tables balanced and fully integrated with the compilation of the final annual national accounts.
Macro Economic Statistics - GNI Inventories
Overall objectives / Phare Countries / Results / Conclusions / Recommendations
The project aimed at updating the BCs’ previous description of sources and methods used for compiling GDP and GNI, in order to bring them up to the level and size of the inventories that are already produced by the 15 ‘old’ EU Member States. In the 12 months available for this project it is only planned to complete Chapters 3-5 and 10-11 of the “GNI Inventory”. / All Countries / Preparation by the experts of a summary report for each BC. Presentation of these reports in the initial meeting.
Organisation of a workshop (Luxembourg, 21-22 October 2004)
Conduction of missions in the ten Beneficiary Countries.
Organisation of a 1-day final meeting.
Preparation by the experts of a final country report.
Preparation of the Beneficiary Countries of a final report / All countries succeeded to make a substantial step for the write up of sources, methods and estimates for GNI estimation conform to Eurostat’s requirements. They drafted a very good GNI Inventory for the chapters 3, 4, 5, 10 and 11 that were selected for the Phare 2002 project and have met all the objectives of the project. / All objectives were fully achieved, however in some cases the writing of the GNI Inventory chapters could still be improved. In some countries for some chapters more details would be desirable while other chapters seem to be too long and technical.
Macro Economic Statistics - Transition GDP to GNI
Overall objectives / Phare Countries / Results / Conclusions / Recommendations
The project aimed at significantly improve the BCs’ estimates on the flows of primary income between residents and non-residents, thereby raising the quality and comparability of GNI data. / All Countries / Preparation by the experts of a summary report for each BC. Presentation of these reports in the initial meeting.
Conduction of missions in the ten Beneficiary Countries.
Organisation of a workshop (Luxembourg, 20-21 June 2005)
Organisation of a 1-day final meeting.
Preparation by the experts of a final country report.
Preparation of the Beneficiary Countries of a final report. / All activities have been successfully accomplished. The new version of chapter 8 is a significant improvement in providing detail on sources, methods, data and plans of action to improve further in the short to medium term. All the chapter 8 descriptions are detailed and explicit
The countries have overall well-established sources and methods for both the BoP and national accounts. Within the countries, there are mostly strong and constructive working relations between the Central Bank and National Statistical Institute. / The new version of chapter 8 is an important step forward compared to what is available for description and estimates now. There is currently more information available than was expected (especially regarding interest flows on accrual basis). But further improvements are still needed in a number of fields. Regarding the next steps for the improvement of the situation, the starting point must be the exact diagnostic of the most problematic areas and a definition of realistic proposals of improvement.
Macro Economic Statistics – Quarterly National Accounts
Overall objectives / Phare Countries / Results / Conclusions / Recommendations
The project aimed at assisting the Beneficiary Countries (BCs) to produce comparable quarterly national accounts following the requirements in ESA95 and practices followed by the ‘old’ EU Member States. This was facilitated through supply of sufficient technical assistance and advise on methodology and best practices. / All Countries / Conduction of missions to eight of the ten Beneficiary Countries Preparation of mission reports by the experts after the visit to the BC.
For 9 countries filled in questionnaires are available providing a quite detailed description of S&M and estimates for QA.
Preparation by the experts of a final country report. / The number of working days available for this component was not really sufficient to provide enough support to the countries. The workshop initially planned in the TOR was decided to be not necessary but more individual country support. However, necessary second missions and additional help to countries were impossible because of the lack of working days. Second missions were already prepared and the countries were highly disappointed by the developments. With the preparation of questionnaire, the country visits, mission and final reports, even more support than working days available was given. In this light and despite fewer working days than expected, very good and successful work was done and the objectives were fulfilled. / A continuation of the work started, with second missions and help-desk support, would be highly recommended in order to proceed with the work and discussions done and to improve the production of comparable quarterly national accounts.
Macro Economic Statistics – PPP Purchasing Power Parities
Overall objectives / Phare Countries / Results / Conclusions / Recommendations
1. Measuring differences in the price levels of goods and services between countries and between specific places
The aim of this activity was to strengthen the methodological capacity of the BCs to be able to be fully integrated in European Comparison Programme (ECP). The specific objectives are to carry out work in the following areas:
Consumer prices and estate agencies rent survey
Equipment goods and construction prices (capital goods prices)
Other surveys and actions
2. Acting as an European Ring Country for the ICP 2004-2006
The objective of this activity was to achieve, in the framework of the ICP, the successful participation as an European ring country. The NSI of Slovenia and the NSI of Estonia as BCs will actively participate in the consumer price survey preparation (ring-list establishment). / Bulgaria and Romania
Estonia and
Slovenia / BulgariaRomania
Preparation of summary standard report and report on the pre-survey work.
Estonia and Slovenia
Preparation of a summary report.
Successful participation as European ring counties that actively participated in the consumer price survey preparation (ring-list establishment). / The BCs successfully finished the tasks foreseen in the Service Contracts. The objectives were achieved, fully in line with the Eurostat PPP work plan deadlines, as established annually by the PPP Working Party.
Estonia and Slovenia submitted all deliverables required on time and participated successfully. / A continuous support for Bulgaria and Romania to produce PPP is highly recommended.
Macro Economic Statistics – HICP (Harmonised Consumer Price Index)
Overall objectives / Phare Countries / Results / Conclusions / Recommendations
The aim of the project was to provide the necessary transfer of know-how to the BCs to enable them to produce HICP fully in accordance with the harmonised EU requirements, which would replace the interim HICP at present. / All Countries / Organisation of initial one-day-meeting on 18.02.2005 in Luxembourg.
Paper on Compliance Assessment.
Organisation of a workshop (Warsaw, 27-29 June 2005)
Conducting of missions to seven of the ten Beneficiary Countries
Preparation of mission reports by the experts after the visit to the BC.
Preparation of a final report. / There has been continuing good progress in developing HICPs in the countries to meet European standards, to the point where they are almost all now compliant. Bulgaria is almost compliant. The expenditure of foreign tourists remains a problem in Bulgaria, but they are working with their National Accounts colleagues and others to generate the necessary input data. / Altogether the problems of the countries tend to be largely similar to those that are generally found in the old MS. The main points and recommendations of the present project are:
- Owner occupied dwellings (OOD; including/excluding real estate prices; with still more specific circumstances prevailing in the beneficiary countries)
- weighting (a new “formula” of integration to be found?)
- clear potential of further harmonizing QA, sampling, and seasonality
- introduction of the € (with a view to data collection as well as to appropriate information of the general public)
- installation of (HICP specific) national advisory bodies, and quality management at large
Macro Economic Statistics – Government Finance Statistics
Overall objectives / Phare Countries / Results / Conclusions / Recommendations
The project aimed at providing beneficiary countries with technical assistance in the field of non-financial government statistics broken down by sub-sectors with the ultimate goal of having reliable, timely, consistent and comparable statistics for this part of national accounts / All Countries / Conduction of missions in the ten Beneficiary Countries.
Preparation of mission reports by the experts after the visit to the BC.
Organisation of a workshop (Prague, 21-22 April 2005)
Preparation of a final report. / The project succeeded in its aim at clarifying a lot of the methodological issues on non-financial accounts for general government by sub-sectors. The documents prepared for the workshop, the discussions with the experts helped the participating countries to complete their knowledge on these statistics. Countries latest available data are published on NewCronos. However, more effort should be made by countries in order to acquire better quality data, and in particular for the consistency between various government datasets.
Due to the fact that the time series on non-financial government statistics collected by Eurostat have substantially increased and additional task was requested from experts (“analysis and assessment of the quality of data in tables 2, 9 and 11 of the ESA95 transmission programme”), far more working days were used than available.
The work on the project was very complex both from its content and also for the fact that the European legislation is developing very fast in this field with a view of fulfilling the users requests. Therefore, the participation of all experts in the workshop was needed, which had not been planned initially. / The experts’ mission reports provide recommendations for future improvement in the field of non-financial accounts of general government with a focus on sub-sectors central government, local government and social security funds. Progress can be reported due to the new data series transmitted, results of the workshop and bilateral contacts between experts and statisticians from beneficiary countries.
However, improvement in the compilation of national accounts for general government as a whole and for its sub-sectors in particular, is needed in some countries, due to the fact that a full harmonisation with the European standards is sometimes not reached. It is necessary to continue the work undertaken and to improve it where possible, as it is important to publish reliable, timely and comparable government finance statistics.
Foreign Trade Statistics
Overall objectives / Phare Countries / Results / Conclusions / Recommendations
Initially the project should have covered a period shortly before and after accession. Due to the late start of the project it is now necessary to emphasise on the compliance with EU quality requirements in FTS. The actions to be carried out will be oriented towards the improvement of the quality of the data provided for Intra- and Extra-EU trade statistics.
- However the effort should be concentrated to the Intrastat part given the fact that its implementation only started in March 2002 and is still requiring the development and the improvement of several actions. Artemis will provide the BCs with all the technical and methodological support in order to ensure the successful running of the Intrastat System. The efforts will be particularly concentrated on the enterprises survey, the data collection and processing, the evaluation of missing data, data transmission and data dissemination. It is also important to provide as quickly as possible technical and methodological solutions to the problems raised by the real implementation of the Intrastat system.
Preparation and signing of Service Contracts.
Help desk set up for the duration of the project.
1-day workshop in Luxembourg on 22 October 2004, involving Eurostat, the experts and the BCs.
Receipt of interim reports from BCs.
3 day seminar in Poland, 9-11 February 2005.
3-day workshop in Bulgaria, 30 May to 1 June 2005.
Preparation and execution of 18 missions and reports.
Contributions to Eurostat Guidelines on the Implementation of Intrastat legislation.
Quality – mirror analysis on FTS on the basis agreed with Eurostat
Receipt of final reports from BCs.
Collation and analysis of BC reports / The Phare 2002 project continued the work carried out in the earlier projects in a smuch as it continued to provide technical, methodological and procedural support and assistance to the BCs according to the areas in which each BC requested assistance and to deal with specific problems which they encountered following the implementation and practical application of Intrastat and Extrastat.
Consequently, the actions carried out generally addressed the difficulties encountered by an individual BC, taking account of the specific circumstances in that country and in that national statistical office, rather than ‘across the board’ actions.