sou · H0B383 · 2012-12-11 00:00:00 — Frågan om utvärderingsmyndigheters tillgång till mikrodata bör därför hanteras i annat sammanhang. I enlighet med direktiven analyserar jag också det förslag om ett samlat system för automatiserad datafångst av uppgifter till grund för kommunstatistiken, som lämnades av översyn av kom- munal statistik i betänkandet Samordnad kommunstatistik för styr- ning och uppföljning (SOU 2009:25). Enligt min mening är idén om ett samlat system för automatiserad datafångst av uppgifter till grund för kommunstatistiken i grunden vettig. Det synes dock föreligga stora osäkerheter om systemets genomförbarhet i praktiken och om vilka kostnader och andra konsekvenser det skulle medföra. Att vidta åtgärder för att konkret realisera ett sådant system ter sig därför mindre lämpligt. Däremot kan det finnas skäl för regeringen att tillsätta en särskild utredning med uppgift att i detalj analysera förutsättningarna för att införa ett sådant system. Slutligen analyserar jag även ett par frågor om förutsättningar för att utvidga begreppet officiell statistik i vissa avseenden. Jag anser att det av integritetsskäl vore klart olämpligt att låta begreppet officiell statistik även omfatta s.k. slutliga observationsregister. En sådan förändring bör därför inte genomföras. Förutsatt att tillräck- lig sekretess kan upprätthållas är det däremot inget som hindrar att officiell statistik omfattar redovisningar på lägre aggregeringsnivåer, t.ex. läns- eller kommunnivå. I flera fall sker det också . Sådana redovisningar kan medföra fördelar, i form av t.ex. förbättrade möj- ligheter till medborgerlig insyn, varför det finns skäl att där så är möjligt sträva efter att i ökad utsträckning redovisa statistiken på Enligt min bedömning har dock de statistikansvariga myndigheterna redan tillräckliga verktyg för att fånga upp och ana- lysera eventuella önskemål från andra användare om detta. Några förändringar av regelverket eller andra åtgärder från statsmakternas sida behövs inte i sammanhanget. My overall assignment has been to review Statistics and the official statistics system. The Swedish official statistics system has been decentralised since the statistics reform was implemented on 1 1994. Statistics is responsible for cross-sectoral statistics, while 26 sector- specific agencies are responsible for official statistics in each of their areas. Official statistics are regulated in the Official Statistics Act (2001:99) and the Official Statistics Ordinance (2001:100). This regulatory framework specifies the areas for which official statistics are to be available and which government agencies are responsible for producing the statistics. The Official Statistics Act also states that official statistics shall be available for the purposes of public information, investigative activities and research, and be objective and publicly available. Legal developments in the EU play an increasing role for the Swedish statistics system. EU regulations may concern statistics within a specific area or involve general requirements that apply to all EU-regulated statistics. The latter are mainly contained in the EUs statistics regulation, which is currently undergoing considerable revision. The forthcoming changes to the EUs statistics system are pivotal to my considerations. Statistics Code of Practice is also important in this context. The Code of Practice is an instrument for self-regulation containing principles of indepen- dence, integrity and responsibility and covers the statistical authorities of the Member States as well as the EUs statistical authority . In 2011, official statistics amounted to a total of 356 statistical products. Statistics was responsible for just over one third of these, while none of the other statistical agencies produced more than 30 official statistical products, and many of them just one or a few. Apart from its responsibility for statistics, Statistics provides contracted statistical services and is also responsible for coordinating the state statistics system. An important tool in this coordination is , an advisory body at Statistics . The Council comprises Statistics Director-General, as the Chair, and the directors-general of six other statistical agencies. The latter are appointed for three years. The agencies represented in the Council are appointed by Statistics according to a rotating schedule. Statistical agencies can choose to produce official statistics them- selves, order them directly from Statistics or procure them on the open market. Statistics may also participate in these procurement procedures. Almost half of the agencies produce their official statistics entirely on their own. Among the remaining agen- cies, it is most common to entirely or partially engage the services of Statistics . Statistics produces a total of about 65 per cent of official statistics, measured by the number of statistical products. Just over half are statistics the agency is responsible for itself, and slightly less than half are assignments for other agencies. Less than five per cent of the total production of official statistics takes place via procurement from organisations other than Statistics . The Inquiry has obtained viewpoints from a large number of stakeholders, such as all of the statistical agencies, other users and producers of statistics and also some foreign agencies, including . Acting on instructions from the Inquiry, Professor has analysed issues concerning the documentation of statistics, the Authority has analysed issues concerning the pricing of statistics and Statistics has conducted a web-based survey of members of the statistical agen- cies user councils for statistics. The following is a summary of my considerations and proposals concerning the issues raised in the Inquiry terms of reference. Overall assessment of the function of the statistics system Statistics on various areas of society are a very important source of information in a democracy. Official statistics give a general, over- all picture of society and increase transparency for citizens. Statistics are also used as the basis for political decisions, public debate, re- search, evaluation, etc. There is great consensus on the importance of producing statistics that highlight different aspects of society and can be used for the above-mentioned purposes. Statistics must be reliable, i.e. objective and factual and otherwise of good quality. My overall assessment is that, on the whole, the official statistics system works well today. I have not found any fundamental system errors that would require an overhaul of the system, and therefore believe that the decentralised system can and should be retained. This is not to say that the current statistics system does not present certain challenges, or that some aspects of it cannot be im- proved. But in my assessment, any changes that may be necessary can be handled within the current basic model. Direction and scope of official statistics In my opinion, should continue to apply a clear and some- what narrow definition of the term official statistics, based on the particular importance of such statistics for describing society. How- ever, in normal cases, EU-regulated statistics should always be official statistics. Focusing on these and other conditions, the Government should make certain general statements on what should characterise official statistics, with the aim of providing guidance for assessments by statistical agencies. The direction of official statistics is currently specified through gradual concretisation whereby the Government decides on the overall subject and statistical areas, and which agencies are to be responsible for statistics, while the content and scope of statistics in a given statistical area are determined by the statistical agency in that area. In my opinion, the current system for deciding the direc- tion of official statistics focus should be retained. If additional agencies wish to become statistical agencies, they should propose this to the Government, which will then decide on the issue. Quality of official statistics The experience gained by the Inquiry – for example, through con- tact with users and foreign agencies – suggests that, on the whole, current official statistics are of good quality. This does not mean that there are no problems at all, or that quality cannot be improved in certain respects. But the measures that may be required to im- prove quality essentially involve making a basically well-functioning system even better. In my view, the most important quality requirements for official statistics should be stated in the Official Statistics Act. I propose that the wording of the quality requirements in the Act be modelled on the quality criteria contained in the EUs statistics regulation. Much of the content of Statistics Code of Practice is already met in Swedish law. However, an additional few of the principles contained in the Code of Practice may need to be regu- lated by law. I propose that the principle of a non-excessive burden on respondents is introduced in the Official Statistics Ordinance. However, in my view, most of the principles would be more suited as regulations from Statistics or, as is the case today, gene- ral guidelines. In my assessment, the statistical agencies are working on quality issues in a professional , both individually and in joint forums, including within the framework of . Since good quality is crucial for the reliability and credi- bility of official statistics, it is essential that the agencies continue to conduct quality efforts. has established certain guide- lines and criteria to promote sufficient quality in official statistics. Based on these, statistical agencies can take an official statistics pledge, which means that they promise to operate in accordance with the criteria. So far, just two agencies, and , have taken the pledge. It would send an important signal to the users of statistics and others if more of the statistical agencies, and par- ticularly Statistics , were to take the pledge. This may re- quire some modification of the criteria concerning sufficient quality so that they can become applicable for more agencies. Examining this should reasonably be a task for . Unfortunately, errors occasionally arise in the statistics, but these do not seem to be due to fundamental system errors. likely arise because, in practice, it is impossible to completely avoid errors in such a complex system as the statistics system. When errors do arise, it is important that the statistical agencies have procedures and routines to identify, correct, analyse and learn from them. It is also important that the agencies openly report the errors that arise, so that commissioning organisations, users and others are made aware of the circumstances. Both in and abroad, response rates for statistical surveys are tending to decline. This development is a real problem. The statistical agencies seem to be taking this problem seriously and are trying to find different methods of dealing with it. However, it is probably impossible to completely eliminate the problem of de- clining response rates, since fundamentally the trend has structural causes; for example, it is now more difficult to reach people using traditional methods than it was in the past. Statistics producers may need to develop better methods of managing the continuing decline and also find other ways of accessing the information. If response rates continue to decline sharply, there may eventually be reason to consider the introduction of an obligation on private individuals to provide information for some surveys, as is the case in many other countries. However, at present I do not see such a need. According to some estimates, more than 95 per cent of official statistics are based on administrative data collected for purposes other than statistics. Problems can therefore arise if a statistical agency is dependent on administrative data from another agency and the latter for some reason chooses to change or terminate the collection of the data in question. In this context, there are important reasons Statistics should be consulted on the initial design of and in the event of changes to the administrative registers of other agencies. This could be achieved if the agencies responsible for registers were required to consult with Statistics in such situations. Statistics , in its role of coordinating the statistics system, should then also be given the task of safeguarding the interests of other statistical agencies. could probably be responsible for coordinating this. A consultation obligation should be designed so that the relevant agencies are obliged to consult with Statistics , but following the consultation are free to make independent decisions and obliged to inform Statistics about these. Furthermore, the consultation obligation should only concern registers whose data is reasonably likely to be used for the production of statistics. However, the consultation obligation should not be introduced before final design of the EUs statistics regu- lation has been established. Assessment of users access to statistics Access to statistics varies depending on the users and the usage area. The needs appear to be well met for users who mainly use statistics for informative purposes and/or for analysis based on the aggregated statistical information which is presented on agencies websites and requiring less extensive processing of the statistical material. It should be noted that this aggregated information con- stitutes the official statistics. Users, such as researchers, who need to process the underlying microdata themselves for further use and analysis, face the greatest access problems. My overall assessment is that, on the whole, current availability of official statistics is good. Availability has also been gradually im- proved since the 1994 reform. There is reason to expect that this development will continue concurrently with the possibilities created by information technology developments. According to some researchers, statistical agencies have in recent years adopted more restrictive policies regarding access to micro- data for research purposes. The agencies deny this. The Govern- ment has announced, however, that a special Inquiry will probably be set up to analyse these matters. Documentation of the statistics that are available, how they are produced and what they contain is a prerequisite if the statistics are to be useful. The only formal requirement that currently exists re- garding documentation of official statistics is that statistical agencies are obliged to produce up-to-date descriptions of statistics, in a format specified by Statistics . On the whole, the agencies meet this requirement. They often also produce additional, more in-depth documentation. The documentation appears to have improved over time. How- ever, a persistent shortcoming is that the documentation often seems to be created retrospectively. It is important that the agencies seek to integrate work on documentation into the production process and conduct it continuously. Current documentation seems to largely fulfil the needs of users who mainly use statistics for informative purposes and/or for analysis requiring less extensive processing of the statistical material. The greatest problem with regard to documentation is likely to involve users – often researchers – who have a greater need of processing the statistics and the underlying data themselves for further use and analysis. The proposals presented in the Inquirys interim report, Register data for research (SOU 2012:36), should improve the situation for these more advanced users. As far as possible, documentation should aim to give relevant stakeholders the answers they need. This would commonly require more extensive and thorough documentation than that prescribed by the current statutory requirements. At the same time, it would be overly optimistic to believe in the possibility of regulating for fully comprehensive documentation. In particularly complex cases, it is probably inevitable that the documentation must be supple- mented with individual advice or information from the statistical agency. I do not propose any legislative amendments regarding docu- mentation. However, the issue of documentation requires further discussion, appropriately within the framework of . Furthermore, Statistics should be in- structed to closely examine the potential of increasing the general distribution of methods and tools developed with public funds. Statistics provides considerable contracted statistical ser- vices. The income from this represents almost half of the agencys overall turnover. Other statistical agencies do not provide con- tracted statistical services, but may charge a fee for providing specially processed official statistics. Since producing statistics is a core activity of Statistics , and a significant portion of this is con- tracted services, the grounds for charging fees differ from other agencies, where producing statistics is a secondary activity. In my view, full cost coverage should continue to apply as a financial goal of contracted services by Statistics , mainly on grounds of competitive neutrality. If the Government wants to use pricing to stimulate the access of certain user groups, such as researchers, to the data contained in Statistics register, this would be best achieved via grants to the purchaser of the data rather than to the supplier. In cases when other statistical agencies wish to charge fees for providing special processing of their official statistics, pricing should be based on the cost of producing and distributing the statistics. An hourly rate, including a just and correct share of the agencys common costs, could normally apply. This also appears to be the principle that most statistical agencies currently apply. During the course of the Inquiry, users have criticised pricing by Statistics for its lack of transparency. In this respect there is room for improvement by Statistics . Much could be gained by Statistics developing more customer dialogue, including information on how prices are set. At present, statistics pricing is not entirely uniform between the various statistical agencies. However, the variation does not gene- rally appear to be due to incorrect pricing, but is mainly a con- sequence of the different administrative regulations and other cir- cumstances that apply to the activities of the various agencies. The agencies should not only become better at explaining this variation to the outside world, they should also jointly discuss how pricing should be set and, where possible, seek to achieve greater con- sistency. It would be appropriate to hold such discussions within the framework of . Statistical secrecy is regulated in Chapter 24, Section 8 of the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act (2009:400), which states that secrecy applies to the particular activities of an agency that relate to the production of statistical data relating to an indi- viduals personal or financial circumstances and which is attributable to the individual. Furthermore, it is stated that statistical secrecy also applies to other comparable investigations that are conducted by the Audit Office or the Riksdag Administra- tion or by government agencies provided that the Government has prescribed it. The purpose of statistical secrecy is to provide strong protection for data providers, which in turn increases the chances of the statistical agencies producing statistics that are important to society and are of high quality. In my view, the object, degree and period of statistical secrecy should remain unchanged. However, I propose that the section is made clearer by dividing it into paragraphs and placing the secrecy- override part in a separate provision. Furthermore, I propose that government committees and Stats- kontoret (the for ) be given the legal right to process data in other comparable investigations covered by statistical secrecy. Thus they would no longer need to apply to the Government to conduct investigations that require statistical secrecy. In my view, the secrecy-override exemption should be the same as under current legislation. However, the term research should be defined. This could be done by referring to the definition of re- search in the Act concerning the in- volving Humans (2003:460). Obligation to provide information The Official Statistics Act regulates which actors are required to provide information for official statistics and what information this requirement concerns. I propose certain changes to the Act. The Official Statistics Act should continue to state who is required to provide information for official statistics and that the requirement to provide information applies in relation to the statistical agencies. However, the Govern- ment, or an agency if the Government so decides, should be given authorisation to decide which information is to be covered by the obligation to provide information. The information I propose to be covered by the obligation should be largely the same as under current legislation. However, I propose some broadening of the information that should be provided by municipalities and county councils. The details regarding the enforcement of the obligation to provide information should be delegated to the statistical agen- cies. However, for registered religious communities that do not conduct business activities, the obligation to provide information, including the question of which information is covered by the obli- gation, should be regulated by law as previously. Furthermore, I propose that the Government be authorised to issue regulations stating that those with an obligation to provide information for official statistics are also required to provide the information necessary for the production of such European statistics that an agency must provide to Commission () under a Council regulation. I also propose that the Official Statistics Ordinance should state that the statistical agencies should endeavour to limit the burden on those with an obligation to provide information and prioritise the use of administrative data if it is available. Agency sales activities and the three roles of Statistics The Government has stated that, as a rule, agencies should not sell goods and services on the market. As mentioned above, Statistics is the only statistical agency to offer contracted statistical services. It is my assessment that the contracted services of Statistics are compatible with the Governments statement. There- fore, the statement does not affect the design of the official statistics system. It is also my assessment that, on the whole, Statistics and the other statistical agencies fulfil the requirements of the Act on the re-use of public administration documents (2010:566). As mentioned in the introduction, Statistics has three different roles in the official statistics system: responsibility, pro- duction and coordination. These three roles may potentially con- flict with each other, but, in my assessment, this is a minor problem in practice. At the same time, there are great benefits in combining these roles in one and the same organisation. As a result of the forthcoming changes at EU level, the national statistical institutes (Statistics in ) will be given an enhanced role in, for example, coordination. Thus it would be diffi- cult for Statistics not to have the roles of being responsible for cross-sectoral statistics and being responsible for coordination of the statistics system. Since the contracted services of Statistics currently play a very important role in the official statistics system, strong arguments also exist for not hiving them off from the agency.