www.statistik.atwe provide information best practice template experiences in austria wolfgang...

www.statistik.at We provide information

Best Practice Template

Experiences in Austria

Wolfgang BittermannDirectorate Spatial

Statistics

Canberra2 May 2011

www.statistik.at slide 2 | April 20, 2023

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


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


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

1. Introduction2. Relevance3. Accuracy4. Timelines and Punctuality5. Accessibility and Clarity6. Comparability7. Coherence8. Additional aspects effecting quality


The chosen Solution

• A standardized „compromise“ format for all statistical products1. Important hints2. General information3. Statistical concepts, Methods4. Statistical processing, Quality insurance5. Publication (Accessibility)6. Quality

6.1 Relevance6.2 Accuracy6.3 Timeliness and Actuality6.4 Comparability6.5 Coherence

• Feedback talks


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 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 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


The experiences

• The format is tailor made for surveys and primary statistics 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 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.


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/energy/energy_balances/index.html and includes hyperlinks to all other relevant quality reports available in English.


Proposal 1: Clearer structure

• General information • Objective, purpose, history• Contracting entity• Main users• Legal basis

• Statistical concepts and methodology• Concepts and methodology• Production , processing and quality assurance• Publication

• Quality• Relevance• Accuracy • Timeliness and punctuality• Comparability• Coherence

• Outlook


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


Proposal 3: Overview table


Please address queries to:WOLFGANG BITTERMANN

Contact information:Guglgasse 13, 1110 Viennaphone: +43 (1) 71128-7315

fax: +43 (1) [email protected]

Best practice Template

Experiences in Austria

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