Australia’s national agricultural statistics review

Sarah Kiely, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)Experiences with Partnerships 1, IAOS 2014,8-10 October 2014 Da Nang Vietnam

Background to the review

• Agriculture and agricultural statistics internationally:

• Food security

• Sustainable development

• Statistical quality and quantity in decline

• Role of agriculture in Australia

• Australia’s approach to agricultural statistics:

• ABS and ABARES main producers of official agricultural statistics

National Agricultural Statistics Review (NASR)

• Opportunity to strengthen collaborative relationships between key statistical producers

• Build upon outcomes of internal reviews

• Aimed to identify:

• Priority information needs

• Information gaps

• Overlaps and inconsistencies in existing statistics

• Opportunities for improvement

Framework for consultation - Enduring goals for Australian agriculture

Stakeholder engagement - Overview

• Multiple phases and modes of engagement

• Initial consultation phase:

• Internal ABS and ABARES consultation

• Discussion paper:

• Public consultation (including submission process)

• Secondary consultation phase:

• Consolidation of input from initial consultation phase

• Preliminary findings paper:

• Further public consultation (including public forums, submission process)

Stakeholder engagement – Contribution of stakeholders to preliminary findings

Preliminary findings – High priority information needs

• Information needs varied by stakeholder groups and by the enduring goals

• Needs of industry less well met than those of government

• Majority of priority information needs are partially met by existing statistical assets:

• One-third of stakeholders needs fully met• A small number of needs not met at all

• Reasons needs not being met:

• Barriers (i.e. cost, capability)

• Structural issues with the assets

• Availability of specific information

Preliminary findings – Information need by enduring goal

Preliminary findings – Key issue themes• Respondent burden

• Poor relationships between data collectors and respondents

• Contributing to reduced data quality

• Data quality

• cost, timeliness, coherence, accuracy, relevance, interpretability, accessibility, institutional environment

• Statistical infrastructure

• Methods, standards and frameworks, classifications, physical systems, people capability

• Coordination and governance

• Leadership, roles and responsibilities, principles of an effective statistical system

Preliminary findings – Opportunities for efficiencies

• Data collection• Online surveys, real-time data collection,

integration• Data management

• Common standards• Dissemination

• Improved electronic communication, ‘one stop shop’, improved reporting capability, concordant data

• Coordination• Collection harmonisation, joint ABS-ABARES data

collection, integration and analysis, administrative data

• Statistical capability

Conclusion and next steps

• A modern, adaptive and responsive agricultural statistical system for Australia

• High quality agricultural official statistics:

• Role of statistical leadership

• Partnerships and collaboration

• Final NASR recommendations due for release by end 2014

• Framework for the assessment, coordination and governance