COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT Accompanying the document REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL establishing a common framework for European statistics relating to persons and households, based on data at individual level collected from samples
Date: 2016-08-24
Institutions: European Commission, Eurostat
Subjects: EU statistics, data collection, exchange of information, household, personal data, sampling, social survey, socioeconomic conditions, statistical method

EN 

   EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 24.8.2016  SWD(2016) 283 final   COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT  IMPACT ASSESSMENT  Accompanying the document REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL establishing a common framework for European statistics relating to persons and households, based on data at individual level collected from samples {COM(2016) 551 final} {SWD(2016) 282 final}  
 
 
 
TABLE OF CONTENT 

1. 

INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT ...................................................................................... 5 

1.1.  Background ................................................................................................................... 5 

1.2.  Objective of this report and procedural information elements ..................................... 7 

1.3.  Consultation of interested parties ................................................................................. 8 

1.4.  Content of the report ..................................................................................................... 8 

2. 

PROBLEM  DEFINITION:  WHAT  IS  THE  PROBLEM  AND  WHY  IS  IT  A 
PROBLEM ............................................................................................................................ 10 

2.1.  Background ................................................................................................................. 10 

2.2.  Problem drivers ........................................................................................................... 11 

2.2.1.  Domain fragmentation of social statistics ................................................... 11 

2.2.2. 

Inflexibility of data collection on persons and households.......................... 12 

2.3.  Problems currently faced ............................................................................................ 12 

2.3.1. 

Lack of responsiveness to societal needs..................................................... 13 

2.3.2.  Quality issues of data collection .................................................................. 14 

2.3.3.  Hampered use of innovative methods and sources ...................................... 15 

2.3.4. 

Inability to reduce and limit costs for social statistics ................................. 16 

2.4.  Assessing the costs of social statistics ........................................................................ 17 

2.4.1. 

Estimating the costs of the current situation ................................................ 17 

2.4.2.  Defining the parameters for cost estimations .............................................. 18 

2.4.3. 

Potential for costs reduction ........................................................................ 18 

2.4.4. 

Burden on respondents ................................................................................ 19 

2.5.  Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 19 

3.  WHY THE EU SHOULD ACT ............................................................................................ 21 

4. 

POLICY OBJECTIVES: WHAT SHOULD BE ACHIEVED ............................................. 22 

4.1.  Objectives ................................................................................................................... 22 

4.2.  Coherence of objectives with other EU policies ......................................................... 22 

5. 

POLICY OPTIONS: WHAT ARE THE VARIOUS OPTIONS TO ACHIEVE THE 
OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................................ 25 

5.1.  Background ................................................................................................................. 25 

5.2.  Addressing the domain fragmentation of social statistics ........................................... 25 

5.3.  Addressing rigidity of data collection ......................................................................... 26 

6.  ANALYSIS  OF  IMPACTS:  WHAT  ARE  THE  POLICY  IMPACTS  OF  THE 

DIFFERENT POLICY OPTIONS AND WHO WILL BE AFFECTED .............................. 27 
2 

 
 
6.1. 

Introduction ................................................................................................................. 27 

6.2.  Assessing impacts: addressing domain fragmentation ............................................... 27 

6.2.1. 

Baseline (option 1.0): no additional action .................................................. 27 

6.2.2. 

6.2.3. 

6.2.4. 

6.2.5. 

Policy  option  1.1:  No  change  EU  legislation,  ‘defragment’ 
production processes across data collections ............................................... 28 

Policy  option  1.2:  Integrate  EU  legislation,  no  change  in  the 
fragmentation of production processes ........................................................ 29 

Policy  option  1.3a:  Integrate  existing  Regulations,  ‘defragment’ 
production processes ................................................................................... 30 

Policy  option  1.3b:  Integrate  social  statistics  governance  in 
combination with defragmentation of national processes across data 
collections .................................................................................................... 33 

6.2.6. 

Summary of impacts .................................................................................... 35 

6.3.  Assessing impacts: addressing rigidity of data collection .......................................... 36 

6.3.1. 

Introducing policy options ........................................................................... 36 

6.3.2. 

Summary of impacts .................................................................................... 37 

7.  COMBINING  THE  DIFFERENT  OPTIONS:  IMPACTS  OF  SHORTLISTED 

OPTIONS .............................................................................................................................. 38 

7.1.  Short-listing policy options ......................................................................................... 38 

7.2. 

Intervention logic and legal basis ............................................................................... 38 

7.3. 

Impacts on effectiveness ............................................................................................. 39 

7.4. 

Impacts on efficiency .................................................................................................. 39 

7.5. 

Impacts on stakeholder ............................................................................................... 40 

7.6. 

Impacts on SMEs ........................................................................................................ 40 

7.7.  Economic impacts ....................................................................................................... 40 

7.8.  Social impacts ............................................................................................................. 41 

7.9.  Environmental impacts ............................................................................................... 41 

7.10.  Impacts on fundamental rights .................................................................................... 41 

8.  MONITORING  AND  EVALUATION:  HOW  WOULD  ACTUAL  IMPACTS  BE 

MONITORED AND EVALUATED .................................................................................... 42 

ANNEX 1: PROCEDURAL INFORMATION ............................................................................. 45 

ANNEX 2: STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATION ........................................................................ 48 

ANNEX 3:  WHO IS AFFECTED BY THE INITIATIVE AND HOW ....................................... 55 

ANNEX  4:  ANALYTICAL  MODELS  USED  IN  PREPARING  THE  IMPACT 

ASSESSMENT. ..................................................................................................................... 57 

ANNEX  5:  DETAILS  ON  THE  IMPACT  ASSESSMENT  OF  THE  OPTIONS 

ADDRESSING THE RIGIDITY OF THE DATA COLLECTION. .................................... 62 

1.1 

Introducing policy options ........................................................................... 62 

3 

 
 
1.2.  Baseline  (option  2.0):  Programmatic  and  technical  elements  mainly 

fixed by basic law ........................................................................................ 62 

1.3.  Policy  option  2.1:  Programmatic  elements  fixed  by  law  /  technicalities 

more flexible ................................................................................................ 63 

1.4. Policy option 2.2: Programmatic / technical elements flexible ........................... 64 

1.5. Summary of impacts ............................................................................................ 66 

4 

 
 
 
1. 

INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT 

1.1. 

Background 

Official statistics and indicators are essential elements for evidence based policy making, both at 
the  national  and  the  EU  level,  and  for  social  and  economic  research.  Several  high  level  policy 
frameworks, like the European semester, including the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure, the 
Excessive  Deficit  Procedure  and  Europe  2020  intensively  use  statistical  information  and 
indicators comparable across EU. The very large majority of these data are compiled by Eurostat 
and  the  European  Statistical  System  (ESS)1.  Many  other  regulatory  frameworks,  processes  and 
monitoring  tools  at  EU  level  require  statistics  and  indicators,  in  the  forms  of  scoreboards, 
frameworks, organised indicators sets, etc.  

High  quality2  and  comprehensive  EU  statistics  are  therefore  essential  for  evidence  based  EU 
policy  making  and  monitoring.  They  are  also  needed  in  the  national  context,  as  national 
authorities have more and more the necessity to benchmark their situation in comparison with the 
rest  of  the  EU,  for  instance  in  terms  of  productivity,  taxation  or  social  protection  systems, 
employment  or  inequalities.  High  quality  and  encompassing  statistics  are  also  important  for 
improving the EU knowledge base,  for the citizens and the media, but also  largely in scientific 
and  applied  research  performed  by  scientists  and  other  researchers  that  can  help  to  identify 
important trends and future policy challenges, or explain why certain developments occur. Such 
research increases significantly the EU knowledge base and thus influences directly or indirectly 
(through  overall  better  knowledge  and  deep  insight  into  specific  issues)  the  effectiveness  of 
policy making in EU and Member States context. 

Moreover,  high  quality  statistics  are  needed  to  look  beyond  the  current  context:  their  existence 
will  allow  in  the  future  identifying  and  developing  new  policy  frameworks  and  targets.  The 
importance  of  statistics  is  not  limited  to  the  time  span  of  the  current  strategies.  To  take  an 
example  in  the  recent  past,  setting  up  the  indicator based  targets  for  the  EU 2020  strategy  was 
made  possible  only  because  the  statistical  base  was  rich  enough  to  measure  and  monitor  these 
targets.  At  this  occasion,  new  use  of  existing  data  showed  the  importance  of  developing  and 
maintaining basic statistics flexible enough to answer rapidly to new policy requirements. 

Over  the  last  decades,  the  role  and  importance  of  statistics,  as  well  as  the  mechanism  used  to 
produce  them  and  to  ensure  their  quality  have  been  reinforced  through  various  regulatory 
measures.  

In that context, the role of social statistics is becoming more and more important. Traditionally, 
several macroeconomic indicators have been used to monitor the socioeconomic situation in the 
EU  and  in  the  Member  States,  but  policies  increasingly  require  social  statistics  in  order  to 
elaborate  and  monitor  their  impact  on  citizens,  in  particular  relating  to  their  employment 
situation,  their  living  conditions,  education,  health,  etc.  The  Commission  has  explicitly 
underlined that social statistics should be treated on a par with macroeconomic statistics3. Social 
indicators  should  assist  in  reinforcing  the  social  dimension  of  the  European  Union  and  the 
European  Monetary  Union  (EMU)  in  the  context  of  the  European  Semester;  social  indicators 

1    The  ESS  is  the  partnership  between  the  Community  statistical  authority,  which  is  the  Commission 
(Eurostat),  and  the  national  statistical  institutes  (NSIs)  and  other  national  authorities  (ONAs) 
responsible  in  each  Member  State  for  the  development,  production  and  dissemination  of  European 
statistics.  

2 See the box on statistical quality under  section 2.1 
3 See for instance http://www.eesc.europa.eu/resources/docs/jean-claude-juncker---political-guidelines.pdf , 
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-14-546_en.htm  ,  https://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-
2019/thyssen/announcements/speech-general-assembly-social-platform_en 
, 
http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/assistance_eu_ms/greek_loan_facility/pdf/assessment_social_im
pact_en.pdf, 
http://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-2019/thyssen/announcements/keynote-speech-
annual-conference-director-generals-national-statistical-institutes-eu-member-states_en, 
http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-14102-2015-INIT/en/pdf     

5 

 
                                                      
should  fully  provide  evidence  for  EU  priorities  relating  to  jobs,  the  reduction  of  poverty  and 
social exclusion, improving skills and mobility. Also, the priorities that policies need to address 
may change and the need for high quality social statistics is expected to increase even further in 
the future, for instance in the context of the new European pillar of social rights. 

To support these objectives and requirements, social statistics need to be modernised to become 
more flexible and responsive to user requests; to improve timeliness; and to increase efficiency. 
The ESS which brings together the Commission (Eurostat) and the National Statistical Institutes, 
representing  the  Member  States,  have  agreed  that,  to  be  relevant,  this  modernisation  should  be 
based  in  particular  on  streamlining  social  surveys,  ensuring  reliable  sample  frames,  developing 
access and use of new data sources and on the standardisation of components and processes in the 
ESS. 
Therefore,  the  initiative  covered  by  this  impact  assessment  takes  place  in  a  context  that 
matches the priorities of the Commission and the analysis and orientations offered by the ESS. 

Social statistics can be grouped into three main categories, according to their data sources, their 
methods and their purposes. 

The  first  category  covers  the  “statistics  relating  to  households  and  persons”  usually  labelled 
social surveys. Actually, part of the information provided in that context  no longer comes from 
direct  interviews,  but  from  administrative  sources  that  allows  giving  information  for  the 
individuals or households that are part of the sample. The cost of collection of this information 
from administrative sources is lower, but does not eliminate the need for interviews, as not all the 
countries have access to administrative sources and not all the required information is present in 
the administrative sources  

The  second  category  comprises  the  statistics  collected  at  an  aggregated  level,  without  data  at 
individual  level.  This  concerns  for  instance  the  receipt  and  expenditure  of  the  social  protection 
systems, the health systems, the education systems. These data stem from administrative sources 
not individualised when transmitted to Eurostat. 

A third group consists in the data linked to population and demography, that were traditionally 
centred  on  the  decennial  census  but  that  are  nowadays  evolving  towards  new  forms  of  data 
capture, also linked to more efficient and accessible registration of individuals. 

All these categories are evolving. The modernisation programme for social statistics covers all of 
them. However, given their diversity and complexity, a stepwise approach has been taken that 
starts  with  social  surveys  which  represent  the  most  ambitious  domain  and  the  domain  that 
offers most possibilities for integration. The aggregated administrative data (second category) 
and the population and housing census (third category) will be dealt with at different stages of 
the modernisation process. 

The  current  production  of  European  statistics  on  persons  and  households  is  fragmented  into 
stove-piped domains that function independently from each other. This is related to the fact that, 
traditionally, each domain and its related statistical processes are governed by a specific survey, 
based on a separate regulation (or informal agreement) that aims to inform a particular economic 
or social topic, e.g. the labour force survey for unemployment or the adult education survey for 
lifelong learning. 

One  outstanding  feature  of  policy  making  at  EU  level,  is  that  it  requires  more  and  more 
multidimensional  information  in  the  form  of  statistical  data  that  encompass  several  dimensions 
and their interactions in a timely, flexible and responsive manner in order to address new policy 
priorities 

The  data  needs  under  the  current  high  level  policy  strategies  offer  good  illustrations  of  the 
improvements required in social statistics. For instance,  

6 

 
 
 

 

the  data  on  inequalities  and  poverty  are  available  too  late  for  being  fully  used  in  the 
context of the EU Semester, which is largely based on national accounts.  
some  domains  high  on  the  policy  agenda,  like  skills  and  human  capital  in  relation  to 
employability  and  the  labour  market  or  intra-EU  mobility  are  only  partially  covered: 
providing  statistical  evidence  on  the  issues  requires  the  combination  of  several  data 
sources including the labour force survey, the education survey, and the information and 
communications  technology    household  survey.  The  concerns  expressed  also  by  the 
Commission for fairness in policy making and the recent academic activities concerning 
rising  inequalities  requires  knowledge  of  the  joint  distribution  of  income,  consumption 
and wealth. Therefore, the compatibility and integration of income and living conditions 
survey, the household budget survey and more information on wealth are needed.  

  developing  information  on  ageing,  transition  to  retirements  and  the  silver  economy 
requires compatibility and integration between income and living conditions, health and 
labour force surveys, 

  developing information on new forms of work, linked  for instance to the working poor 
situations requires the possibility of organising quickly the collection of data by countries 
in the forms of modules attached to existing surveys. 

All in all, increasing new data needs and expectations, availability of new data sources, pressures 
on resources (cost and response burden) and innovations in methodology and IT create a quickly 
changing context for social statistics. 

Therefore,  social  statistics  have  to  continue  to  develop  and  improve  to  face  the  challenges  EU 
and Member States are confronted with. The main objectives of such developments are 

-  Responsiveness to users' needs, with appropriate level of quality and flexibility 
-  Efficiency of the production system, that takes advantage of innovation and of new data 
sources, and that takes into account the burden for respondents and costs for NSIs, in a 
context of declining resources for statistical production in the Member States. 

In  that  context,  it is  necessary  to  update  the  regulatory  framework  governing  the  production  of 
social  statistics  concerning  individuals  and  households  with  a  view  to  enabling  these 
improvements.  

1.2.  Objective of this report and procedural information elements 

As  a  renewed  legal  basis  for  the  production  of  EU  statistics  and  indicators  for  individuals  and 
households  is  being  reflected  upon,  a  revision  of  the  legal  acts  currently  in  force  has  been 
introduced in the agenda planning in the REFIT context (2014/ESTAT/002). The preparation of 
this impact assessment (IA) started in 2014 with the aim of comparing the impacts of different 
streamlining options. As this was prior to the adoption of the Better Regulation guidelines, there 
has  been  no  such  specific  evaluation  of  the  current  situation  done  to  support  this  initiative. 
However, the regular evaluation mechanism in place at Eurostat4 (quality reports, rolling reviews, 
evaluation  of  the  European  statistical  programme,  management  plans  as  well  as  an    ex-post 
analysis of the current situation e.g. through discussions with NSIs, interviews with main users, 
public consultation targeting general users and thorough desk research) formed a central element 
of the IA process. An inception impact assessment was published in July 20155. 

An  inter-service  steering  group  (ISG)  was  established  in  July  2015  and  involves  the  following 
DGs: Secretariat-General (SG), Budget (BUGET), Justice (JUST) Education and Culture (EAC), 
Neighbourhood  and  Enlargement  Negotiations  (NEAR),  Employment,  Social  Affairs  and 
Inclusion (EMPL), Migration and Home Affairs (HOME), Regional and Urban Policy (REGIO), 
Health and Food Safety (SANTE), Economic and Financial Affairs (ECFIN) and Internal Market, 
Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (GROW), as well as the Legal Service (SJ). The ISG met 

4 See http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/evaluation  
5 See: http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/roadmaps/docs/2014_estat_002_social_statistics_en.pdf 

7 

 
 
                                                      
twice prior to the submission of the IA draft report to the Regulatory Scrutiny Board (RSB), the 
first meeting was held on 9 July 2015, and the second took place on 27 January 2016. 

1.3. 

Consultation of interested parties 

As statistics are produced for policy users and by data producers in the Member States (national 
statistical  institutes  –  NSIs),  the  consultation  of  these  stakeholders  that  would  be  the  most 
affected by a change in requirements had a particular importance in the context of this IA. 

The input from stakeholders (in particular the new requests from users and the constraints by the 
NSIs)  has  been  extensively  considered  and  analysed  during  the  reflection  on  the  need  for  a 
renewed legislative basis for social statistics. They were also consulted at the occasion of this IA. 
The  approach  to  and  methodology  of  the  consultation  have  been  agreed  upon  by  the  ISG.  The 
consultation  was  carried  out  during  July-December  2015.  Annex  2  contains  a  more  detailed 
overview  of  the  consultation  process  and  an  overview  of  the  main  results.  Separate  reports 
contain the results per type of stakeholder that are accessible as hyperlinked and listed in annex 2. 

 

The following stakeholders were targeted for consultation:   
 

Data producers: this category comprises the authorities responsible for the collection and 
compilation  of  social  statistics.  It  mainly  includes  the  NSIs  and  Eurostat.  However,  in 
this  context,  the  data  producers  are  at  the  same  time  the  main  representative  of  the 
primary data providers, i.e. the households and persons.  
Data  providers:  this  category  includes  not  only  the  respondents  but  also  national 
institutions that are keepers of administrative data files, such as for example, Ministries, 
the  national  Social  Security  or  Tax  Administration.  The  NSIs  in  the  broader  sense,  are 
seen  as  a  proxy  of  the  primary  data  providers  (i.e.  households  and  persons),  given  the 
difficulty of conducting stakeholder interviews within this category.  
Data  users:  within  this  group  a  distinction  can  be  made  between  institutional  users  – 
Commission  DGs  users,  national  administrations,  other  international  organisations,  or 
professional staff working within other EU institutions, and other external users, such as 
mass media and academics. 

Amongst  data  users,  a  special  mention  of  a  particular  body  that  has  been  consulted  should  be 
made:  the  European  Statistical  Advisory  Committee  (ESAC),  established  in  2008,  by  the 
Decision  No  234/2008/EC  of  the  European  Parliament  and  the  Council.  It gathers  24  members 
representing  users,  respondents  and  other  stakeholders  of  European  Statistics  (including  the 
scientific community, social partners and civil society) as well as institutional users (like e.g., the 
Council  and  the  European  Parliament)  According  to  article  8  of  the  Statistical  Regulation 
(223/2009), the ESAC could be consulted in the process of possible new legislation.  

The consultations, their process, consultation instruments and results are detailed in three specific 
reports6.  

1.4. 

 Content of the report 

This  report  sets  out  to  define  the  problems  (chapter  2)  and  explain  the  need  for  an  EU  action 
(chapter 3). Next, the objectives to be achieved (chapter 4) and the policy options envisaged are 
presented  (chapter  5).  These  policy  options  include  both  baseline  and  alternative  scenarios. 
Chapter 6 is dedicated to the analysis of the impacts of the policy options and chapter 7 presents 

6 Eurostat public consultation webpage: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/about/opportunities/consultations/iess  
Open  public  consultation  report:  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/10186/7237349/Open-public-
consultation-report.pdf  
Consultation  of  the  data  users:    http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/10186/7237349/Data-users-
consultation-report.pdf 
Consultation  of 
producers-consultation-report.pdf 

the  data  producers:  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/10186/7237349/Data-

8 

 
 
                                                      
an  optimal  solution  and  its  impacts.  Lastly,  chapter  8  explains  the  monitoring  and  evaluation 
activities that could be foreseen.  

Additional information is presented in five annexes:  

Procedural information 
Stakeholder consultation, including hyperlinks to three separate consultation reports  

(1) 
(2) 
(3)  Who is affected by the initiative and how 
(4) 
(5) 

Analytical models used in preparing the IA 
Details on the IA of the options addressing the rigidity of the data collection. 

9 

 
 
 
2.  PROBLEM DEFINITION: WHAT IS THE PROBLEM AND WHY IS IT A PROBLEM 

2.1. 

Background 

The context of producing social statistics has been changing substantially and rapidly. The  ESS 
has  recognised  the  challenges  in  high-level  policy  documents,  such  as  the  Wiesbaden 
Memorandum for the modernisation of social statistics, the ESS Vision and the ESS strategy. The 
text  below  briefly  explores  these  challenges  and  focuses  on  how  these  relate  to  the  European 
system of social statistics and its legislative environment.  

Former analysis and consultations7 allowed for establishing a list of problems in social statistics 
and possible relations of causality between drivers and problems. This list was described in the 
documents  accompanying  the  consultation  with  stakeholders  for  discussion  and  opinion.  The 
consulted  stakeholders  –  general  users,  policy  users  and  NSIs  -  acknowledged  such  problems. 
The perceived problems can be summarised as follows:  

• 

• 

Data  users  are  concerned  with  the  risk  of  European  official  statistics  lacking 
relevance  (usefulness),  due  to  a  combination  of  availability  and  quality  issues 
(coverage  of  emerging  social  issues,  insufficient  and  constrained  timeliness  and 
limited comparability and coherence); 
Data  producers  (NSIs)  are  concerned  with  the  production  costs,  the  budget 
constraints  or  reductions  and  the  pressure  to  cover  the  informational  needs  in  a 
context of emerging social crises within a short timeframe. Response burden is also 
an issue (risk of decreasing response rates and thereby, data quality). NSIs indicate 
they  receive  insufficient  support  for  their  modernisation  processes  (innovation  in 
technology,  methodology,  use  of  new  data  sources,  management,  etc.),  through 
which they intend to address the need of decreasing production costs.  

Statistical quality8 

This document often refers to quality of statistics. This concept is multidimensional and well defined in the 
ESS.  It  concerns  first  the  quality  of  the  statistical  output,  as  spelt  out  in  the  regulation  2009/223  on 
European statistics, in terms of: 

-  Relevance: meeting the users' needs, 
-  Accuracy and reliability: portraying accurately and reliably the reality, 
-  Timeliness  and  punctuality,  referring  both  to  the  fast  availability  of  information  and  its 

publication at the time foreseen, 

-  Coherence  and  comparability:  statistics  are  consistent  internally,  over  time  and  comparable 
between regions and countries; it is possible to combine and make joint use of related data from 
different sources, 

-  Accessibility and clarity: statistics are presented in a clear and understandable form, released in a 
suitable  and  convenient  manner,  available  and  accessible  on  an  impartial  basis  with  supporting 
metadata and guidance. 

One  can  see  that  it  is  sometimes  needed  to  make  some  trade-offs  between  the  different  dimensions  of 
quality,  for  instance,  increasing  timeliness  could  come  at  the  cost  of  accuracy,  with  for  instance  the 
publication of provisional data. 

Furthermore, not only the quality of the output has to be considered in a quality assurance framework, but 
also  consideration  about  institutional  environment  (like  statistical  independence)  or  control  over  the 
processes, that includes non-excessive burden. 

7  Consultations  and  analysis  were  carried  on  at  the  occasion  of  the  various  institutionalised  events  and 
procedures within the ESS (ESSC meetings, directors group meetings, working groups, etc.) as well as 
with the users (bilateral meetings, annual systematic hearings, ISC, etc.). 
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/64157/4392716/ESS-QAF-V1-2final.pdf/bbf5970c-1adf-46c8-
afc3-58ce177a0646  

8 

10 

 
 
                                                      
This  chapter  presents  the  problems  related  to  the  existing  legal  bases  in  the  area  of  European 
social statistics. It starts by identifying the underlying problem drivers. Subsequently, it presents 
the  problems  identified,  which  can  be  classified  in  a  broad  category  of  ineffectiveness  and 
inefficiencies.  The  context  of  the  European  social  statistics  changes  rapidly  and  therefore,  also 
contributes to problems. For this reason, such contextual factors are also explicitly discussed.  

2.2. 

Problem drivers 

The stakeholder consultation and additional available documents provided input for the problem 
definition. This section starts with the identified problem drivers, after which the main problems 
are presented. The concluding section summarises the problems and their drivers as described in 
this section by means of a problem tree. The following problem drivers have been identified: 

• 
• 

Domain fragmentation of social statistics.  
Inflexibility of data collection on persons and households. 

These will be described in more detail below. 

2.2.1.  Domain fragmentation of social statistics 

For many decades, the production of European statistics has been based on a model in which the 
NSIs  produce  their  national  statistics  in  a  particular  domain,  based  on  manuals  and  guidelines 
provided by Eurostat. The production of statistics in Member States operates through the various 
production  lines  or  processes  of  the  different  statistical  domains.  For  each  domain,  the  whole 
production  process  from  survey  design  over  data  collection  and  processing  to  dissemination, 
takes place independently of other domains, and each has its own data suppliers and user groups. 
In  order  to  guarantee  comparability  and  consistency  among  the  data  of  all  Member  States,  the 
output  from  NSIs  is  harmonised  ex  ante  at  EU  level  according  to  agreed  standards  that  vary 
across the data collections. This "stovepipe model" is the outcome of a long historic process, in 
which  statistics  in  individual  domains  have  developed  in  low  coordination  from  one  another, 
even if the intention was to maintain consistency between them. 

An  illustrative  example  of  the  barrier  that  the  domain  fragmentation  presents  is  the  integrated 
statistical  analysis  at  household  level  of  the  income,  consumption  and  wealth  (ICW).  At  micro 
data  level,  ICW  data  have  traditionally  been  collected  separately,  which  does  not  allow  joint 
distributions to be fully captured. At EU level, three data sources are available: 

 

 

 

SILC:  a  harmonised  and  regulated  survey  that  covers  income  in  detail  as  well  as  the 
living conditions of the households; 
HBS: a partially harmonised and non-regulated survey that covers consumption in detail 
and also income in several countries; 
the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS): financed and run by the ECB 
for  the  Euro  area  and  a  few  pre-in  countries,  it  covers  wealth  in  detail,  main  income 
components and some elements of consumption. 

The  current  legal  structure  that  governs  the  production  of  European  statistics  on  persons  and 
households  reflects  this  stovepipe  model.  There  are  currently  five  legal  bases  adopted  by  the 
European  Parliament  and  the  Council  for  European  social  surveys  which  are  listed  in  the  table 
below. Several of these acts are complemented by additional application measures. 

11 

 
•  LFS:  Council  Regulation  (EC)  No  577/98  of  9  March  1998,  on  the  organisation  of  a  labour  force 

sample survey in the Community, OJ L 77, 14.3.1998. p. 3–7 

•  SILC: Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 June 2003 
concerning Community statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC), OJ L 165, 3.7.2003, p. 
1–9 

•  AES: Regulation (EC) No 452/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 
concerning the production and development of statistics on education and lifelong learning, OJ L 145, 
4.6.2008, p. 227–233 

•  EHIS: Regulation (EC) No 1338/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 
2008 on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work, OJ L 354, 31.12.2008, p. 
70–81 
ICT-HH:  Regulation  (EC)  No  808/2004  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of  21  April 
2004 concerning Community statistics on the information society, OJ L 143, 30.4.2004, p. 49–55 

• 

The current legislative system regulating European Social Statistics is mainly output-based. The 
various domain-specific Regulations list for each of the different data collections the type of data 
that NSIs need to collect, and subsequently list the technical quality criteria that the data needs to 
meet.  As  a  result,  the  current  legal  system  does  not  include  common  principles  that  would 
support the integration between the different domains. 

2.2.2. 

Inflexibility of data collection on persons and households 

The five domain-specific regulations for social surveys fix the contents and the required detailed 
requirements of the data collection (sample size, quality criteria, transmission requirements, etc.). 
As a result, each element that needs to be changed, either technical in nature or with regard to the 
statistical  programming,  needs  to  undergo  a  lengthy  process  involving  multiple  organisations 
(NSIs and ONA,  other  Commission services, international organisations with whom cooperation 
agreements  for  statistical  production  are  implemented  like  the  OECD,  the  ILO,  the  WHO),  to 
then finally, most of the time, enter the ordinary legislative procedure and be voted upon by the 
European  Parliament  and  Council.  Under  the  current  legal  setup  very  technical  matters  (on  the 
scope  of  statistical  operations,  on  variable  definitions  and  breakdowns,  etc.)  is  referred  to  the 
Parliament  and  Council,  which  risks  diverting  their  attention  away  from  the  essential  task  of 
balancing European information requirements against cost and response burden. 

As  an  example,  the  Regulation  (EU)  No  545/2014  on  the  organisation  of  a  labour  force  survey  (LFS) 
foresees some possibilities for a limited set of variables to be collected each year so as to answer specific 
policy needs. However, the programme of collection of this limited set has to be prepared long in advance. 
As  a  result,  the  first  discussion  for  the  programme  covering  the  period  2019-2021  had  to  start  in  the 
working groups in 2014.  These discussions with Member States experts have just been finalised and the 
draft  legal  act  launched  in  February  2016.  As  a  result,  the  possibility  to  adapt  to  emerging  needs  until 
2022 cannot any longer be envisaged in the LFS context.  

2.3. 

Problems currently faced 

In  the  context  of  societal  changes,  the  problem  drivers  described  above  lead  to  a  number  of 
issues. As will be shown in more detail below, each of these problems impacts the role of social 
statistics  as  input  for  policymaking.  The  ultimate  consequence  of  this  is  that  the  statistics 
collected  by  Eurostat  risk  gradually  losing  relevance  for  policymakers  and  other  data  users.  At 
the  same  time,  under  the  influence  of  the  identified  problems9,  the  system  of  social  statistics 
becomes  increasingly inefficient,  in  the  sense  that  the  cost  of  data  production  and  the  response 
burden  are  higher  than  strictly  necessary.  Three  problems  have  been  distinguished  that  risk 
diminishing the relevance of social statistics:  

9 Other problems, beyond the direct Eurostat remit are also to mention: budget cuts for statistics in Member 
States,  increasing  disinterest  of  citizens  decreasing  the  response  rates,  practical  impossibilities  to 
access some specific sub-populations, like those affected by extreme poverty and small minorities, or 
to measure cross border phenomena.  

12 

 
 
                                                      
• 
• 
• 

Lack of responsiveness to users’ needs; 
Quality issues; 
Hampered use of innovative methods of data collection and of available data sources. 

In  addition,  the  combination  of  these  three  problems,  when  set  against  the  greater  context  of 
societal changes, also contributes to increasing inefficiencies: 

• 

Inability to reduce and limit cost and burden of data collection. 

These  weaknesses  show  that  the  current  system  of  social  statistics  has  reached  its  limits  in  the 
current regulatory framework. 

2.3.1.  Lack of responsiveness to societal needs 

The  availability  of  timely  and  high  quality  social  statistics  that  are  in  particular  coherent  and 
comparable  across  various  social  domains  is  a  crucial  input  for  policymaking  in  the  European 
Union,  both  at  EU  and  national  levels.  The  Commission’s  initiative  on  Smart  Regulation 
emphasises  the  importance  of  high  quality  data,  for  instance  to  monitor  headline  targets  under 
Europe 2020, such as the employment, education and social inclusion targets.  

The  emerging  information  needs  for  the  identification  of  new  societal  challenges  and  changes 
(for  example  on  ageing  populations,  changing  labour  markets,  globalisation,  migration  or 
sustainability),  and  the  increasing  use  in  EU  policies  of  quantitative  objectives  and  thresholds 
making use of statistical indicators, increasingly confront Eurostat and the NSIs with high quality 
requirements – including timeliness – for new indicators .  

The  European  Statistical  Advisory  Committee  (ESAC)  underlines  the  need  for  the  European 
Statistical  System  to  develop  possibilities  that  allow  linking  micro-  and  macro-data,  ensure 
timeliness  and  access  to  indicators  with  more  disaggregation,  and  integrate  different  social 
groups.  However,  under  the  current  system,  many  changes  to  the  existing  data  collections,  or 
methodological innovations, have to be changed in the main legal act. This requires having these 
changes approved by the European Parliament and Council before they can be implemented. This 
constitutes  a 
the 
responsiveness to societal needs. 

legislative  process,  which  has  considerable  consequences  for 

long 

A  good  illustration  of  this  situation  is  that  when  social  topics  are  not  covered  by  European 
official  statistics,  the  European  Commission  and  other  EU  institutions  collect  and  disseminate 
other  statistical  operations  (e.g.  the  Eurobarometer,  the  European  Social  Survey,  the  European 
Quality  of  Life  Survey)  which  can  respond  quicker  to  aspects  of  emerging  information  needs. 
However, these do not benefit from the technical support of EU NSIs and therefore, do not have a 
similar high level of statistical quality.  

Furthermore,  the  rise  of  various  technologies  has  raised  users’  expectations  to  receive 
information  quickly  and  as  a  personalised  service.  Influenced  by  increased  availability  of  data 
processing and visualisation software, “data fluent” users increasingly demand more quantity and 
quality data. Moreover, the use of Internet has made users more and more accustomed to being 
able to find the information they look for in a timely manner. Official statistics may look sluggish 
in comparison. 

A striking example relates to the objectives of more timely availability and dissemination of SILC data. The 
main aims are to significantly advance the dissemination date from December N+2 (delay that would not 
be imaginable in non-official surveys) to December of year N+1, with first estimates in June N+1. Today's 
information  market  can  meet  this  demand  for  quick  and  inexpensive  data,  albeit  at  an  (often)  rather 
dubious quality.  

Finally, the current design of domain-specific regulations requires NSIs to collect social statistics 
according to a similar domain-specific approach. While it produces important and useful data in 
each  of  the  specific  domains,  it  is  of  limited  use  for  collecting  data  on  phenomena  that  cover 
multiple dimensions, such as inequalities, mobility, globalisation or climate change.  

13 

 
These problems were recognised by producers and users alike in the consultation process:  

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

NSIs  agree  that  the  slow  capacity  of  the  ESS  to  adapt  to  new  information  needs  will 
cause loss of relevance of European statistics (7/10) 10.  
However,  NSIs  consider  that  the  loss  of  relevance  is  not  so  much  due  to  fragmented 
legislation, than to the inability to quickly react to users’ needs. At the same time, there 
are  opinions  that  a  legal  framework  easing  the  use  of  administrative  sources  would 
facilitate combining sources and allow for the inclusion of new relevant topics that would 
increase the relevance of social statistics. 
Without  neglecting  what  has  been  done  so  far,  European  policymakers  require  more 
responsiveness  from  the  ESS.  Better  responsiveness  implies  the  ability  to  quickly 
accommodate  emerging  informational  needs  into  the  European  statistical  programmes 
(multi-annual and annual), but also into the national statistical plans. A specific wish is 
for SILC data to be available earlier, with very significantly improved timeliness. 
The information needs of data users in general (e.g. researchers, media, interest groups, 
businesses,  NGOs,  etc.)  were  to  some  extent,  not  met  over  the  last  year  or  two  (e.g. 
topics related to social impact of the crisis). Furthermore, those data users that need more 
timely  data  (e.g.  business,  freelancers,  media  and  NGOs)  are  not  satisfied  with  the 
capacity of adaptation of European social statistics to new user needs.  
From  the  point  of  view  of  data  users,  greater  attention  to  social  developments  and 
simplification  of  legal  procedures  would  improve  the  relevance  and  timeliness  of 
European social statistics.  

2.3.2.  Quality issues of data collection 

In general, European social statistics are considered to be of high quality. Concerns expressed in 
the area of data quality are with regards to two major issues:  

• 

• 

the  use  of  new  methods  of  data  collection  (including  administrative  sources)  has  to  be 
framed within the regular quality scheme; 
coherence between data from different surveys has to be better ensured. 

The use of modern data collection techniques is not sufficiently supported by current European 
legislation.  Because  statistical  legislation  is  mainly  output-based,  NSIs  have  often  chosen 
different directions based on the national contexts and needs. At European level, this leads to the 
need to better frame the data quality. NSIs acknowledge that this diversity of approaches poses 
considerable problems for the coherence and comparability of social statistics. 

Coherence between different social data collections, another dimension of quality, is fundamental 
to address multi-dimensional social issues. Both NSIs and users consider the lack of coherence 
and  comparability  of  social  statistical  operations  to  be  a  consequence  of  the  methodological 
aspects  and  of  the  historical  development  of  European  social  statistics  as  separate  “stovepipes” 
with  distinct  methodologies  and  production  processes.  The  existing  regulations  either  have 
perpetuated  or  have  not  addressed  these  situations.  The  fragmented  legal  framework  poses  an 
immediate  challenge  to  overcoming  the  lack  of  coherence  and  comparability  between  data 
collections, as any uniform change to quality requirements on social data collection needs to be 
amended in all domain-specific regulations.  

The lack of coherence across  European social statistics is a major problem for all stakeholders, 
however, especially so for the users. 

An illustrative example is the different reference periods for measuring the participation in adult learning, 
information required by the Europe 2020 Agenda. The LFS considers the past 4 weeks while the AES refers 
to  the  past  12  months,  leading  to  different  results,  lack  of  understanding  of  the  statistical  sources  and 
possibly lack of focus in the corresponding social policies. 

10 From here, this notation refers to the relevance on a 0-10 scale as valued by the NSIs in the consultation 
(survey); in this case it refers to the magnitude of this problem, the degree to which slow capacity of 
the ESS to adapt to new information needs will cause loss of relevance of European statistics. 

14 

 
                                                      
The  results  of  the  open  public  consultation  showed  that  the  respondents  perceived  that  social 
surveys were not fully coherent or aligned. It is important to highlight that data other than official 
statistics  from  Eurostat  have  been  used  by  the  respondents  with  a  certain  frequency,  due  to 
perceived incoherence and comparability problems.  

Producers of European statistics also consider the lack of coherence and comparability (in time, 
between  countries)  a  major  issue;  when  asked  about  the  magnitude  of  this  problem  on  a  scale 
from  0-10,  NSIs  awarded  this  problem  on  average  with  a  7,  while  NSIs  in  10  Member  States 
awarded this problem between 8-10.  

2.3.3.  Hampered use of innovative methods and sources 

Modern  statistical  production  comprises  increasingly  integrated  business  processes  in  order  to 
exploit  the  strongly  growing  capacities  of  information  technology.  Such  integrated  business 
processes  comprise  e.g.  multi-source/cross-domain  data  integration,  integrated  management  of 
registers  and  statistical  frames,  creation/maintenance  of  common  infrastructure,  common 
standards  and  tools  for  data  processing,  exchange  and  dissemination  and  standardised  quality 
assessments.  Very  often  developments  in  one  Member  State  could  be  implemented  in  others, 
leading to cost reduction, with the condition that procedures are standardised.  

A pilot exercise showed the potential of the use of innovative statistical methods know as data matching, 
not currently envisaged in the legal texts, as a tool to produce additional, cross-survey data. The potential 
benefits of this approach lie in the possibility to enhance the complementary use and analysis of existing 
data  sources  (for  instance,  labour  and  wage  surveys),  without  further  increasing  costs  and  response 
burden. The study11 showed that, without ex-ante design of surveys – a consequence of the stovepipe model 
- to facilitate the application of the technique, the results lack the necessary quality. 

As  the  use  of  modern  data  collection  techniques  is  not  sufficiently  supported  by  the  current 
European legislation, NSIs have often chosen different directions based on the national contexts 
and  needs.  For  some  Member  States,  the  absence  of  provisions  in  European  legislation  is  the 
main  impediment  towards  developing  innovative  methods.  Some  NSIs  for  instance,  report  that 
European legislation promoting the use of administrative registers would make it easier for them 
to  obtain  access  to  such  registers.  In  addition  to  legal  provisions,  most  NSIs  indicate  that 
technical  work  at  EU  level  on  harmonising  concepts  used  by  administrative  registers  with  the 
statistical standards would also benefit the quality of statistics. 

New data sources and collection tools and conditions for their use in statistics 

The “internet footprint” or “big data” is a promising new data source. It is being seriously investigated by 
Eurostat and the NSIs. At this stage, it is acknowledged that these data sources can act as early signals, like 
for instance in the case of increasing internet activity linked to job search, with some limitations. In some 
statistical domains like transports, more is to be expected in the shorter run. Still, one should also have in 
mind that big data cannot at this stage give an unemployment rate and that no analysis of the increase of 
internet  job  search  can  be  performed,  like  for  instance  by  age,  sex,  duration  of  the  unemployment  spell, 
characteristics of the households, occupation and skills, etc. 

The use of administrative data for statistical purposes is an on-going process. It refers to the fact that the 
statistical  authority,  instead  of  asking  some  information  to  the  respondent,  is  retrieving  this  information 
about  the  respondent  from  existing  administrative  sources  collected  for  other  purposes.  This  approach  is 
quite cost effective, as it limits the interview time (main source of costs for surveys) and sometime  some 
types of errors. Some limitations have however to be noted  

 

 

Not  all  the  Member  States  have  access  to  the  administrative  sources,  due  to  regulatory  or 
administrative environment or due to their non-existence. 
The  administrative  sources  do  not  cover  all  the  required  information.  It  is  recognised  that,  for 
instance, unemployment (with the internationally ILO accepted definition) can only be collected 
through  interviews.  Administrative  data  sources  are  built  for  the  administrative  purpose  they 
pursue:  they  do  not  reflect  directly  the  statistical  concept  intended  to  be  measured  (further 

11 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=KS-RA-13-020 

15 

 
                                                      
processing  is  needed  in  order  to  ensure  adaptation  to  the  common  concept),  their  coverage  and 
update are not necessarily those of the statistical activity, several administrative sources of diverse 
quality might be in existence for the same information, etc. 
A  special  mention  should  be  made  about  timeliness:  administrative  data  are  produced  at  their 
rhythm, which is in several instances too slow for the users’ requirements. 
Administrative data organisations are very diverse across Member States and not comparable. 
In  Member  States  highly  advanced  with  the  use  of  administrative  data,  the  users’  questions  are 
often  reformulated  in  a  way  that  is  answerable  by  administrative  sources.  Considering  the 
diversity of the situation in the Member States, this approach is not an option for EU statistics. 

 

 
 

New data collection tools and innovative approaches are being developed. In particular, the use of the web 
interview  is  growing.  It  is  an  efficient  approach.  However,  one  should  also  keep  in  mind  that  the 
experiments made are showing a selection bias (those answering differs from the “normal” population) and 
a mode effect (the respondent does not give necessarily the same answer in front of the computer and in a 
face to face interview) and also that the data collector does not know who has answered. 

From what has been explained, it could be concluded that new data sources and collection methods are to 
be promoted, as more efficient. However, it can also be concluded that quality concerns are significantly 
present  in  these  new  forms,  in  particular  concerning  timeliness,  comparability,  accuracy  and  possible 
biases.  Therefore,  progress  in  that  direction  should  be  framed  further  by  adapted  methodologies  and 
experiments and their use legally linked with the quality they are able to provide. The envisaged scenarios 
fully support this approach. 

All things considered, the restrictions in using innovative methods and sources increasingly show 
the  limits  of  the  current  legal  setup  for  European  social  statistics.  Ultimately,  this  would  also 
have strong repercussions for policymakers. 

2.3.4. 

Inability to reduce and limit costs for social statistics 

In the previous section, several issues were highlighted that influence both the effectiveness and 
the efficiency of the European social statistics data collection. In particular, 

• 
• 

• 

• 

Many changes require modifying the legal basis through a long legislative process. 
Setting  up  alternative  data  collection  by  the  users  may  result  in  inefficient  use  of 
resources. 
Using  innovative  data  collection  methods  and  IT,  as  well  as  using  alternative  sources, 
can  improve  efficiency,  while  preserving  or  increasing  the  quality  of  statistics,  but  the 
use of new methods and sources can be at odds with the current Regulations as they are 
developed with more traditional forms of statistical production in mind. 
In  some  Member  States,  the  absence  of  provisions  in  European  legislation  is  the  main 
impediment for developing innovative methods. Both obtaining access to administrative 
sources and learning from other NSI’s experiences, were mentioned in this context. NSIs 
consider  the  exchange  of  experiences,  tools  and  techniques  in  IT  and  data  collection 
solutions amongst Member States to be valuable (e.g. through the collaborative networks 
across the ESS). 

In  addition,  the  current  “stovepipe”  environment  has  led  to  inefficiencies  in  the  sense  of 
avoidable costs for NSIs and increasing burden for respondents, as the same information has to 
be collected in several data collections. The European Statistical Advisory Committee also refers 
to  the  need  to  limit  the  burden  placed  on  data  producers  and  call  for  more  coordinating  of  the 
various surveys.  

Finally,  significant  elements  of  methodologies  for  social  surveys  differ  from  one  survey  to 
another,  decreasing  data  comparability.  The  work  on  standardisation  of  social  variables  has 
indeed  identified  up to 45 variables that appear in different statistical operations.  Various NSIs 
report in the consultation that they have attempted to integrate the production of social statistics. 
However, such potential cost-savings due to harmonisation at national level are largely undone, 

16 

 
 
 
because  the  current  legal  environment  requires  the  NSIs  to  transmit  their  data  according  to  the 
domain-specific methods. 

2.4. 

Assessing the costs of social statistics 

2.4.1.  Estimating the costs of the current situation 

This section presents a rough estimate of the costs of social statistics. This baseline estimation on 
the cost of social statistics is based on the input received from stakeholders. Estimating the cost 
of surveys is a complex task, and has been debated by NSIs for decades. Attempts to standardise 
the  methods  for  cost  accounting  have  been  made,  but  they  are  generally  focused  on  household 
surveys carried out on a project basis. For recurrent surveys carried out by NSIs, some costs are 
spread  over  the  entire  statistical  production  (e.g.  management  costs  of  NSIs,  IT  infrastructure, 
training  of  specialists).  In  the  case  of  social  statistics  using  administrative  registers,  the 
accounting for costs of the process of collecting such administrative records is not borne by NSIs, 
but  is  still  covered  by  government  budgets.  However,  the  additional  costs  for  transmission  to 
NSIs  for  statistical  purposes  are  marginal  with  respect  to  the  administrative  data  collection 
system.  Differences  in  staff  salaries  and  country  size  in  terms  of  population  and  territory,  add 
difficulties  in  obtaining  comparable  data.  Differences  in  frequency  of  surveys  require  the 
consideration of an annualised cost division of the total costs of a survey by the number of years 
between rounds (for instance, the cost of a survey carried out every 5 years is simply annualised 
by dividing this total cost by 5). 

It is important to note that the production process has a significant impact on overall cost levels. 
The  use  of  modern  technologies  for  data  collection  (e.g.  telephone  or  web-based  collection  vs 
face-to-face  interviews  or  re-use  of  administrative  registers  already  collected),  efficient  data 
processing  (re-use  of  software  for  data  entry,  validation  and  tabulation)  and  data  dissemination 
(standardised publication processes) etc., can decrease the production costs in the medium- and 
long-term after the initial investments are absorbed.  

Not  all  countries  were  able  to  provide  cost  estimates  with  the  breakdown  by  broad  statistical 
phases (design, data collection and data treatment  and dissemination). No information has been 
collected on the disaggregation of costs according to investments for each phase of the statistical 
process (e.g. development of new tools for data collection) and current expenditure (e.g. salaries 
of interviewers carrying out the data collection). Therefore, the figures presented in this section 
have to be considered  with care, as they do not represent a detailed accountancy of the cost of 
social surveys.  

The  aggregative  costs  of  the  production  of  the  social  surveys  considered  for  social  statistics 
amounts to roughly €294 million for implementing each of the surveys in the reporting  Member 
States. If we break down the costs of all surveys per year, as indicated in the table below, then 
this amounts to €176 million per year.  

Table 1: Costs and interview duration of the different surveys 

Survey 

LFS 

HBS 

SILC 

HETUS 

EHIS 

AES 

HHICT 

Total 

Interview duration 
(Median in minutes) 
19.0 

Aggregated Cost (Mio€) 

Frequency 

112.9 

4 waves per year 

Annualised cost 
(Mio€) 
112.9 

97.5 

55.0 

73.0 

35.0 

30.0 

20.0 

Every 5 years 

Annual 

Every 10 years 

Every 5 years 

Every 5 years 

Annual 

16.7 

29.8 

2.5 

4.3 

2.9 

7.1 

176.2 

83.5 

29.8 

24.9 

21.7 

14.3 

7.1 

294.1 

17 

 
 
 
Such  data  for  other  statistical  domains  do  not  exist  on  a  systematic  basis  at  Eurostat.  It  is 
therefore  not  possible  to  compare  the  costs  of  social  surveys  and  other  statistical  costs.  To 
contextualise these amounts, it is perhaps useful to note that the annualised costs corresponds to 
less than 5 per thousand of one percent (4.6 10-5) of the total social protection expenditure at EU 
level, and one per thousand of percent of the EU GDP. 

On average, the cost of collecting information about one observation unit (a person or household) 
is around 100€, with substantial differences for the diary-based surveys  and between countries. 
The  bulk  of  the  cost  for  all  surveys  corresponds  to  the  data  collection  phase  (where  a  large 
number of interviewers have to be mobilised for the traditional modes of face to face interview, 
be it on paper or with computer).  

2.4.2.  Defining the parameters for cost estimations  

The  estimate  in  the  previous  paragraph  forms  the  baseline  scenario.  However,  the  baseline 
scenario also consists of a number of parameters that directly influence the estimation of costs for 
each of the policy options in Chapter 6. Firstly, the types of costs that are relevant for analysis are 
listed below:  

• 

• 

• 

• 

Cost of legislative action: it consists of the costs of legal procedures and discussions to 
prepare  and  approve  a  new  legal  document.  This  can  be  considered  as  negligible 
compared to the cost of statistical production and dissemination; 
Cost  of  activities  corresponding  to  the  design  phase  of  statistical  operations:  these 
include  the  preliminary  studies  for  defining/testing  new  methodologies,  the  work  of 
highly specialised staff in NSIs and Eurostat, the assessment of quality of new sources (if 
promoted), the development of IT tools to implement the modifications in the production 
and dissemination process, etc. They are estimated as 14% of the total cost according to 
the consultation with NSIs; 
Costs  of  data  collection:  estimated  at  65%  of  the  total  cost,  they  include  salaries  of 
interviewers, printing and sending questionnaires, telephone calls, etc., depending on the 
modes of collection used; 
Costs  of  data  treatment  and  dissemination:  estimated  at  22%  of  the  total  cost,  they 
require the use of IT tools (software and hardware) and specialised staff. 

Table 2: Structure of the costs by statistical stage 

Survey 

HETUS 

Design (in % of the 
total cost) 
14.7 

Data collection  (in % of 
the total cost) 
63.1 

Data treatment and dissemination 
(in % of the total cost) 
22.2 

HBS 

SILC 

AES 

LFS 

EHIS 

HHICT 

Average 

10.6 

11.6 

16.9 

9.8 

15.7 

16.7 

13.6 

69.6 

64.3 

58.2 

72.6 

65.0 

58.3 

64.5 

19.8 

24.1 

24.9 

17.7 

20.0 

26.3 

22.1 

2.4.3.  Potential for costs reduction 

The structure of the surveys costs in table 2 shows clearly that the margins for efficiency gains 
are larger in the data collection and the field work, as they are the most resource intensive. 

The  following  elements  of  the  envisaged  measures  have  been  identified  as  having  a  significant 
potential to reduce these costs for NISs: 

18 

 
 
-  The  replacement  of  variables  collected  from  the  respondents  by  administrative  records.  It 
could  not  be  quantified  in  terms  of  cost  (the  replacement  requires  carrying  out  preliminary 
studies,  quality  checks  of  the  administrative  data,  modification  of  data  entry,  validation, 
processing  and  dissemination  tools).  However,  the  consultation  to  NSIs  asked  for  current 
intentions to replace survey by administrative data for the social surveys, showing that there 
is margin for an increased use and therefore response burden reduction. NSIs intentions are 
going in that direction and are documented in the consultation report.  

-  The  use  of  new  forms  of  interviewing  the  respondent,  in  particular  the  web-interviews. 
Several NSIs are in the exploratory phases needed to assess the feasibility and the resulting 
quality of these techniques. No consolidated assessment of the burden reduction exists, but a 
realistic order of magnitude would consider that if 30% of the respondents accept to answer 
by web interview, the data collection costs could be reduced by 20%. 

-  The integration of the methods and concepts used in all the social surveys can allow Member 
States  to  have  a  global  design  of  their  national  systems.  It  is  heavily  required  by  some 
stakeholders in the data producers' consultation. 

-  The  unification  of  the  data  collection  planning,  the  transmission  standards,  the  quality 
requirements,  the  sampling  frame  and  quality  reporting  requirements  would  also  allow  to 
streamline the relevant national processes and make them more efficient. 

-  The integration of the national (and Eurostat) production systems, currently hampered by the 
fragmentation  of  the  legal  basis,  could  allow  the  use  of  closer  production  processes  across 
surveys,  and  in  the  best  case,  across  countries,  as  productions  methods  and  tools  could 
become more similar. 

-  The  reduction  of  size  of  the  questionnaires  as  well  as  the  reduction  of  frequency  of  data 

collection will have a direct positive impact on costs. 

-  More advanced techniques, currently under development, based on modularisation of social 
surveys  leading  to  reduced  sample  size  could  also  improve  the  cost  side.  An  experimental 
simulation  of  the  costs  gains  made  by  Eurostat  showed  a  potential  of  15%  of  the  data 
collection costs. 

It  has  to  be  kept  in  mind  that  innovation  and  changes  would  decrease  the  cost  of  the  data 
collection  phase,  but  may  increase  the  initial  one-off  costs  of  the  re-design  phase,  where  the 
possibilities of use and the quality of the new approaches have to be checked by NSIs. 

At this stage, the quantification  of impacts are built  on the baseline scenario due to the lack of 
existing  harmonised  and  comprehensive  data  in  the  Member  States  and  to  the  difficulties 
mentioned  by  the  stakeholders  to  assess  precisely  the  future  costs  in  the  various  scenarios  (see 
further explanations in annex 4). Therefore, two approaches have been followed. The first one is 
to make a model based exercise, developed under the paragraph 6.2.5. The second approach is to 
reinforce the collection of monitoring and evaluation data, as developed under the part 8 of this 
report. 

2.4.4.  Burden on respondents 

In most cases, the burden on respondents (the individuals, members of a household) is captured 
already  in  the  overall  figures  presented  in  table  1.  It  is  described  in  the  data  producers’ 
consultation report. This burden can be significant, in particular for surveys involving a diary, for 
example, the time use survey or the consumption survey. However, one should bear in mind that 
a very small fraction of the population is subject to this burden and that this burden has overall a 
very  limited  economic  impact.  What  is  however  more  relevant  is  that  the  burden  of  answering 
questionnaires  impacts  the  response  rates  that  are  currently  decreasing.  This  hampers  the  data 
quality and increases the costs as more people have to be contacted. It is a general phenomenon, 
seen  in  many  countries.  The  role  of  the  EU  in  that  context  is  to  contribute  to  good  design  of 
surveys as well as questionnaires in some cases, and to promote exchange of practices.  

2.5. 

Conclusion 

This  chapter  has  set  out  the  relation  between  the  problem  drivers  and  the  problems  that  were 
found for social statistics. Below we summarise this relation in the form of a problem tree.  

19 

 
Drivers 

Problems 

Consequences 

"Stovepipes" 
production processes / 
Legal fragmentation 

Inflexible legislation 

Lack of responsiveness 
to societal needs 

Quality issues of data 
collection 

Hampered use of 
innovative methods 
and sources 

Inability to contain and 
reduce costs for social 
data collection 

Diminishing relevance 
of social statistics 

Increasing 
inefficiencies in the 
collection of social 
statistics 

As this chapter has shown, the problem drivers do not contribute to the identified problems in an 
isolated  way.  These  drivers  work  together  and  are  also  influenced  themselves  by  a  number  of 
relevant contextual factors. Despite the relevance of such contextual factors, these are not easily 
addressed by legislation, and should therefore be analytically distinguished from problem drivers. 
The most relevant are summarised below: 

• 
• 
• 
• 

Increasing new data needs and expectations; 
Availability of new data sources; 
Pressures on resources (cost and response burden); 
Innovations in methodology and IT. 

20 

 
 
 
 
 
3.  WHY THE EU SHOULD ACT 

The Treaty for the Functioning of the European Union includes the explicit competence for the 
EU to adopt measures for the production of statistics where necessary for the performance of the 
activities of the Union (article 338 TFEU). The various Regulations for each of the surveys list in 
detail  how  and  to  what  extent  the  data  collection  contributes  to  the  Union  activities.  The  legal 
basis  for  social  statistics  is  further  implemented  by  the  Statistical  law  (Regulation  223/2009). 
TFEU  338(2)  further  requires  that  “the  production  of  Union  statistics  shall  conform  to 
impartiality,  reliability,  objectivity,  scientific  independence,  cost-effectiveness  and  statistical 
confidentiality; it shall not entail excessive burdens on economic operators”.  

Usually, EU statistics are jointly produced by the Commission (Eurostat) and the Member States. 
Concepts, methods and characteristics of the data collection are decided and formalised in a legal 
act ensuring implementation of the common approach at national level. Data are then collected, 
processed and transmitted by Member States.  

The  production  of  statistics  that  are  (1)  harmonised  across  Member  States  and  (2)  delivered 
according  to  EU  needs  cannot  be  achieved  at  the  national  level  only  as  concepts,  methods  and 
other characteristics of the data collection like periodicity and timeliness would remain decided at 
national  level.  EU  statistical  production  requires  the  implementation  of  a  harmonised 
methodology and the definition of a common output and its characteristics to be delivered by the 
individual  Member  States,  which  can  only  be  fully  achieved  by  way  of  EU  action.  In  order  to 
ensure compliant provision of national data, a regulation is the most adapted type of EU action. 

21 

 
 
 
4.  POLICY OBJECTIVES: WHAT SHOULD BE ACHIEVED 

4.1.  Objectives 

The  challenge  for  addressing  the  problems  outlined  in  section  2  of  the  report  is  to  create  a 
legislative  environment  for  the  European  Social  Surveys  that  will  guarantee  the  quality  of  the 
data  in  the  long  run.  The  system  of  European  social  surveys  must  be  sufficiently  robust  and 
maintain a high quality in an environment characterised by rapid innovation of methodology and 
IT,  the  availability  of  new  data  sources,  changing  needs  and  expectations  of  data  users  and 
continued pressure on available resources.  

Objectives  link  the  analysis  of  the  problem  to  the  options  for  the  policy  response.  General 
objectives have been defined to target the identified problems as presented in the figure below.  

General 
objectives 

Specific 
objectives 

Operational 
objectives 

Increase the relevance of 
social statistics as input 
for EU and national social 
policies 

Improve the efficiency of 
collecting social statistics 

Improve responsiveness of 
social statistics to societal 
needs 

Ensure the quality of data 
collection 

Facilitate the use of 
innovative methods and 
sources 

Support efforts to contain 
and  reduce costs of social 
data collection 

See chapter 5 / 6 / 7 

.  

In an impact assessment context, it is crucial that specific objectives are broad enough to allow 
consideration of all relevant policy alternatives without prejudging a particular solution.  

The figure above lists the specific objectives, based on the identified problems in chapter 2. The 
specific objectives aim to address the current stovepipe nature of social statistics  (first problem 
driver)  by  enabling  the  integration  of  the  different  domains  so  as  to  improve  responsiveness  to 
new  multidimensional  data  requirements,  while  reducing  and  limiting  costs.  They  also  aim  to 
tackle the legal inflexibility of data collections (second problem driver) by considering a common 
framework for the different surveys that would allow improving data quality, facilitating the use 
of  new  methods  and  sources,  as  well  as  flexibility  concerning  the  adoption  of  the  technical 
aspects of the surveys. 

The selection of policy options that will be defined in the next chapters determines the shape of 
the operational objectives. These are analysed in chapters 5-7 and are therefore not yet included. 
All these policy options will be assessed on their contribution to these specific objectives 

4.2. 

Coherence of objectives with other EU policies 

On a general level, the initiative is in line with EU policy: 

22 

 
 
 
• 

• 

• 

• 

• 
• 

The  political  priorities  of  the  Commission,  in  particular  the  priorities  dealing  with  job 
and growth, the digital market, the fairer dimension of the EMU, the migration, for which 
good analytical and monitoring tools are necessary for policy formulation and evaluation, 
encompassing  at  the  same  time  several  domains  of  social  and  economic  statistics, 
creating the need for more coherence between data sources. 
The Europe 2020 Strategy calls for indicators in order to monitor headline targets, such 
as  promoting  employment,  improving  education  levels  and  promoting  social  inclusion 
through  the  reduction  of  poverty.  The  calculation  of  these  indicators  requires  timely 
statistical  input  that  should  be  produced  as  efficiently  as  possible  in  the  context  of 
modern  statistical  data  collection  and  production.  The  current  lack  of  cross-domain 
integration hampers the common analysis of data from existing data collections.  
The  Commission’s  initiative  on  better  regulation  emphasises  that  the  evaluation  of  EU 
policies  will  lead  to  an  increasing  need  for  targeted  data  (Commission  Communication 
‘Strengthening the foundations of Smart Regulation – improving evaluation’ COM(2013) 
686). 
The initiative is part of the REFIT programme12 which aims to ensure that EU legislation 
remains  fit  for  purpose  and  delivers  the  results  intended  by  EU  law  makers.  In  the 
context of REFIT, the initiative aims to minimise the burden of data collection and data 
production while ensuring that current and future needs for European statistics are met. 

Current EU legislation on statistics relating to persons and households has been regularly 
reviewed  over  the  past  years,  the  relevant  evaluation  reports  are  available  from: 
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/domain-specific-results  (under  "population  and 
social conditions"). 

The policy objectives described above provide the framework for solving the problems defined in 
this impact assessment, and are also coherently shared with a number of policy documents in the 
field of social statistics. Below, there are a number of reference documents, each of which defines 
a coherent set of principles or priority areas to specifically guide Eurostat and the Member States 
in the modernisation of European social statistics:  

• 

• 

• 

• 

The Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council 
on the Production Method of EU Statistics: a Vision for the Next Decade (COM (2009) 
404)13 states that a new generation of statistical legal acts would deal with broader areas 
of  statistics  and  emphasises  the  increasing  use  of  multiple  data  sources  and  innovative 
data collection methods, as well as the growing importance of cross-domain integration 
and concepts.  
The Joint ESS Strategy for the implementation of the Commission Communication on the 
production method for EU statistics adopted by the ESSC on 20th May 201014; 
The Wiesbaden Memorandum15 adopted by the European Statistical System Committee 
(ESSC)  on  the  28th  of  September  2011.  A  new  conceptual  design  for  household  and 
social  statistics  demands  that  the  core  social  surveys  providing  data  (including 
microdata)  on  persons  and  households  should  be  streamlined,  that  additional  and  less 
frequent  micro-data  collections  should  complement  the  core  social  surveys  and  that 
better access to administrative data, the re-use of existing and access to new data sources, 
should be developed at national and EU level.  
The  paper  on  The  Modernisation  of  Social  statistics16  is  intended  as  a  comprehensive 
strategy  document  and  roadmap  for  the  modernisation  of  social  statistics  during  the 
period 2012-2017. 

12 See: http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/refit/index_en.htm  
13 See: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0404:FIN:En:PDF 
14 See: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/ess/eurostat/management-issues   
15 See: https://www.destatis.de/EN/AboutUs/Events/DGINS/Document_Memorandum.pdf;jsessionid=B46

6B23B69A315B330112553404E2011.cae2?__blob=publicationFile 

16 See: https://www.destatis.de/EN/AboutUs/Events/DGINS/Document_PaperEUROSTAT.pdf?__blob=pu

blicationFile  

23 

 
 
                                                      
• 

The  European  Statistical  Programme  2013-2017  (Regulation  (EU)  No  99/2013)17 
identifies statistics on People’s Europe’ (i.e. social statistics) is one of the three pillars of 
the  statistical  information  system.  Each  of  the  pillars  covers  a  set  of  primary  statistics 
that will provide the input for policy indicators and accounting systems. In order to reach 
the objectives of the European Statistical Programme 2013-2017 in the most efficient and 
consistent  manner,  Eurostat  has  launched  the  project  aimed  to  establish  a  cross-cutting 
legal  framework  for  the  production  of  European  statistics  relating  to  persons  and 
households and based on data at each individual level. 

17 See http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/european-statistical-system/statistical_programmes  

24 

 
 
 
                                                      
5.  POLICY OPTIONS: WHAT ARE THE VARIOUS OPTIONS TO ACHIEVE THE OBJECTIVES 

5.1. 

Background 

In  response  to  the  problems  defined  and  objectives  set,  two  strands  of  policy  options  are 
proposed. Each of these strands introduces a variety of policy options that develop solutions for 
the  problem  drivers  defined  in  Chapter  2  in  different  ways.  The  following  strands  for  policy 
options are defined:  

• 
• 

Addressing the domain fragmentation of social statistics 
Addressing the flexibility of data collection on persons and households 

These  strands  will  be  described  in  the  next  paragraphs.  Subsequently,  for  each  of  the  policy 
options identified it will be explicitly described how the option corresponds to the core problems, 
and  how  these  impact  the  key  stakeholders  in  chapter  6.  Chapter  7  will  recombine  the  most 
appropriate options so as to shortlist the most appropriate solutions. 

5.2. 

Addressing the domain fragmentation of social statistics 

Under  this  strand,  four  policy  options  have  been  considered,  each  of  which  addresses  domain 
fragmentation to a different extent. The two key elements targeted by these policy options are (1) 
the legal context in the EU, which currently consists of various domain-specific regulations and 
agreements,  and  (2)  the  ‘stovepipe’  design  of  social  statistics  production.  While  these  two 
elements  are  related,  these  are  not  the  same,  as  also  confirmed  by  a  majority  of  NSIs.  For  this 
reason,  these  cannot  be  addressed  by  unidimensional  policy  options.  Integrated  EU  legislative 
instruments for the various domains do not necessarily have to remove the ‘stovepipe’ model of 
data  production  to  address  the  main  problems  identified  in  chapter  3.  To  save  the  considerable 
costs of  changing national data production  processes, an  integrated legislative instrument could 
allow MS to produce data ‘in parallel’ and still improve the responsiveness, quality, possibility 
for innovation and costs of social data collection. At the same time, reducing the fragmentation of 
production  processes  could  also  take  place  without  integrating  legislation.  In  fact,  progress  in 
standardising  statistical  concepts  across  data  collection  has  been  made  even  under  the  current 
domain-specific  legal  set-up  (e.g.  definition  of  few  “core  social  variables”  to  be  included  in 
different  social  surveys),  however  with  mixed  success  so  far.  Data  users  also  indicated  in  the 
consultation that “the final outcome of revising the ESS should not become the legal act per se, 
but it should create a path and ease the way towards improved European social statistics”. Given 
the importance of this distinction for key stakeholders, specific policy options have been defined 
that take this view into account. The table below presents the main policy options.  

Separate production 
processes  

−−−− Defragmentation of production 

processes 

Domain-specific legal 
instruments 
↑ 
│ 
│ 
│ 
│ 
│ 
│ 
│ 
│ 
↓ 
Integration of legal 
instruments 

1.0 (Baseline): Separate 
production processes 
(‘stovepipes’), no integration 
of existing legislation 

1.2: Separate production 
processes (‘stovepipes’), but 
integration of existing 
legislation 

1.1: Defragmentation of production 
processes, no integration of existing 
legislation 

1.3a: 
Defragmentation 
of production 
processes, 
integration of 
existing 
legislation 

1.3b: 
Defragmentation of 
production 
processes, 
integration of social 
statistics 
governance 

25 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Comparing the options in more detail: 

Option 
1.0 
(Baseline):  Separate  production 
processes  (‘stovepipes’),  no  integration 
of existing legislation 

1.1  Defragmentation  of  production 
processes,  no  integration  of  existing 
legislation 

1.2  Separate  production  processes 
(stovepipes),  but  integration  of  existing 
legislation 
1.3  Defragmentation  of  production 
processes, and legal integration 

integration 

1.3a  Defragmentation  of  production 
processes, 
existing 
legislation  
1.3b  Defragmentation  of  production 
processes,  integration  of  social  statistics 
governance 

of 

Description 
Keep  present-day 
legal  structure  with  domain-specific 
Regulations  at  the  EU  level,  and  fragmentation  (different 
guidelines,  procedures  and  customs)  among  production 
processes 
Keep domain-specific Regulations at the EU level, but pursue 
increased standardisation of the various production processes, 
definitions,  and  variables  (‘defragmentation’)  across  data 
collections 
Integrate  legislation  for  social  statistics,  without  actively 
pursuing ‘defragmentation’ of production processes  

Combine legal integration with defragmentation of production 
processes. This option has sub-options, characterised by their 
difference in scope and governance of the whole system. 
Only  includes  the  5  current  regulations  (LFS,  SILC,  AES, 
EHIS and ICT-HH). 

HBS  /  HETUS  data  collections  included  in  the  Regulation. 
Currently  existing  differences  between  Member  States 
implicate that substantial harmonisation is required. 

5.3. 

Addressing rigidity of data collection  

The second strand of policy options included in the impact assessment focuses on the flexibility 
of  data  collection.  A  relevant  distinction  under  this  heading  is  the  legal  provisions  on  the 
programmatic elements (“what type of main data should be collected, at which frequency, about 
whom and with which level of accuracy”) and on various technical elements (“how should data 
be specified and transmitted"). The policy options considered in the impact assessment each add 
a certain element of flexibility to the existing legal provisions. A distinction between flexibility 
on  substantive  and  technical  elements  is  particularly  relevant,  as  this  determines  which  actors 
makes  the  changes.  As  such,  these  contribute  to  different  types  of  impacts.  The  table  below 
presents the main policy options. 

Technical aspects 
Fixed  −−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−Flexible 

-

m
a
r
g
o
r
P

g
n
i
m

Fixed 
↑ 
│ 
│ 
↓ 
Flexible 

(Baseline): 

2.0: 
technicalities fixed in legislation 

Programme 

and 

2.1:  Fixed  programming 
technical specifications 

/  flexible 

2.2:  Flexible  programming  /  flexible 
technical specifications 

Comparing the options in more detail: 

Baseline: 

Option 
2.0 
Programme 
technicalities fixed in legislation 
2.1  Fixed  programming 
technical specifications 
2.2  Flexible  programming  /  flexible 
technical specifications 

flexible 

and 

/ 

Description 
Changes to programme or technical elements require changes 
in legal instruments 
Statistical programming set by Parliament / Council, technical 
elements more flexible to change 
Statistical  programming  and  technical  elements  amenable  to 
change 

26 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
6.  ANALYSIS  OF  IMPACTS:  WHAT  ARE  THE  POLICY  IMPACTS  OF  THE  DIFFERENT  POLICY 

OPTIONS AND WHO WILL BE AFFECTED 

6.1. 

Introduction 

A detailed impact assessment has been conducted for each of the policy options presented in the 
previous  chapter.  First,  the  impact  of  each  of  the  policy  options  will  be  assessed  towards 
achieving  the  overall  objectives.  The  following  key  impacts  have  been  defined  based  on  the 
objectives of the proposal.  

• 
• 
• 

Better responsiveness to societal needs 
Ability to ensure quality of social statistics 
Promoting the use of innovative methods and procedures 

In addition, the impact of each policy option on the costs of the production of social statistics has 
been assessed. This assessment allows conclusions to be drawn regarding the extent of how the 
policy options cost-efficiently contribute to the objectives. Finally, the impacts of the policy on 
specific  stakeholders  have  been  assessed,  for  which  we  have  identified  the  following  types  of 
stakeholders:  

• 
• 
• 

Users of social statistics  
Producers of social statistics 
Respondents involved in social statistics data collection (individuals, households). 

In  addition  to  the  direct  impacts  of  the  policy  options  on  stakeholders  in  this  chapter,  the  next 
chapter will analyse the more indirect impacts associated with the shortlisted policy options.  

6.2. 

Assessing impacts: addressing domain fragmentation  

This section explores the impacts of the policy options that address domain fragmentation. 

6.2.1.  Baseline (option 1.0): no additional action 

Under the baseline scenario, domain-specific legal instruments are in place at the EU level, while 
Member  States  and  Eurostat  follow  different  guidelines,  procedures  and  methods  for  the 
production  of  the  separate  data  collections.  As  a  result,  Member  States  continue  to  collect  and 
process statistical data for each of the domains independently and in parallel (stovepipe design). 
As being a status quo, and having limited potential for addressing the key drivers, this option is 
rapidly examined.  

Effectiveness 

The continuation of the status quo limits the responsiveness of data collection to societal needs.  
As a result, the system of social statistics would not be able to respond to a growing demand of 
such issues.  

Eurostat  also  faces  limitations  in  ensuring  the  quality  of  statistical  data.  Many  changes  to 
improve the quality require the full  legislative procedures for each  domain-specific Regulation. 
Most NSIs also consider that  a  continued  fragmentation  of data collection  / handling  processes 
contribute  to  the  high  risk  of  divergence  in  methods,  and  consequently  the  increase  of 
incoherence across data collections and between countries. 

The  same  limitations  are  also  relevant  to  the  development  of  innovative  tools.  The  domain-
specific Regulations, further strengthened by fragmented production processes, do not facilitate 
the  development  of  combined  data  collection  methods,  or  the  systematic  use  of  alternative 
sources such as administrative registers.  

27 

 
 
Efficiency / impacts on stakeholders 

The  combination  of  domain-specific  Regulations  and  fragmented  production  processes 
contributes to increasing inefficiencies in the data collection of social statistics.   

The  status  quo  is  "counter-innovative",  as  changes  are  lengthy  and  would  keep  the  various 
inefficiencies in data collection in place.  

There  would  be  no  additional  costs  for  NSIs  in  the  status  quo,  but  the  possibilities  to  affront 
inefficiencies would be limited 

6.2.2.  Policy  option  1.1:  No  change  EU  legislation,  ‘defragment’  production 

processes across data collections 

The first policy alternative addresses the fragmented data collection on persons and households 
by Member States. In addition to the already existing efforts (see baseline scenario), this policy 
option  would  introduce  additional  (possibly  legal)  measures  to  reduce  the  fragmentation 
(“defragment”)  of  the  national  production  processes  of  social  statistics.  It  would  do  so  by 
pursuing increased standardisation of the various production processes, definitions, and variables. 
This would help in reducing the overlaps in data. All of this is done however, without changing 
the current legal structure at EU level, with domain-specific Regulations. 

Whilst the analysis of this policy option does not actually address the policy objectives, and even 
could  worsen  the  situation,  it  is  an  option  that  some  stakeholders  could  consider  valid,  from  a 
user perspective. Data producers may also see it as an acceptable solution. However, it is likely to 
maintain  the  status  quo.  It  is  therefore  useful  to  analyse  rapidly  this  option  and  not  discard  it 
upfront. 

Effectiveness 

Data  users  in  the  consultation  phase  indicated  that  possible  changes  due  to  defragmentation  of 
national data production processes would in theory allow Member States to better respond to user 
demands  for  cross-domain  issues,  such  as  well-being  (a  complex  combination  of  living 
conditions, income, labour status, health, etc.).  

However,  due  to  the  need  to  amend  the  domain  specific  regulations  and  the  voluntary 
agreements,  this  option  has  considerable  limits  in  responsiveness  to  societal  needs  at  the  EU 
level.  This  policy  option  therefore,  negatively  impacts  the  responsiveness  of  social  statistics  to 
societal needs. 

Because  of  the  persisting  legal  fragmentation,  any  introduction  of  uniform  standards  for  social 
statistics  would require Eurostat to amend each  of the domain-specific Regulations at the same 
time. It would involve costs and an important risk of not achieving the objectives, as divergences 
might remain in the course of the technical and legal developments. This policy option does not 
solve the problem of quality control on cross-domain data collection, which is likely to become 
even  more  relevant  in  the  future  (see  problem  definition).  This  risk  is  also  underlined  by  data 
users, who fear that the lack of integrated EU legislation on social data collection  could lead to 
lower quality and reduced interest for some specific sub-domains (e.g. health).  

Policy option 1.1 opens up possibilities for Member States to use and combine new / innovative 
methods for data collection or production.  

Efficiency / impacts for stakeholders 

The  measures  proposed  under  policy  option  1.1  have  a  positive  impact  on  the  long-term 
development of production costs of social statistics. Over the short-term however, NSIs indicated 
that  the  actions  to  reduce  fragmentation,  such  as  increasing  standardisation  of  processes, 
variables, or definitions do not reduce costs, but instead create significantly higher costs for their 

28 

 
 
institutions.  In  particular,  the  implementation  of  new  processes  and  methods,  or  the  possible 
changes in definitions, variables or guidelines are considered costly. For instance, the assessment 
of  the  quality  of  administrative  registers  before  their  use  for  the  production  of  statistics  may 
represent a high initial cost. NSIs reported that such implementation costs would be considerably 
higher in the short-term than the potential gains.  

At  the  same  time,  the  lack  of  integration  of  the  domain-specific  regulations  at  EU  level  poses 
some  other  efficiency  issues.  This  Member  States'  led  integration  will  require  substantial 
monitoring  activity  at  Eurostat  level,  as  risks  of  divergences  between  Member  States  will  by 
high.  This  creates  considerable  costs  for  the  European  political  and  legislative  system  and 
monitoring and compliance assessment costs. 

Finally, the risk of divergences between separated EU legal acts is high. This option could end up 
in  a  situation  that  is  not  very  different  from  the  status  quo.  In  addition,  its  acceptability  by 
Member States will be difficult. 

Impact of the policy option 1.1 on the core problems  
Lack of responsiveness 

Quality issues 

Hampered use of innovative methods 

Inability to reduce costs 

Remains  a  problem  (=):  any  changes  to  content  of  data 
collection face slow formal legal procedures  
Slightly  better  than  baseline  (+):  quality  better  ensured  for 
existing data collections, not for cross-domain data collections 
Improvement (+): common data production procedures allow 
NSI to benefit from synergies across data collections, provided 
no divergence between legal acts appear  
Slight  improvement,  but  high  implementation  costs  (+/-): 
Costs  reduced  over  the  long  term,  but  remain  considerable  in 
the short term. Legislative procedures also remain burdensome 
due to fragmented legislation. 

6.2.3.  Policy option 1.2: Integrate EU legislation, no change in the fragmentation 

of production processes 

The  second  policy  alternative  is  the  symmetric  of  policy  option  1.1.  It  includes  the  legislative 
package  to  create  an  integrated  legislative  framework  for  all  data  collections  on  persons  and 
households  in  the  ESS.  As  such,  it  would  replace  the  separate  domain-specific  Regulations 
currently in place and streamline decision-making at EU level to respond to new data challenges. 
At  the  same  time,  this  policy  alternative  does  not  include  additional  efforts  to  defragment  the 
national production environments for social statistics through common principles. Consequently, 
the  production  processes  at  Member  State  level  may  continue  to  be  organised  by  different 
domains.  

Effectiveness 

An  integrated  legal  framework  for  social  statistics  would  facilitate  a  better  responsiveness  of 
social statistics to societal needs. Changing needs for social statistics or additional cross-domain 
modules  in  existing  data  collections  (consider  for  instance  including  elements  on  disability 
statistics, migration statistics, vulnerable groups) can be added relatively easily by amending one 
overarching  legislative  instrument,  thus  increasing  responsiveness  to  new  data  needs.  When 
doing so, it is crucial that possible legal reforms ensure the continuity of time series.   

Legal integration would improve the position of Eurostat in the management and governance of 
the social statistical system. It allows Eurostat to respond to new challenges with uniform (legal) 
measures, which would implement or repeal legal provisions for the entire social domain at once, 
instead  of  for  each  Regulation  separately.  This  puts  Eurostat  in  a  better  position  to  ensure  the 
quality  of  collected  data  in  terms  of  comparability  and  coherence.  While  changes  to  the  legal 
structure  can  be  more  efficiently  implemented  at  the  European  level,  a  sufficient  number  of 
checks-and-balances would need to be in place to sufficiently address NSI’s and users’ concerns, 
in relation to continuity of data provision. For stakeholders a continued focus on outputs remains 

29 

 
 
of the highest importance. Due to the persistence of domain-specific production processes, these 
checks  and  balances  also  need  to  follow  this  structure,  thus  undoing  some  of  the  efficiency 
benefits of legal integration.  

The integration of the various domain-specific Regulations impacts the possibilities to introduce 
innovative  methods  into  law,  and  as  such,  also  has  indirect  impacts  on  the  efficiency  of  data 
collection.  Again,  the  persistence  of  fragmented  processes  and  data  collections  at  the  level  of 
some Member States could undo much of the possible positive impacts.  

Efficiency/impact on stakeholders 

This policy option streamlines the legislative structure of European social statistics and thereby, 
contributes  to  a  reduction  of  costs  to  change  existing  programming  (necessary  changes  can  be 
implemented  more  cost-efficiently  at  the  EU  level;  instead  of  changing  five  domain-specific 
Regulations and opening up two informal agreements, one amendment procedure would suffice).  

Despite this increasing potential for efficiency, the continued fragmentation at the national level 
also  means  a  continuation  of  the  existing  stovepipe  model  in  the  Member  States.  This  could 
explain  why  NSIs  reported  that  an  integrated  legislation  would  decrease  the  cost  of  data 
collection for 11/28 countries, while 8 Member States expect increases in costs. As a result, this 
policy  option  would  bring  efficiency  gains  for  the  European  legislative  process,  but  not 
considerably improve the efficiency of data production processes by NSIs.  

The  resulting  impacts  for  data  users  are  twofold.  This  policy  option  limits  the  possibilities  to 
meet  the  increasing  user  demand  for  cross-domain  data  collection  on  social  issues  at  the  EU 
level,  due  to  persisting  domain-specific  data  production.  At  the  same  time,  those  demands  that 
fall  within  specific  domains  can  be  met  more  efficiently,  as  these  can  be  introduced  into 
integrated legislative packages that extend to the entire social statistics domain at once.  

In theory, this policy option leaves overlaps and unnecessary redundancies in data collection in 
place,  which  would  keep  higher  costs  for  data  producers.  However,  in  the  consultation,  most 
NSIs indicated a preference for limited implementation costs of this policy option, even in light 
of  continued  inefficiencies  in  the  long  run.  An  integration  of  the  legislative  system,  without 
changes in the requirements on national data collections, various production processes or quality 
criteria is the preferred option for a majority of NSIs.  

Impact of policy option 1.2 on the core problems  
Lack of responsiveness 

Quality issues 

Improvement (++): changes to the contents of data collection (also 
cross-domain) rapidly adopted in unified act  
Slightly  better  than  baseline  (+):  improved  management  and 
governance  at  EU  level;  uniform  quality  standards  need  to  be 
applied to each specific production process  

Hampered use of innovative methods  Slightly  better  than  baseline  (+):  legally  possible  to  encourage 
innovation,  but  limited  potential  due  to  separate  production 
processes  
Improvement, limited efficiency gains on long term (+ /=): Costs 
for  legislative  procedures  considerably  reduced.  Relatively  low 
implementation  costs,  but  limited  efficiency  gains  over  the  long 
term.  

Inability to reduce costs 

6.2.4.  Policy option 1.3a: Integrate existing Regulations, ‘defragment’ production 

processes  

The  third  policy  alternative  combines  the  elements  of  the  first  and  the  second  options.  It 
integrates  the  existing  statistical  EU  legislation  for  social  statistics  into  a  common  coherent 
framework,  by  repealing  the  existing  domain-specific  Regulations  and  replacing  these  with  an 
integrated legislative package. In addition, it introduces the measures to reduce the fragmentation 
of  the  production  processes  at  the  Member  State  level,  for  data  collections  that  are  currently 

30 

 
 
regulated  by  law.  For  data  collections  that  are  currently  not  regulated  by  law,  Eurostat  would 
encourage Member States to integrate their data collections. Legal and soft measures facilitating 
the  removal  of  the  ‘stovepipes’  in  the  business  processes  of  national  statistical  institutes  in 
combination with coherent cross-domain statistical legislation for social statistics offers the most 
comprehensive  consolidation  and  integration  of  the  production  of  social  data  in  the  European 
statistical system.  

Effectiveness  

The  combination  of  integration  of  EU  legislation  on  social  statistics  with  measures  to  allow  a 
reduction of the fragmentation of data collection and production processes contributes to a higher 
responsiveness to societal needs. This responds well to the flexibility needs defined by the policy 
users in the consultation.  

The effectiveness to ensure the quality of data collection also increases under policy option 1.3a. 
An  integrated  legislative  instrument  helps  Eurostat  in  promoting  the  consistency  of  statistical 
output across different domains and data collections, like the quality reporting framework or the 
need  for  good  sample  frames.  It  also  helps  in  dealing  effectively  with  possible  newly  arising 
quality concerns that could come from innovative approaches, like the use of new data sources. 
At  the  same  time,  the  reduction  of  fragmentation  of  data  production  processes  offers  more 
options to ensure the quality of data as well.  

A reduction of fragmentation in data production processes creates incentives for Member States 
to use and combine alternative data sources and methods across various domains. This is further 
helped  by  integrated  legislation  at  the  EU  level.  This  could  for  instance,  contribute  to  an 
increasing use of administrative registers as input for social statistics, that would be supported at 
EU level. Such a focus would not only reduce the cost of data collection but also contribute to a 
reduction of response burden of respondents.  

Efficiency / Impacts on stakeholders 

The  efficiency  gains  to  be  made  by  integrating  social  statistical  legislation  into  an  overarching 
legislative  instrument  in  place  of  the  currently  existing  domain-specific  Regulations,  are 
procedural in nature, but are also substantial. Streamlining the process of changing requirements 
under  one  legislative  instrument  would  lead  to  considerable  efficiency  gains  on  the  side  of 
individual NSIs and Eurostat. Due to the possibilities to reduce overlaps in data collections and 
combine  survey  data  with  other  sources  (such  as  administrative  registers),  efficiency  gains  can 
also  be  expected  on  the  response  burden  on  persons  and  households  that  contribute  to  the  data 
collections.  

The  combination  of  legal  integration  and  reduction  of  fragmentation  of  production  processes 
contributes  to  potential  efficiency  gains  at  the  European  level.  This  could  allow  for  a  better 
integration  and  a  more  flexible  design  of  survey  instruments,  as  social  survey  variables  can  be 
grouped into thematic fields (“modules”).  This has been successfully introduced already in LFS 
and tested in a “laboratory experiment”,18 where lower costs and increased possibilities for cross-
tabulation of variables were achieved.  

To assess the efficiency of the proposed policy option in more detail, NSIs were asked to indicate 
their  expectations  for  the  development  of  costs  for  data  collection  in  an  environment  with 
integrated  legislation  and  defragmented  production  processes.  It  is  noted  that  the  question  of 
expected cost developments for NSIs is complicated, because it cannot be seen separate from the 
(expected) needs of NSI’s national users (such as national policymakers). The main concerns are 
related to the expected costs for the collection of data, as these constitute roughly 65% of the total 

18 “A European toolbox for a modular design and pooled analysis of social survey programmes” by Martin 
Karlberg (Martin.Karlberg@ec.europa.eu), Fernando Reis, Cristina Calizzani, Fabrice Gras, in 
Proceedings of NTTS 2015. 
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cros/sites/crosportal/files/Karlberg_etal%20no892unblinded.pdf.  

31 

 
                                                      
costs made by NSIs. As such, these easily outweigh other costs, such as design (roughly 13%) or 
processing,  dissemination  and  transmission  of  data  (roughly  22%  of  the  costs).  A  majority  of 
NSIs expect lower or at least similar costs for data collection in the medium-term. However, it is 
not possible to evaluate the cumulated impact on costs of the different modernisation initiatives, 
such as combined methodological work, inter-institutional collaboration and IT developments. 

Despite  these  efficiency  gains  at  the  system  level  for  the  collection  of data,  NSIs  point out  the 
risk  of  significant  one-off  cost  increases  in  the  short-term.  This  is  mainly  due  to  various 
requirements on standardising quality criteria, technical definitions and statistical qualifications, 
related to the defragmentation of production processes and legal integration.  The costs for these 
changes are a potential burden for NSIs, who have no choice but to revise their procedures and 
data  collection  methods  to  reflect  new  requirements,  if  codified  in  law.  As  a  result,  NSIs  are 
hesitant towards legislative instruments  involving integration, if accompanied with the need for 
far-reaching overhaul of their own procedures. Related to this, various NSIs and data users also 
point to the importance of continuity of data series, and possible risk of disruption. As continuity 
of data series is as important for Eurostat, the NSIs and data users, it is assumed that this policy 
option remains within the parameters to ensure continuity of data series.  

Over the medium-term (5 to 10 years), 18 out of the 28 NSIs are of the opinion that an integrated 
legislation  would  increase  the  one-off  costs  in  the  re-design  phase,  and  13  out  of  28  NSIs  fear 
increased costs for the treatment and transmission of data. However, it is noted here that the types 
of  costs  expected  by  the  NSIs  are  generally  in  the  form  of  investments  (design  of  IT  tools, 
questionnaires,  training  materials,  etc.)  which  could  be  recovered  with  repetitions  of  data 
collection  operations.  In  addition  and  as  already  mentioned  above,  the  costs  for  design  or 
transmission are relatively minor in comparison to the costs of collection of data. Only a minor 
cost-saving in data collection has the potential to outweigh considerable one-time cost increases 
in the design or transmission. The box below provides a  model  of those costs to underline this 
issue.  

Modelling implementation costs against the benefits in data collection  

Even  though  there  are  severe  limitations  to  estimating  the  impacts  on  costs  of  data  collection,  this  box 
contains  a  modelling  example  to  compare  the  one-off  short-term  costs  of  implementation  of  a  new  data 
design against the longer-term benefits of more efficient data collection.  

Four scenarios are presented; the first three scenarios refer to the option 1.3b, developed below under 6.2.5, 
and include all the seven existing surveys. The scenario 4 relates to the option 1.3a, where only the five 
currently regulated surveys are considered.  

In order to make the scenarios comparable, costs related to non-yearly surveys have been annualised. All 
amounts are presented in present values, with a discount rate of 4%.The ratio of variation in costs of the 
design and data collection phases (1 to 5) is based on the relative average proportions of cost declared by 
the NSIs (13% to 65%), as shown in table 2..•The estimates for NSIs that could not provide data are based 
on that of the countries with the most similar population size.  

1)  For this, we introduce first the following conservative model, based on the following assumptions: 

 

 

Increase  of  one-off  design  costs  of  20%  in  the  “redesign  period”  defined  as  the  first  2 
years of low frequency surveys (AES, EHIS, HBS, HETUS), in the first year of higher 
frequency  surveys  (HHICT,  LFS,  SILC).  These  re-design  costs  include  the  technical 
preparation  of  surveys  such  as  studying  and  evaluating  existing  experiences,  preparing 
new data collection tools (questionnaires, data entry applications, data validation  rules, 
tabulation  plans,  etc.),  testing  them,  training  the  staff  (interviewers,  statisticians), 
preparing  the  public  communication  and  legal  background  (e.g.  consulting  with  the 
National Statistical Council), etc. 
Decrease of cost in data collection – with the assumption of no increase in sample size - 
of 5% for 3 years for HBS, 7 years for HETUS, 2 years for AES and EHIS and 1 year for 
HHICT, LFS and SILC. The gains in efficiency may be due to using more administrative 
data, moving from traditional face-to-face to telephone or web interviews, automatizing 
the data transmission, etc.   

32 

 
These assumptions, and the input received from NSIs (see section 3.4), result in an increase in costs 
of €10.3 million in the redesign period of the whole set of surveys (at EU level), while leading to a 
decrease of €20.8 million in the data collection during the years of implementation, resulting in a net 
present value of €-10.4 million  

2)  With  the  same  expected  duration  of  the  increase  and  reduction  of  costs,  a  similar  calculation  with 
more contained design costs (10%) and more modest decreases in data collection costs (2%) would 
bring  costs  of  €5.2  million  in  the  design  phase,  compared  to  €8.3  million  of  economies  in  data 
collection, resulting in a net present value of €-3.1 million. 

3)  A less conservative model assuming longer periods of economies in data collection (6 years for AES 
and EHIS, 7 years for HBS and HETUS and 3 years for annual surveys) would give a total decrease 
in  collection  costs  of  44.4  million  compared  to  a  design  investment  of  10.3  million,  giving  a  net 
present value of €-34 million. 

In these three cases, roughly half of the variation in cost of design and data collection is due to HBS and 
HETUS. In fact, HBS is already carried out in all Member States and HETUS in a large number of them. 
An  increase  of  design  cost  of  20%  may  be  an  over-estimation  and  therefore  gains  could  be  under-
estimated.  

4) 

In the case where HBS and HETUS are not considered in the integrated legislative instrument (policy 
option  1.3a)  and  under  the  assumption  of  the  scenario  1,  the  respective  variation  in  costs  would 
amount to a € 5.4 million cost increase in the design phase and a € 7.5 million cost decrease in the 
collection phase giving a net present value of €-2 million. 

Data  users  point  primarily  towards  the  possibilities  related  to  a  combined  integration  and 
defragmentation.  Users  strongly  adhere  to  national  actions  to  defragment  existing  production 
processes (‘stovepipes’) and various types of data users assigned a high priority to such actions.  

Impact of the policy option 1.3a on the core problems  
Lack of responsiveness 

Quality issues 

Hampered use of innovative methods 

Inability to reduce costs 

Improvement  (++):  newly  arising  (cross-domain)  issues  can 
better be included in legislation and practice  
Improvement  (++):  quality  better  ensured  for  existing  data 
collections, 
future  cross-domain  data  collections,  and 
innovative methods of data collection 
Improvement (++): common data production processes allow 
NSI  benefit  from  synergies  across  data  collections,  integrated 
legislation increases visibility to promote new methods. 
Improvement,  but  high  implementation  costs  (++/-):  Costs 
for data collection and legislative amendments  reduced on the 
long term, but short-term costs involved with implementation 

6.2.5.  Policy  option  1.3b:  Integrate  social  statistics  governance  in  combination 
with defragmentation of national processes across data collections 

When considering the integration of domain-specific Regulations at the EU level it is possible to 
include the current data collections that are currently not governed by law as well. HBS / HETUS 
data  collections  which  are  currently  run  on  a  voluntary  basis,  i.e.  governed  by  gentlemen’s 
agreements,  would  therefore  be  turned  into  legislation  when  integrating  this  with  other  data 
collections in social statistics. Due to the considerable differences in place in the various Member 
States,  legal  integration  at  the  EU  level  alone  is  not  sufficient,  and  should  be  accompanied  by 
substantial harmonisation at the national level as well, as proposed in this policy option. For this 
reason, this policy option also assesses the impacts of expanding the scope to HBS / HETUS.  

33 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Effectiveness 

In terms of effectiveness, relatively similar impacts are relevant as for policy option 1.3a, except 
that  these  would  now  also  be  applicable  for  the  HBS  /  HETUS  data  collections.  However,  this 
provides a number of additional impacts that are explored here.   

Policy option 1.3a showed a higher responsiveness to societal needs. This is even more so when 
including  HBS  /  HETUS.  Such  fixed  procedures  would  come  in  the  place  of  the  current  less 
formal system that is also subject of detailed discussions. The codification into law increases the 
formal procedures, which replace the comparable informal coordination mechanism. Effectively, 
the  responsiveness  to  societal  needs  would  increase,  as  more  domains  would  be  covered, 
compared to option 1.3a. 

The  quality  of  social  statistics  in  the  EU  is  ensured  by  the  common  implementation  by  28 
Member  States  of  technical  and  substantial  requirements  on  the  collection  of  data.  With  legal 
provisions that cover on all surveys, these are all governed by a similar instrument to ensure the 
quality of social statistics. These potential gains in quality are found on top of the already defined 
quality improvements established for option 1.3a. Overall, the highest gains in ensuring quality 
are found for policy option 1.3b. 

The use of innovative methods and procedures is not limited by could be further supported when 
the legislation would also extend to HBS / HETUS. These two surveys in particular could benefit 
from innovation, as it can be foreseen that in the near future new data sources for consumption 
and time use wold become available, in particular from the use of new technologies. 

Efficiency / Impacts on stakeholders 

As  already  shown  under  policy  option  1.3a,  considerable  efficiency  gains  can  be  made  by 
integration,  both  for  NSIs  as  for  Eurostat.  However,  as  the  gains  increase,  so  do  the 
implementation costs, and this generates quite different costs for national data producers on the 
short  term.  Due  to  the  informal  governance  character  of  HBS  /  HETUS,  Member  States  have 
developed relatively different approaches in their data collection that require to be redesigned or 
at least adapted once these are brought under the broader legal framework.  

In  fact,  in  the  latest  round  of  HETUS  only  15  countries  contributed  with  data.  In  the  survey 
conducted  for  this  impact  assessment,  10  countries  indicated  that  they  currently  do  not  collect 
any data for HETUS, and are not planning to do so in the near future. For a number of  Member 
States, no answer has been collected on this point. For this reason, the impact of moving HETUS 
into  European  legislation  would  not  only  bring  some  implementation  costs  as  calculated  under 
policy option 1.3a, but would require the introduction of a new data collection in some Member 
States19. The situation of HBS is rather different. All Member States are conducting this survey, 
as it is the basis for other statistics, in particular the price index. However, here, the current level 
of harmonisation would imply some methodological alignments for some  Member States to EU 
standards in the design phase. The data collection phase would however remain untouched and 
would benefit from the defragmentation of the data collections as explained earlier. 

Considering the two surveys, it is worth underlining their particular nature: they are both based 
on  detailed  collection  (of  expenditures  or  time  used),  realised  with  the  use  of  diaries,  in  which 
respondent take notes of the required information, making the survey burdensome and lowering 
the  response  rate.  Technology  and  innovation  can  greatly  help  in  that  problem.  New  data 
collection  mode  and  tools  like  smart  devices,  scanning  of  invoice,  tracing  of  movement  are 
already used or tested by many Member States. In the long run, it could even be expected that a 

19   In order to estimate the additional costs of introducing HETUS to the remaining Member States, the 
current  costs  (€24.9  million  see  section  2.4)  for  the  current  14  Member  States  are  taken  as  starting 
point.  It is assumed that extrapolating these costs to the remaining 14 Member States would increase 
the costs proportionally, in this case by another €24.9 million, which on an annual basis is estimated at 
€2.5 million. Even though relatively small at the EU level (1.4%) of the annually estimated costs, these 
are borne unequally among a smaller number of Member States.  

34 

 
                                                      
substantial  part  of  the  required  information  would  be  accessed  without  the  intervention  of  the 
respondents. Therefore, methodological and technological developments should be realised prior 
to the entry into force of a legislative instrument covering these domains. 

Impact of the policy option 1.3b on the core problems  
Lack of responsiveness 

Quality issues 

Hampered use of innovative methods 

Inability to reduce costs 

Improvement  (+++):  newly  arising  (cross-domain)  issues  can 
better  be  included  in  legislation  and  practice  for  all  Eurostat 
social data collections 
Improvement  (+++):  quality  better  ensured  for  all  existing 
Eurostat  social  data  collections,  future  cross-domain  data 
collections, and innovative methods of data collection 
Improvement  (+++):  common  data  production  processes  allow 
NSI  benefit  from  synergies  across  all  Eurostat  social  data 
collections,  integrated  legislation  increases  visibility  to  promote 
new methods. 
Improvement, but highest implementation costs (++/- -): Costs 
for  data  collection  and  legislative  amendments  reduced  on  the 
long term, but short-term costs involved with implementation 

6.2.6.  Summary of impacts 

The  increasingly  negative  impacts  of  the  continuation  of  the  status  quo  on  the  core  problems, 
underline  the  need  for  addressing  domain  fragmentation  in  European  social  statistics.  The 
continuation of the separate domain-specific Regulations (under policy option 1.0 and 1.1) proves 
a limiting factor in responding to societal needs. 

The main purpose of the policy options discussed in this section is to reduce the negative impacts 
on the core problems of the domain fragmentation in  European social statistics. To do so, legal 
integration is one important pathway, as well as addressing the fragmented production processes 
of  social  statistics  (‘stovepipes’).  The  policy  options  that  seek  to  more  actively  reduce 
fragmentation of production processes (1.1 and 1.3) show positive impacts in reducing overlaps 
in data collection, regardless of any changes in the legal structure. These two policy options also 
show  positive  impacts  on  the  possibilities  for  NSIs  to  start  using  innovative  methods  of  data 
collection. One negative impact that affects these policy options together, concerns the possible 
higher initial implementation costs for NSIs associated with changes in the design phase and the 
production process. All NSIs indicated their concern for these costs.  

Policy option 1.3a / 1.3b combine the positive elements of the legal integration with the positive 
impacts  of  defragmentation  of  production  processes.  While  option  1.3b  is  associated  with  the 
largest increases in quality of data collection, it also comes with relatively high implementation 
costs. As policy option 1.3a does not have a similar drawback, this option seems at first sight to 
be the preferred alternative. However, provided that methodological work is developed and better 
use of the possibilities offered by the new technologies is exploited, option 1.3b also remains a 
better option in the longer run that would have the advantage of bringing the entire field of social 
statistics under one roof. 

Policy option 
1.0  Baseline:  no 
additional action 

1.1.  No  change 
EU 
legislation, 
defragment’ 

to 
to 

Effectiveness 
Inability  to  respond  to  changing 
societal  needs  and  newly  rising 
(cross-domain) data demands  
Limited  possibilities 
requirement 
to  meet 
quality concerns  
Fragmentation  limits  the  use  and 
development of innovative methods 
for data collection  
(=)  legal  procedures  continue  to 
limit responsiveness 
(+)  quality  better  ensured 

adjust 
future 

for 

Efficiency 
Continued overlaps in 
data collection  
High 
costs 
changing legislation 

for 

Impacts for stakeholders 
Limited  availability  of  cross-
domain data for users 
No  additional  short  term  costs 
for data producers, but long term 
inefficiencies persist 
Data  collection  mainly  depends 
on surveys, requiring a relatively 
high number of respondents  

reduction 
in 

(++) 
overlaps 
collection  

of 
data 

(+)  more  options  for  cross-
domain 
issues  for  users,  not 
included in legislation 

35 

 
 
production 
processes  

1.2.  Integrate  EU 
no 
legislation, 
the 
change 
integration 
of 
domains 

in 

Integrate 

1.3a. 
existing 
Regulations, 
‘defragment’ 
production 
processes  at 
national level 

the 

existing  data  collections,  not  for 
cross-domain data collections 
(++)  common  data  production 
procedures allows NSIs to make use 
of  possible  synergies  across  data 
collections 
legal  system  allows  better 
(+) 
responsiveness,  complicated  due  to 
different production processes 
(+) 
legal  system  allows  more 
possibilities  to  ensure  quality  of 
statistics, 
to 
complicated  due 
different production processes 
(+)  legally  possible  to  encourage 
innovation,  but  limited  potential 
production 
separate 
to 
due 
processes  
(++)  legal  system  +  defragmented 
production 
better 
responsiveness 
(++)  legal  system  +  defragmented 
production  allows  more  options  to 
ensure quality  
(++)  enabling  effect  on  use  of 
innovative tools 

allows 

1.3b. 
Integrate 
social 
statistics 
in 
governance 
combination  with 
defragmentation 
of 
processes 
across 
collections 

national 
and 
data 

allows 

(+++) legal system +  defragmented 
production 
better 
responsiveness 
(+++) 
legal  system  +  common 
production  allows  more  options  to 
ensure quality  
(+++)  enabling  effect  on  use  of 
innovative  tools,  in  particular  for 
the HBS and HETUS surveys 

(-)  High  costs 
for 
changing  the  separate 
legislative acts 

(-) implementation costs for data 
producers in the short term 
(++) reduced response burden 

(=)  Overlaps  in  data 
collection persists 
(+) 
low  costs 
changing legislation 

for 

(=)  limited  availability  of  cross-
domain issues for users 
(=)  no  additional  costs  for  data 
producers in the short term 
(=)  no  impacts  for  respondents, 
high  number  of  respondents  still 
needed 

in 

(++)  Overall  cost-
savings  in  the  long 
term  due  to  reduction 
/ 
of 
redundancies 
overlaps 
data 
collection  and  re-use 
of production systems  
(++)  lower  costs  for 
changing legislation 
(++)  Overall  cost-
savings  in  the  long 
term  due  to  reduction 
/ 
of 
redundancies 
overlaps 
data 
collection  and  re-use 
of production systems  
(++)  limited  costs  for 
changing legislation 

in 

(++)  more  options  for  cross-
domain issues for users 
(-) high implementation costs for 
data producers in the short term 
(++) lower response burden 

(++)  more  options  for  cross-
domain issues for users 
(--)  high  implementation  costs 
producers 
data 
for 
some 
(particularly 
in 
not 
those 
HETUS) in the short term 
 (++) lower response burden 

6.3. 

Assessing impacts: addressing rigidity of data collection  

6.3.1. 

Introducing policy options 

This section summarises rapidly the impacts related to the policy options that modifies the level 
of  flexibility  in  the  data  collection  of  European  statistics.  As  these  options  are  of  a  more 
procedural nature but important for the stakeholders (in particular the NSIs) the details of their 
analysis are described in Annex 5. Three main policy options have been defined:  

Baseline  (option  2.0):  Changes  to  programme  or  technical  elements  require  changes  in 

• 
legal instruments. 

Policy  option  2.1:  Statistical  programming  set  by  Parliament  /  Council,  technical 

• 
elements more flexible to change. 

Policy  option  2.2:  Statistical  programming  and  technical  elements  relatively  flexible  to 

• 
change. 

The options presented in this section can vary independently from the policy options presented in 
the  previous  section.  Possible  impacts  of  a  combination  of  the  shortlisted  policy  options  under 
this heading and on domain fragmentation are explored in more detail in Chapter 7. 

36 

 
 
6.3.2.  Summary of impacts 

The  assessment  of  impacts  for  each  of  the  policy  options  shows  the  paradox  of  flexibility  for 
European social statistics. Increased flexibility contributes substantially to the responsiveness of 
the data collected. Secondly, additional flexibility due to delegating the technical matter of social 
statistics  to  the  experts  would  contribute  positively  to  the  quality  of  data,  as  it  would  allow 
Eurostat to respond rapidly to new issues through the ESS. However, flexibility also runs the risk 
of  considerably  higher  costs  for  NSIs.  The  key  is  therefore,  to  balance  the  flexibility  in 
responding to user needs with the stability requested by NSIs.  

From  the  policy  options  defined,  option  2.1  performs  best  in  balancing  these  needs  in  view  of 
effectiveness  and  efficiency  of  the  proposals.  It  keeps  stability  in  social  statistics  by  fixing 
programmatic elements by law, while introducing more flexibility in the technical matter. Despite 
its positive impacts, it is necessary to pay attention to possible costs that may arise as a result of 
the flexibility. It could be necessary to fix in the basic law the main parameters determining the 
costs of the statistical operations for the NSIs. 

37 

 
 
 
7.  COMBINING THE DIFFERENT OPTIONS: IMPACTS OF SHORTLISTED OPTIONS 

7.1. 

Short-listing policy options 

Based  on  the  impact  assessment  of  the  previous  chapter,  this  section  further  elaborates  the 
impacts  for  the  short-listed  options.  The  previous  chapter  short-listed  policy  option  1.3a 
(Integrate  existing  Regulations,  ‘defragment’  production  processes)  and  option  1.3b  (Integrate 
social  statistics  governance  in  combination  with  defragmentation  of  production  processes  and 
across data collections) in the longer run to address the fragmentation of statistical domains in the 
EU.  These  policy  options  propose  an  integration  of  the  domain-specific  Regulations  at  the  EU 
level,  in  combination  with  efforts  at  the  level  of  data  production  and  handling.  These  policy 
options increase the possibilities for responsiveness, quality, innovative methods, and the ability 
to  reduce  and  limit  costs,  created  by  the  fragmented  design  of  social  statistics  in  the  EU  most 
effectively.  

To address the rigidity of the current system of data collection in the social domain, policy option 
2.1  (statistical  programming  set  by  Parliament  /  Council,  technical  elements  more  flexible  to 
change) has been short-listed. This policy option underlines the need to uncouple programmatic 
requirements  from  technical  requirements  and  further  implements  the  spirit  of  the  Statistical 
Regulation  (223/2009).  This  should  contribute  to  the  quality  of  decision-making  and  as  such, 
improve the responsiveness, quality and capacity towards use of innovative methods.  

7.2. 

Intervention logic and legal basis 

Based  on  the  selection  of  short-listed  policy  options,  all  the  information  has  been  collected  to 
complete the “objectives tree”, which guides the intervention logic, in the light of the problems 
drivers and the related identified problems.  

General 
objective 

Specific 
objective 

Operational 
objectives 

Consolidate the relevance 
of social statistics as input 
for EU and national social 
policies 

Improve the efficiency of 
collecting social statistics 

Improve responsiveness of 
social statistics to societal 
needs 

Ensure the quality of data 
collection 

Facilitate the use of 
innovative methods and 
sources 

Support efforts to reduce 
costs of social data 
collection 

Integrate existing 
Regulations in the field of 
social statistics 

Defragment production 
processes of social 
statistics 

Improve flexibility of social 
data collection through 
multi-tier legislation 

The legal basis for this approach  is provided  by TFEU Article 338, which grants the European 
Parliament and Council the competence to adopt measures for the production of statistics where 
necessary for the performance of the activities of the Union. The legal basis for social statistics is 
further established by the “Statistical law” (Regulation 223/2009). TFEU 338(2) further requires 
that  “the  production  of  Union  statistics  shall  conform  to  impartiality,  reliability,  objectivity, 
scientific  independence,  cost-effectiveness  and  statistical  confidentiality;  it  shall  not  entail 
excessive  burdens  on  economic  operators”.  The  policy  options  short-listed  by  this  impact 
assessment  are  in  line  with  these  legal  requirements,  and  seek  to  improve  the  impartiality, 

38 

 
 
 
reliability, objectivity, scientific independence, cost-effectiveness and statistical confidentiality of 
social statistics, in an effort to provide the necessary and quality input for national and European 
policymakers.  

The short-listed policy options in combination would require the adoption of  a framework legal 
act,  repealing  the  currently  existing  legal  acts.  The  formulation  of  this  framework  Regulation 
should  already  contribute  (or  at  least  allow)  towards  reducing  the  fragmentation  of  social  data 
collections at the national level, while respecting the subsidiarity principle. In order to implement 
policy option 2.1, its design calls for a multi-tier regulatory framework. This framework would 
enable the possibility to govern the various statistical business processes by different regulatory 
instruments (combining the use of implementing and delegating acts, and non-legal instruments 
such  as  ESS  agreements,  guidelines,  manuals  or  model  questionnaires).  In  order  to  ensure 
coherence  with  the  Statistical  Regulation,  this  framework  would  also  include  the  various 
safeguards  against  unforeseen  cost  increases  that  currently  exist  in  the  domain-specific 
Regulations.  

The  paragraphs  in  the  remainder  of  this  chapter  address  the  overall  impact  analysis  for  the 
retained policy options. In addition, where no impacts are found, this is explicitly mentioned. 

7.3. 

Impacts on effectiveness 

Under  option(s)  1.3,  the  integrated  existing  Regulations  and  the  defragmented  production 
processes  at  the  national  level  combine  to  increase  the  responsiveness  to  societal  needs.  In 
addition, the increased possibilities to promote consistency across different domains make for a 
better position for Eurostat to ensure the quality of social statistics. This policy option also has an 
enabling  effect  on  the  use  of  innovative  tools  and  methods.  It  allows  better  cooperation  and 
integration of NSIs and ONA at national level, in line with the amended regulation 223/2009. As 
under policy option 1.3b more domains are covered, the positive impacts increase in comparison 
to those under 1.3a. Sections 6.2.5 and 6.2.6 discussed these impacts in more detail. 

Policy  option  2.1  also  has  positive  impacts  on  the  three  aspects  of  effectiveness.  Without  the 
distortions caused by the currently also regulated technical details it will be easier to ensure that 
political priorities are clearly laid down in the Regulation and to adapt these if required. At the 
same  time,  it  will  be  easier  for  Eurostat  and  the  NSIs  to  implement  technical  changes  with  the 
aim of improving the quality of social statistics and to incorporate innovative tools and methods. 
Section 6.3.3 discusses these impacts in more detail. 

Furthermore, these two options, as well as their combination, meet the simplification objectives 
of the REFIT programme, in particular by streamlining five regulations into one single regulatory 
framework. 

7.4. 

Impacts on efficiency 

The  implementation  of  policy  options  1.3a  and  b  cause  one-off  design  cost  for  the  NSIs. 
However,  structural  costs  are  estimated  to  be  reduced,  mainly  because  of  a  reduction  of 
redundancies / overlaps in data collection and the re-use of production systems.  

Depending  on  the  concrete  implementation  of  the  production  methods  at  the  national  level 
(adoption  of  technological  and  methodological  innovations,  improved  access  to  administrative 
registers),  the  increased  costs  in  the  initial  design  phase  of  social  surveys  could  be  largely 
compensated by decreased costs in the data collection phase, which represents two-thirds of the 
total statistical production costs.  

In figures, based on the scenarios of the model and the respective time spans indicated in the box 
under the paragraph 6.2.5: 

  Under  policy  option  1.3a,  where  HBS  and  HETUS  are  not  considered  in  the  integrated 
regulation (scenario 4), the respective variation in costs would amount to a €54 million cost 

39 

 
increase in the design phase and a €7.5 million cost decrease in the collection phase, leading 
to a net present value of €-2 million 

  Policy option 1.3b (scenario 1) leads to an estimated increase in costs of €10.3 million in the 
design  phase  (at  EU  level),  while  leading  to  a  decrease  of  €20.8  million  in  the  data 
collection.(net  present  value  of  €-10.4  million)  A  similar  calculation  with  more  contained 
design costs and more modest decreases in data collection costs (scenario 2) would bring costs 
of €5.2 million in the design phase, compared to €8.3 million of economies in data collection 
(net present value of €-3.1). 

  Under policy option 1.3b, when the period for estimating the data collection costs reduction is 
less  restrictive  (scenario  3),  the  reduction  in  data  collection  costs  could  increase  to  44.4 
million, compared to a 10.3 million cost increase in the design phase (net present value of -34 
million). 

In  addition,  future  costs  related  to  changing  legislation  are  expected  to  be  lower  as  a  result  of 
integration and defragmentation. Section 6.2.5 discussed these impacts in more detail. 

For  policy  option  2.1,  an  estimate  of  the  impact  on  costs  could  not  be  made;  this  is  too  much 
depending  on  the  actual  implementation  (technical  details).  It  is  clear  that  flexibility  can  have 
both  positive  (implement  changes  in  an  efficient  tempo,  flexibility  in  production)  and  negative 
(more often changes are made) impacts. Section 6.3.3 discusses these impacts in more detail. 

7.5. 

Impacts on stakeholder  

The impacts on stakeholders largely follow from the previous sections. Users will profit from the 
increased flexibility in terms of adaptation to users’ needs and the possibility to combine data on 
cross-domain issues.  

From the users’ perspective it is essential that, in this process of change, the continuity of output 
is  guaranteed.  In  particular,  the  stability  of  important  time  series  should  be  ensured  and  the 
volume  of  the  principal  statistical  outputs  should  not  be  reduced.  This  requires  also  addressing 
and  minimising  the  impact  that  standardisation  and  introduction  of  innovative  techniques  may 
have an output. 

Under policy option 1.3, NSIs will face substantial one-off cost related to design. Costs will be 
lower at structural level. The impact of option 2.1 on costs could be kept under control provided 
that the essential elements determining the costs for NSIs are fixed in the framework legislation.  

For respondents, the response burden is expected to be reduced under all preferred options, as a 
result of the possibility to combine data and the increased possibilities to use administrative data.  

Sections 6.2.5 and 6.3.3 discuss these impacts in more detail.  

7.6. 

Impacts on SMEs 

The  short-listed  policy  options  do  not  have  direct  or  indirect  impacts  for  SMEs.  The  proposed 
legislative instrument only concerns statistics on persons and households.  

7.7. 

Economic impacts 

The impact assessment shows that there are indirect economic impacts of the short-listed policy 
options.  These  contribute  towards  an  improved  timeliness  and  consistency  of  social  indicators 
and  in  particular,  in  the  areas  of  labour  markets,  and  income.  As  such,  the  short-listed  policy 
options  would  develop  a  more  efficient  statistical  evidence  base  for  policies  that  contribute 
towards stimulating and consolidating economic growth and job creation. Through the improved 
statistical  data  available,  the  short-listed  policy  options  further  support  the  development  of 
policies aiming at boosting competitiveness and innovation.  

40 

 
Moreover, social statistics are a crucial element in the allocation of public expenditure to social 
policies. The annual cost of producing social statistics is estimated at €176 million, which is only 
marginal  given  the  extent  of  spending  on  social  expenditure  by  the  EU  and  Member  States: 
Eurostat  estimates  that  Member  States  spend  on  average  29.5%  of  the  GDP  on  social 
expenditure. Therefore, if improved, social statistics would contribute to a gain in the efficiency 
of social policies that would easily offsets the costs of producing such information. 

7.8. 

Social impacts 

The collected evidence in the impact assessment points to indirect social impacts. The short-listed 
policy options will provide improved relevance and timeliness of social indicators on issues, such 
as  employment,  unemployment,  transitions  in  the  labour  market  and  the  evolution  of  poverty. 
Combined with existing macroeconomic indicators, this will enable more integrated and efficient 
analyses of data that can be used to calculate the social impacts of future policy decisions.  

Coherent statistics that can be better combined can also contribute towards identifying emerging 
multi-dimensional  topics  (e.g.  well-being,  combining  living  conditions,  health,  income, 
education,  skills,  labour  status,  etc.)  and  thereby  help  policymakers  to  design  relevant  public 
policies. 

7.9. 

Environmental impacts 

The collected evidence does not suggest that the short-listed policy options have direct or indirect 
impacts on environmental issues.  

7.10. 

Impacts on fundamental rights 

The short-listed policy options do not create additional impacts on fundamental rights. The most 
relevant for this impact assessment are possible impacts in personal data protection (laid down by 
Article  8  of  the  EU  Charter  of  Fundamental  Rights).  However,  none  of  the  selected  policy 
options  foresees  a  change  in  provisions  on  personal  data  protection.  The  national  and  EU 
Statistical  Laws  provide  for  guarantee  of  protection  of  data  by  the  NSIs,  which  have  strong 
policies 
records,  preserving 
questionnaires, etc. in place.  

respondent  confidentiality,  anonymising 

for  protecting 

41 

 
 
 
8.  MONITORING  AND  EVALUATION:  HOW  WOULD  ACTUAL  IMPACTS  BE  MONITORED  AND 

EVALUATED 

The  European  Commission  REFIT  agenda  makes  evaluation  of  all  new  legislative  measures  a 
priority  for  the  Commission.  The  proposed  legislative  instrument  will  also  be  subject  to  a 
complete  evaluation  in order  to  assess,  amongst  other  things,  how  effective  and  efficient  it  has 
been in terms of achieving the objectives presented in this report and to decide on whether new 
measures or amendments are needed.  

This section summarises existing and future monitoring mechanisms. 

It is important to refer first to the existing monitoring and evaluation tools which are valid for the 
whole  of  the  statistical  production  of  Eurostat,  that  already  allow  for  good  analysis  of  the 
evolution of the effectiveness and the efficiency of the new statistical initiative and the quality of 
the data produced. To summarise: 

  The  European  Statistical  programmes 

foresee 
systematically  mid-term  and  final  evaluation  of  the  programme.  Social  statistics  are  an 
integral part of these reporting mechanisms20. 

regulation  99/2013) 

(currently 

  The Eurostat management plan foresees the follow up of key performance indicators that 

apply as well to social statistics21. 

  Users' satisfaction surveys are carried out on a regular basis22. 
  Eurostat  also  carried  out  systematic  Rolling  Reviews  in  accordance  with  the  binding 
standards  approved  by  the  Commission.  Rolling  Reviews  involved  not  only  the 
assessment  of  the  statistical  data  produced  but  also  the  process  to  produce  them,  the 
interactions with data providers and interactions with users of the data. They formed part 
of the Quality Assurance Framework developed by Eurostat in 200723. 

Each statistical domain is also monitored through quality reports, regularly produced by Member 
States  and  analysed  and  compiled  by  Eurostat,  as  part  of  the  statistical  quality  insurance 
framework  described  under  the  box  "Quality  of  statistics"  in  paragraph  2.1  and  covering 
Relevance,  Accuracy  and  reliability;  Timeliness  and  punctuality;  Accessibility  and  clarity; 
Coherence and comparability. Furthermore, these existing frameworks, in particular the domain 
specific information, have been used in the initial analysis steps, as explained under 4.2 and will 
be  used  as  the  regular  quality  reporting  mechanism  that  will  be  an  integral  part  of  the  legal 
initiative to be proposed. 

Concerning burden and costs, several elements are already routinely collected as part of the data 
collection, like the interview duration that is a good indicator of the burden on the respondent; 

In addition, the costs elements identified under the paragraph 2.4.3 will be monitored as part of 
the routine data collection. In particular, the evolution in the use of administrative data, the data 
collection  form  (web  interview,  face  to  face  interview,  etc.),  the  size  of  the  sample  and  of  the 
questionnaires, and the frequency of data collection will be monitored at very detailed level (at 
both individual and variable level). This will allow measuring the progresses in the use of these 
techniques and the burden impact. 

20 See http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/general-evaluation-results 
21  The  five  key  performance  indicators  are  the  following:  Number  of  data  extractions  made  by  external 
users from Eurostat reference databases (EuroBase and Comext) via the Eurostat website, Percentage 
of users that rate as "Very good" or "Good" the overall quality of European statistics, Percentage of 
users  that  rate  as  "Very  good"  or  "Good"  the  timeliness  of  European  statistics  for  their  purposes, 
Percentage of users that rate as "Very good" or "Good" the comparability of European statistics among 
regions and countries, Residual error rate (RER) 

22 See http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/general-evaluation-results 
23  Each  Rolling  Review  is  domain  specific  and  implies  a  thorough  assessment  of:  (1)  the  process  of 
producing data, (2) the quality of the data produced (3) the users' satisfaction and assessment of data 
quality,  (4)  the  data  provider's  satisfaction,  (5)  the  resources  used  by  Eurostat  and  Member  States 
More detail could be found under http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/evaluation. 

42 

 
                                                      
Furthermore,  a  central  monitoring  indicator  for  the  implementation  of  the  proposed  legislation 
would be the variation of cost of social data collection at an aggregated EU level, in which we 
distinguish the costs for NSIs in the design, collection and transmission of data.  

Whilst  these  indicators  on  costs  are  not  directly  comparable  across  Member  States,  due  to 
obvious  differences  in  size,  approach  towards  statistics  and  other  developments  (as  explained 
under 2.4), they are however useful over time as they allow the tracking of the development of 
costs of social statistics within the EU and for each Member State separately. Such costs may be 
expressed in terms of staff involved (e.g. full-time equivalent number of mobilised interviewers) 
or  financial  resources  (e.g.  budgetary  appropriations  for  a  given  data  collection).  As  such,  this 
indicator provides crucial monitoring input on one of the central issues of the new legislation. It 
will  require  improved  and  harmonised  costs  reporting  framework  for  the  whole  ESS  that 
identifies the statistical production phases. 

This  set  of  improved  monitoring  instruments  that  would  cover  all  quality  dimensions,  burden 
costs, and new techniques would also allow for identifying and sharing good practices across data 
collections  and  between  Member  States  as  well  as  allow  for  analysing  the  trade-offs  between 
quality and costs. 

The  table  below  presents  a  sample  of  monitoring  indicators  that  have  been  identified  for 
assessing  the  effectiveness  of  the  legislative  instrument.  Each  one  allows  for  the  monitoring  of 
the  development  in  the  implementation  of  the  legislation  against  the  baseline  measurement 
presented in this impact assessment.  These indicators will  be used in the evaluation framework 
developed  above.  In  addition,  qualitative  information  about  modernisation  plans  (e.g.  pilot 
studies) should be also included. 

Improve responsiveness of social statistics to 
societal needs 
Time required for adjusting 
statistical programming to new 
needs 
Time required for preparing new 
modules for data collection 
Extent of ‘cross-domain’ data 
collection 

NSI 

Eurostat 

NSI / 
Data users 

Potential sources of verification 

  Multi-annual and annual work programmes 

  Multi-annual and annual work programmes 

  Multi-annual and annual work programmes 
  Extend of the standardisation of variables 

across data collections 

  Use of information from other data 

Data users    Quality reports by domains 
Data users    Quality reports by domains 

collections to improve estimation for a 
given survey 
Availability of useful data collection  Data users    User surveys 
Timeliness of data collections 
Continuity of trend data for crucial 
variables 
Ensure the quality of data collection 
Time required to adjust 
technicalities to ensure quality of 
data  
Trust in data quality of partner 
Member States  
Extent of fragmentation in data 
collection 
Perceived quality of Eurostat data 

  User surveys 
  Quality reports by domains 
  Multi-annual and annual work programmes 

  Multi-annual and annual work programmes 

Data users    User surveys 

Eurostat 

NSI 

NSI 

43 

 
 
 
 
Facilitate the use of common innovative data collection methods   
Body of legislation on the use of 
innovative data collection methods 
Use of administrative registers by 
NSI 

Eurostat 

NSI 

  Eurostat repository of legislation and 

methodology (RAMON24) 

  Data sources recorded in the data collection 
  Survey quality reports (including additional 
information on the use of administrative 
registers at the variable level e.g. for 
imputation of values) 

Extent of combination of data 
sources for the production of 
European social statistics 
Ability to implement strictly 
national approaches / innovations  

NSI 

NSI 

  Coverage of administrative registers when 
compared with the target population of 
surveys 

  Data sources recorded in the data collection 
  National quality reports 

  Data sources recorded in the data collection 
  National quality reports 

24 See http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/nomenclatures/index.cfm?TargetUrl=LST_NOM&StrGroupCode

=LEX_MANUAL&StrLanguageCode=EN 

44 

 
 
 
 
 
                                                      
ANNEX 1: PROCEDURAL INFORMATION 

Lead DG: DG ESTAT 

Agenda planning reference: 2014/ESTAT/002 

This  impact  assessment  is  prepared  by  DG  ESTAT  to  support  preparation  of  a  Framework 
Regulation for the Production of European Statistics on Persons and Households, in the context 
of  the  European  Commission's  Regulatory  Fitness  and  Performance  programme  (REFIT). 
Eurostat  enlisted  the  help  of  a  contractor  to  gather and  analyse  relevant  information  during  the 
second half of 2014. The associated inception report was published in July 201525. 

Preparation of this impact assessment (IA) started in 2014 with the aim of comparing the impacts 
of  different  simplification  options.  As  this  was  prior  to  the  adoption  of  the  Better  Regulation 
guidelines, there has been no full evaluation done to support this initiative. However, the regular 
evaluation  mechanism  in  place  at  Eurostat  (quality  reports,  rolling  reviews,  evaluation  of  the 
European statistical programme, management plans) as well as an  ex-post analysis of the current 
situation  (through  discussions  with  NSIs,  interviews  with  main  users,  public  consultation 
targeting general users and thorough desk research) formed a central element of the IA process. 
An  inter-service  steering  group  was  established  in  July  2015  and  involves  the  following  DGs: 
Secretariat-General  (SG),  Budget  (BUGET),  Justice  (JUST)  Education  and  Culture  (EAC), 
Neighbourhood  and  Enlargement  Negotiations  (NEAR),  Employment,  Social  Affairs  and 
Inclusion (EMPL), Migration and Home Affairs (HOME), Regional and Urban Policy (REGIO), 
Health and Food Safety (SANTE), Economic and Financial Affairs (ECFIN) and Internal Market, 
Industry,  Entrepreneurship  and  SMEs  (GROW),  as  well  as  the  Legal  Service  (SJ).  The  inter-
service steering group met twice, the first meeting was held on 9 July 2015, and the second took 
place on 27 January 2016. 

Consultation of the RSB 

(The  recommendations  of  the  RSB  and  the  subsequent  changes  in  the  IA  report  will  be 
summarised  hereby,  "this  should  presented  in  tabular  format  –  the  first  column  identifying  the 
Board's  recommendation  and  the  second  column  how  the  IA  Report  has  been  modified  in 
response") 

Evidence used in the IA 

In  reference  to  the  evidence  that  constitutes  the  basis  for  the  Impact  assessment,  it  is  first 
pertinent to mention the evaluation tools currently in place, that already allow for good analysis 
of  the  evolution  of  the  effectiveness  and  the  efficiency  of  the  new  statistical  initiative  and  the 
quality of the data produced. These tools include: the European Statistical programmes (currently 
regulation  99/2013),  which  foresees  systematically  mid-term  and  final  evaluation  of  the 
programme,  of  which  social  statistics  represent  an  integral  part26;  the  follow-up  of  a  series  of 
performance  indicators,  as  planned  by  the  Eurostat  management,  which  also  applies  to  social 
statistics27;  and  the  Users  satisfaction  surveys  carried  out  on  a  regular  basis28.  In  addition,  the 
ongoing  and  continuous  assessment  of  the  quality  of  the  statistics  undertaken  by  Eurostat, 
presented in the form of Quality reports29, not only represented a source of extensive and reliable 

25 See: http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/roadmaps/docs/2014_estat_002_social_statistics_en.pdf 
26 See http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/general-evaluation-results  
27  The  five  key  performance  indicators  are  the  following:  Number  of  data  extractions  made  by  external 
users from Eurostat reference databases (EuroBase and Comext) via the Eurostat website, Percentage 
of users that rate as "Very good" or "Good" the overall quality of European statistics, Percentage of 
users  that  rate  as  "Very  good"  or  "Good"  the  timeliness  of  European  statistics  for  their  purposes, 
Percentage of users that rate as "Very good" or "Good" the comparability of European statistics among 
regions and countries, Residual error rate (RER) 

28 See http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/general-evaluation-results   
29 See: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/quality-reporting 

45 

 
                                                      
evidence  for  the  preparation  of  the  impact  assessment,  but  also  constitutes  an  already-in-place 
system for monitoring and evaluating the impacts a new legislation on social statistics. 

Systematic  Rolling  Reviews,  in  accordance  with  the  binding  standards  approved  by  the 
Commission,  were  also  carried  out.  They  formed  part  of  the  Quality  Assurance  Framework 
developed  by  Eurostat  in  200730,  and  involved  not  only  the  assessment  of  the  statistical  data 
produced  but  also  the  process  to  produce  them,  the  interactions  with  data  providers  and 
interactions  with  users  of  the  data,  representing  an  significant  source  of  additional  evidence. 
Rolling  reviews  and  quality  reports  are  domain  specific,  and  had  to  be  complemented  by  facts 
covering the whole of social statistics on individuals and households. 

Further evidence was therefore gathered ad hoc in the context of the preparation of this impact 
assessment,  from  the  consultation  to  the  stakeholders  –Directorate  Generals  of  the  European 
Commission, National Statistics Institutes (NSIs), and the open public (i.e. academics/researches, 
business  and  business  associations,  interest  groups,  media  and  non-governmental  organisation, 
and  individuals/freelances)–  that  took  place  in  the  context  of  the  preparation  of  this  impact 
assessment, which is summarized in Annex 2. The combination of the information provided from 
the perspective of the data producers (National Statistics Institutes) and that of the data users  –
from within (DGs and EU agencies) and outside of the EU administration (e.g. external micro-
data users)–, is a guarantee of the robustness and the relevance of the information collected. An 
additional  aspect  that  contributes  to  the  robustness  and  comprehensiveness  of  the  evidence 
gathered thorough the stakeholders' consultation is the use of several modes of data collections 
(i.e. the use two online questionnaires addressed to the NSIs and to the open public, respectively, 
in combination with in-depth interviews to data users and data producers), which broadened the 
scope of the exercise, and allowed to undergo a more detailed analysis of the problems at hand, 
and  a  thorough  assessment  of  the  possible  solutions  from  the  perspectives  of  the  different 
stakeholders. 

External expertise used in the IA process 

In  addition  to  the  stakeholders'  consultation,  additional  sources  of  external  expertise  have  been 
consulted.  First,  the  contractor  entitled  to  assist  has  been  able  to  provide  relevant  input  for  the 
preparation  of  the  assessment  in  their  function  as  statistical  consultant.  Together  with  their 
support  in  the  execution  of  the  stakeholders'  consultation  and  the  analysis  of  the  evidence 
gathered, they played a relevant role in the development of the problem tree  –which allowed to 
identify  and  determine  the  relationships  among  the  main  problems,  problem  drivers  and 
contextual variables–, that constituted the basis from which the subsequent work for the impact 
assessment was built upon. 

Second, the inter-service group (ISG) created in the context of this impact assessment, in which 
11 DGs were represented, constituted –besides its already established function of steering the IA 
process and contributing to the collective preparation of the IA report, and in relation to the fact 
that the DGs  are  main data users of the social  statistics provided by Eurostat–, a  most  relevant 
source  of  external  expertise  for  the  preparation  the  Impact  assessment  of  new  legislation.  DGs 
represented in the ISG were consulted at a preliminary stage, showing their needs and support to 
the initiative. 

In  addition,  the  opinion  of  the  ESAC  (European  Statistical  Advisory  Committee)  was  also 
sought, as an external source of expertise. In their feedback, the (ESAC) shows support for the 
proposal  for  a  framework  regulation  for  European  statistics  on  persons  and  households,  while 
referring  to  the  development  of  a  framework  regulation  as  essential  in  order  to  support  the 
European  Commission's  current,  more  extensive,  agenda  on  social  policy,  and  to  increase  the 
integration and consistency of social data from across Europe31. 

30 More detail could be found under http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/evaluation 
31  See:  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/42577/4167614/ESAC+opinion+3+Dec+2015/421abf9c-

4300-445f-a840-f13cadeee306 

46 

 
                                                      
Finally,  the  expertise  in  the  NSIs  has  been  heavily  used,  in  particular  in  the  context  of  formal 
occasions, with the regular various working groups, task-forces, groups of directors and directors 
general as well as informally through various bilateral consultations. 

47 

 
 
 
ANNEX 2: STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATION 

Introduction 

This section presents the results of the stakeholder consultation that was carried out amongst the 
main stakeholders. The approach towards and methodology of the consultation have been agreed 
upon by the Steering Committee. The consultation was carried out during July-December 2015. It 
meets the standards set by the European Commission. This section starts with an overview of the 
process,  of  each  of  the  activities  conducted.  Subsequently,  the  outcomes  of  the  consultation 
process are summarised in a factual manner.  

The full results of the consultations are available at:  

  Eurostat public consultation web page: 

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/about/opportunities/consultations/iess 

  Open public consultation report: 

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/10186/7237349/Open-public-consultation-
report.pdf  

  Consultation of the data users:  

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/10186/7237349/Data-users-consultation-
report.pdf  

  Consultation of the data producers: 

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/10186/7237349/Data-producers-consultation-
report.pdf  

The following stakeholders were targeted for consultation:   

 

 

 

 

Data producers: this category comprises the authorities responsible for the collection and 
compilation  of  social  statistics.  It  mainly  includes  the  NSIs  and  Eurostat.  However,  in 
this  context,  the  data  producers  are  at  the  same  time,  the  main  representative  of  the 
primary data providers, i.e. the households. 

Data  providers:  this  category  includes  not  only  the  respondents  but  also  national 
institutions that are keepers of administrative data files, such as for example, the Social 
Security or Tax Administration. The NSIs in the broader sense, are seen as a proxy of the 
primary  data  providers  (i.e.  households),  given  the  difficulty  of  conducting  stakeholder 
interviews within this category.  

Data  users:  within  this  group  a  distinction  can  be  made  between  institutional  users  – 
Commission  DGs  users,  national  administrations,  other  international  organisations,  or 
professional staff working within other EU institutions, and other external users, such as 
mass media and academics. 

Amongst  data  users,  a  special  mention  of  a  particular  body  that  has  been  consulted 
should  be  made:  the  European  Statistical  Advisory  Committee  (ESAC),  established  in 
2008, by the Decision No 234/2008/EC of the European Parliament and the Council. It 
gathers 24 members representing users, respondents and other stakeholders of European 
Statistics (including the scientific community, social partners and civil society) as well as 
institutional  users  (like  e.g.,  the  Council  and  the  European  Parliament)  According  to 
article  8  of  the  Statistical  Regulation  (223/2009),  the  ESAC  could  be  consulted  in  the 
process of possible new legislation.  

The consultation process has been implemented as follows: 

 

Producers  of  European  social  statistics:  National  Statistical  Institutes  (NSIs)  of  the  EU 
(opinions gathered through  a questionnaire to all EU NSIs and in-depth interviews to a 
selected subset based on an interview script). The consultation with producers of social 
statistics  was  limited  to  that  of  National  Statistical  Institutes,  which  play  the  role  of 

48 

 
coordinators  for  the  National  Statistical  System  in  the  Member  States  and  EFTA 
countries.  It  was  requested  in  the  invitation  for  the  consultation,  that  NSIs  take  into 
account  the  opinion  of  other  producers,  such  as  ministries  for  social  affairs,  labour, 
health,  etc.  NSIs  have  already  expressed  their  opinions  through  high-level  documents 
(ESS  2020  Strategy32,  Wiesbaden  Memorandum33,  etc.)  on 
importance  of 
modernising  the  production  of  social  statistics.  They  have  also  discussed,  within  the 
framework of the DSS Group (Directors of Social Statistics), the initiative of integrating 
the different European legal acts on social statistics. 25 NSIs in the Member States and 2 
additional  EFTA  NSIs  responded  to  the  survey.  Eight  NSIs  were  interviewed  on  a 
selective  basis  with  a  wide  coverage  of  different  statistical  systems  and  resources,  to 
express their opinion on the basis of additional in-depth interviews. 

the 

Users of European social statistics: selected Directorates-General (DGs) of the European 
Commission.  Opinions  were  gathered  through  in-depth  interviews  with  selected  DGs: 
DG ECFIN, DG EMPL, DG SANTE, DG EAC, DG HOME, DG REGIO and DG JUST 
in  order  to  complement  information  collected,  during  the  annual  bilateral  hearings,  by 
Eurostat. 

General users (opinions gathered through an Open Public Consultation – OPC- based on 
an  on-line  questionnaire).  Particular  care  has  been  taken  to  alert  potential  stakeholders 
and  advertise  about  the  consultation  (see  annex  2).  103  responses  were  received  in  the 
period  23rd  July  to  15th  November  2015  (16  weeks).  35%  of  these  responses  were 
academic/researchers,  26%  public  authorities  in  Member  States  and  the  rest  included 
staff  of  EU  institutions  (10%),  consultants/individuals  (9%),  businesses/business 
associations (8%) and other. 

 

 

These three consultations, their process, consultation instruments and results are detailed in three 
specific reports34.  

The  consultation  included  the  perception  of  the  stakeholders  on  the  problems  identified  and 
confirmed  by  the  steering  committee  and  the  opinions  on  the  policy  options  which  were 
adequately described. To establish this initial identification of problems, the relevant documents 
were reviewed such as:  

• 
• 

• 

Europe 2020 Strategy 
Opinions of users: Opinions of the ESAC (European Statistics Advisory Committee), 
User Satisfaction Survey carried by Eurostat 
Documents  of  the  European  Statistical  System:  European  Statistical  Programme 
2013-2017,  Vision  for  the  next  decade,  COM(2009)404,  Wiesbaden  Memorandum 
on  Social  Statistics,  ESS  Modernisation  Strategy  for  Social  Statistics  (ESSC 
2014/23/6/EN),  DSS  and  DSS  Board  meetings  and  discussions,  Rolling  reviews  of 
social statistics by Eurostat, regular quality reports, etc.  

32  See:  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/42577/6906243/ESS+vision+2020_V2/35911206-3968-

4548-adcc-882c797d9ca4  

33See https://www.destatis.de/EN/AboutUs/Events/DGINS/Document_Memorandum.pdf?__blob=publicati

onFile 

34 Eurostat public consultation webpage: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/about/opportunities/consultations/iess 
Open  public  consultation  report:  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/10186/7237349/Open-public-
consultation-report.pdf 
Consultation  of  the  data  users:    http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/10186/7237349/Data-users-
consultation-report.pdf 
Consultation  of 
producers-consultation-report.pdf 

the  data  producers:  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/10186/7237349/Data-

49 

 
 
 
                                                      
Open public consultation  

This  section  provides  a  summary  of  the  consultation  process.  This  section  lists  each  of  the 
relevant steps taken in the consultation, starting with Open Public Consultation (OPC). All steps 
were agreed upon with Eurostat and the Steering Committee. In preparation for the open public 
consultation,  profiles  of  general  data  users  were  established,  including  academic/research 
institutes,  Business,  EU  institutions,  individuals,  Interest  groups,  media,  NGOs,  international 
organisations,  public  authorities,  other.  In  order  to  collect  responses,  a  promotion  strategy  was 
put  in  place,  consisting  in  identifying  collectives  of  users  and  sending  mails  with  links  to  the 
questionnaire. This included emails sent to:  

• 
• 

• 

• 

• 

Representatives at the NSIs in several working groups (140 recipients); 
Members of Business Europe (former UNICE) and national representatives (78), to 
UEAPME and national representatives / full members (46), to ETUC and European 
Trade Union Federations (48), Think Tanks (72); 
Professional  statistical  associations:  Federation  of  European  National  Statistical 
Societies  and  member  associations  (49),  International  Statistics  Associations  (16), 
National Statistics Associations (26); 
Archive  resources  and  research  institutes  (68),  social  research  institutes  and 
Universities  from  countries  with  fewer  responses  received  in  the  first  weeks  (266), 
Equinet  Members  of  the  equality  bodies,  ENSR  (European  Network  for  Social  and 
Economic Research) (31 members), ESF Expert Evaluation Network (30 members); 
Other experts, NGOs, including the Social Platform that advertised the consultation 
in amongst their members, consultants, researchers, and other uses of social statistics 
(around 400 recipients). 

Following the EC Stakeholder Consultation Guidelines 2014, and in order to ensure consistency 
and  user-friendly  access  to  information,  the  standard  consultation  page  template  was  used.  The 
standard page provides details about: 

- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 

title and policy field of consultation; 
target groups; 
period of consultation (12 weeks as general rule, 16 weeks for this consultation); 
objective of consultation; 
instructions on how to submit contributions; 
information about the results of the consultation and next steps; 
privacy statement. 

The  OPC  questionnaire  prepared  and  uploaded  (EU  Survey  Tool),  as  well  as  a  consultation 
document that summarised the initial research identifying potential problems of social statistics 
and a description of policy options. 

103 responses were received in the period 23th July to 15th November 2015 (16 weeks). 35% are 
academic/researchers, 26% public authorities in Member States and the rest includes staff of EU 
institutions (10%), consultants/individuals (9%), businesses/business associations (8%) and other. 

Consultation with producers of European social statistics 

A  list  of  contacts  was  established  based  on  the  members  of  the  Directors  of  Social  Statistics 
(DSS)  Group  (representatives  of  Member  States  and  EFTA  countries).  Eurostat  officially 
announced  an  invitation  to  participate  to  the  interviews  at  the  DSS  meeting  on  the  25th  of 
February 2015. In addition, a series of in-depth interviews was carried, with representatives from 
a  selection  of  Member  States  that  would  include  large  and  small  territorial  size  (to  take  into 
account the needs for higher geographical breakdown of social statistics), “older” and “newer”, 
as  well  as  NSIs  with  more  or  less  intense  use  of  administrative  registers  for  social  statistics. 
Representatives  were  selected  from:  Denmark,  Germany,  France,  the  Netherlands,  Poland, 
Portugal, Romania and United Kingdom. 

50 

 
To receive feedback from all NSI, an online questionnaire to all relevant NSIs was prepared and 
put  on-line  (EU  Survey  Tool).  The  online  questionnaire  was  accompanied  by  a  document  with 
the initial research identifying potential problems of social statistics and a description of policy 
options. The questionnaire was piloted with the help of the NSIs of Lithuania and Spain. In total, 
25  responses  from  EU  and  3  from  EFTA  NSIs  were  received.  Particular  attention  was  paid  to 
collecting  feedback  from  Member  States  for  which  social  impact  assessment  is  especially 
relevant, like programme countries. 

Consultation with institutional social statistics users 

A list of specialised statistics users was proposed to target with in-depth qualitative interviews. In 
the selection various European Commission Directorates-General and agencies were included; it 
was  agreed  with  Steering  Committee  to  carry  out  in-depth  interviews  with  DG  ECFIN,  DG 
EMPL, DG SANTE, DG EAC, DG HOME, DG REGIO and DG JUST. This includes a mix of 
the  various  affected  policy  domains  requiring  social  statistics.  Contacts  were  made  to  establish 
face  to  face  meetings  in  September-November  2015.  In  preparation  for  the  interviews, 
respondents  received  an  outline  of  the  relevant  questions  to  prepare.  In  the  end,  all  7  selected 
DGs were interviewed. 

Findings / Outcomes of the consultation 

Perception of the problems 

Preliminary desk research allowed to propose a list of problems in social statistics and possible 
relations  of  causality  between  drivers  and  problems.  This  list  was  described  in  the  documents 
accompanying  the  stakeholder  consultation  for  discussion  and  opinion.  The  consulted 
stakeholders  –  general  users,  specialized  users  in  EC  DGs  and  NSIs  -  acknowledged  such 
problems.  

The perceived problems can be summarised as follows:  

• 
Data  users  are  concerned  with  the  risk  of  European  official  statistics  lacking  relevance 
(usefulness),  due  to  a  combination  of  quality  issues  (coverage  of  emerging  social  issues, 
constrained timeliness and limited comparability and coherence); 

• 
Data producers (NSIs) are concerned with the high production costs and the pressure to 
cover  the  informational  needs  in  a  context  of  emerging  social  crises  within  a  short  timeframe, 
non-official ubiquitous and almost real-time information. Response burden is also an issue (risk 
of  decreasing  response  rates  and  thus  data  quality).  NSIs  would  like  to  have  more  support  for 
their modernisation processes (innovation in technology, methodology, use of new data sources, 
management, etc.) that intend to address the need of decreasing production costs.  

Need for increased responsiveness of official European social statistics to emerging information 
needs 

Relevance is recognised as one of the quality dimensions of official statistics and describes the 
degree in which statistics are responsive to the needs of users.  

Without  neglecting  what  has  been  done  so  far,  European  policymakers  (DGs)  require  more 
responsiveness from the ESS. Better responsiveness implies the ability to quickly accommodate 
emerging  informational  needs  within  the  European  statistical  programmes  (multi-annual  and 
annual),  but  also  within  the  national  statistical  plans.  The  rigidity  of  the  current  system  in 
planning  European  social  statistics,  along  with  calendars  specific  to  each  statistical  data 
collection  set  and  specific  legal  instruments,  does  not  help  to  create  a  high  level  of 
responsiveness,  even  if  the  system  of  modules  in  surveys  provides  some  flexibility  for  the 
coverage of emerging topics. When social topics are not covered by European official statistics, 
the  European  Commission  and  other  EU  institutions  collect  and  disseminate  other  statistical 
operations  (e.g.  the  Eurobarometer,  the  European  Social  Survey,  the  European  Quality  of  Life 

51 

 
Survey  and  other  surveys  setup  by  for  instance  EU  agencies)  which  can  quickly  respond  to  an 
emerging need for information, but do not benefit from the technical support of EU NSIs (and the 
related statistical quality).  

NSIs are also concerned with the usefulness of their production, which strongly depends on their 
capacity  of  disseminating  timely  data  on  “hot”  issues  (social  crises,  new  policy  issues,  multi-
dimensional  social  aspects,  etc.).  NSIs  have  to  be  sure  that  the  planning  process  is  flexible 
enough to accommodate new needs. However, at the same time it has to provide a clear forecast 
of resources needed. As mentioned above, the multi-annual planning at ESS level, which occurs 
over a 5-year process, in addition to the relatively closed set of research domains in the current 
regulations, are made flexible by the possibility of including modules, but most NSIs term require 
no  less  than  2  years  to  be  prepared  for  such  modules.  According  to  most  NSIs’  opinion,  any 
reform of the legal environment should carefully tackle the issue of programming, ensuring mid-
term  predictability  and  responsiveness.  Linking  data  across  data  collections  can  provide  a 
technical solution to new information needs not covered by current data collections (for instance, 
the  combination  of  data  on  income  and  well-being),  but  this  may  be  hampered  by  the  current 
fragmented  legal  setting  and  the  associated  lack  of  common  definitions  and  variables  across 
surveys. 

The  information  needs  of  data  users  in  general  (e.g.  researchers,  media,  interest  groups, 
businesses, NGOs, etc.) were, to some extent, not met over the last two years (e.g. topics related 
to  social  impact  of  the  crisis).  Furthermore,  those  data  users  that  need  more  timely  data  (e.g. 
business,  freelancers,  media  and  NGOs)  are  not  satisfied  with  the  capacity  of  adaptation  of 
European social statistics towards new user needs.  

The  creation  of  coherent  data  pools  (e.g.  data  warehouses)  and  increasing  the  capacity  to  link 
data  from  different  data  collections  are  important  actions,  according  to  data  users,  that  could 
improve the relevance of European social statistics. 

From the point of view of data users, greater attention to social developments and simplification 
of legal procedures would improve the relevance and timeliness of European social statistics.  

Coherence and comparability to be increased for higher quality of social statistics 

The  lack  of  complete  coherence  across  European  social  statistics  is  a  major  problem  for  all 
stakeholders and in particular, for the users. The results of the open public consultation showed 
(with  a  certain  frequency)  that  the  respondents  perceived  that  social  surveys  were  not  fully 
coherent or aligned: approximately one third of the respondents have made attempts on occasion 
to  align  data  from  different  surveys,  which  were  perceived  as  incoherent.  It  is  important  to 
highlight that data other than official statistics from Eurostat have been used by the respondents 
with a certain frequency, due to perceived incoherence and comparability problems. The fact that 
users  sometimes  used  other  data  instead  of  official  statistics  from  Eurostat  (because  of 
incoherence  and  comparability  problems  of  these)  can  be  seen  as  a  warning  sign  for  prompt 
reaction from the producers of statistics. 

Coherence  of  social  data  collections  is  fundamental  to  address  multi-dimensional  social  issues. 
Coherence  is  another  dimension  of  data  quality  recognised  at  the  ESS  level.  It  not  only  can 
improve the relevance of statistics to users, but can also simplify the processes of production of 
statistics by sharing tools. The lack of coherence and comparability of social statistical operations 
is not perceived as a consequence of the legal framework but of the methodological aspects and 
of the historical development of European social statistics as separate “stovepipes” with distinct 
methodologies and production processes. While work is ongoing amongst NSIs and Eurostat with 
the  exchange  of  experiences  (working  groups,  collaborative  networks)  and  there  is  room  for 
improved  coherence  in  the  individual  regulations,  an  integrated  regulation  is deemed  necessary 
by all stakeholders to enforce the methodological coherence by providing standards for variables, 
statistical units, classifications, reference periods, etc. applicable to all data collections.  

52 

 
 
More innovation needed for decreasing the high production costs and response burden  

NSIs,  together  with  Eurostat,  have  embarked  on  a  modernisation  process  of  official  statistics, 
which  spans  technological  innovations,  methodological  progress  and  institutional/legislative 
actions. Users are generally less concerned with the production process for statistics, but it is a 
key issue for NSIs. Modernisation processes related to the integration of the production processes 
for  increased  efficiency  within  NSIs  are  taking  place  without  a  legislative  framework.  For 
instance, IT improvements are present outside the legal environment.  

The  possibility  of  increasing  the  efficiency  of  the  statistics  production  system  has  been 
acknowledged as an important issue.  

On  one  hand,  the  vast  majority  of  respondents  of  the  open  consultation  consider  it  to  be 
'extremely important' in having access to free-of-charge data.  A policy of free access to (main) 
social statistics requires increased efficiency in terms of costs within  the production  cycle. The 
‘pressure’  is  even  higher  in  a  period  when  resources  for  producing  official  statistics  are  scarce 
and the possibility of large data, as well as data available from other sources, exists. At the same 
time, efficiency of social statistics –in terms of tax-payers money and burden on respondents- is 
also important for the users. 

While the perception of statistics producers with regards to cost is outstanding, the total cost for 
the  production  of  the  EU  social  statistics  in  the  scope  of  the  proposed  integrated  regulation  is 
estimated  around  300  Million  Euro  (176.2  Million  on  an  annual  basis),  which  is  a  small 
percentage  of  the  budget  for  social  policies  within  the  EU.  It  is  remarkable  that  EU  DGs  are 
sensitive  to  NSI  cost  issues.  In  all  cases  where  applicable,  DGs  expressed  their  willingness  to 
delegate budgets to Eurostat to satisfy data needs. Within these same lines, it can be concluded 
that  DGs  require  official  statistics  for  sound  policymaking,  but  do  not  neglect  the  use  of  other 
European (non-official) data for short-term or ad-hoc needs. In fact, non-ESS surveys on social 
issues are financed with EU budget (e.g. EQLS, EWCS, Eurobarometer).  

However,  at  the  level  of  NSIs,  the  cost  of  additional  surveys  or  of  increased  samples  is  still  a 
major  concern.  A  legislative  framework  that  would  provide  for  standardisation  of  processes 
across data collections and countries would facilitate the re-use of “tools” for data treatment and 
dissemination (accounting for about 22% of the total costs). The increase in data collection costs 
(which account for about 65% of total costs) that would be due to higher precision requirements 
or  higher  regional  disaggregation  would  offset  gains  in  efficiency  of  processes.  However,  this 
may only be significant in the case of large countries with a regional structure. This increase in 
requirements  may  take  place  independently  of  a  legislative  modification  at  the  EU  level,  since 
NSIs could consider it satisfactory to the needs of national users (policymakers). It is difficult to 
evaluate in detail the cumulated impact on costs of the different modernisation initiatives which 
combine  methodological  work,  inter-institutional  collaboration  and  IT  developments.  As 
mentioned  above,  the  innovation  in  data  collection  technologies  is  taking  place  without  a 
necessary supportive legislative framework.  

However,  the  modernisation  process  based  on  increased  use  of  administrative  data  can  be 
strengthened by a sound legislative basis. This not only increases the efficiency of the production 
system by decreasing the cost of data collection (which accounts for about 65% of total costs) but 
also the response burden of  respondents. While in most countries the current  legislation  allows 
NSIs  to  access  these  sources,  an  explicit  provision  of  this  in  an  EU  integrated  regulation  is 
considered  by  NSIs  as  a  strong  leverage.  This  has  to  be  accompanied  by  more  methodological 
work to assess the quality of administrative registers and harmonise the concepts used with them 
for the production of social statistics. The use of other innovative data sources (e.g. Big Data) is 
still very exploratory.  

Generally, the modernisation process is strongly supported by users. Users strongly adhere to the 
actions  proposed  for  overcoming  these  problems.  All  groups  of  respondents  assigned  high  or 
relatively high importance to all actions. This might be interpreted as a call for attention from the 
users  with  regards  to  the  need  for  improvement  of  European  social  statistics  at  different  levels 

53 

 
and  dimensions.  It  may  also  suggest  that  there  is  room  for  higher  NSI  engagement  with  users 
within the process of modernisation.  

The recent trends in user needs highlight the importance of engaging with users. Emphasising the 
importance  of  the  user  focus,  it  is  of  extreme  relevance  to  conclude  that,  based  on  the  OPC 
results,  users  support  the  actions  proposed  towards  the  modernisation  of  the  European  social 
statistics.  There  is  a  trade-off  between  timeliness  and  quality  –coherence  and  comparability- 
(which  are  important  dimensions  for  the  statistics  users),  but  users  should  be  informed  (and 
should comprehend and accept) that there can be limitations on what producers can achieve in a 
given time, although their needs have been considered in the planning and prioritisation phase of 
the production process.  

54 

 
 
 
ANNEX 3:  WHO IS AFFECTED BY THE INITIATIVE AND HOW 

The production and use of European social statistics involves 4 main categories of stakeholders:  

• 

• 

• 

Data providers: this category includes not only the respondents to surveys 
(households, individuals) but also national institutions that are keepers of 
administrative data files, such as for example, the Social Security or Tax 
Administration.   
Data producers: this category comprises the authorities responsible for the collection 
and compilation of social statistics. It mainly includes the NSIs and Eurostat.   
Data users: this includes institutional users –national administrations, other 
international organisations, or professional staff working within the Commission 
services or DGs and other EU institutions, and other external users, such as mass 
media and academics. 

Amongst  data users, a special  mention  of a particular should be made:  the European  Statistical 
Advisory  Committee  (ESAC),  established  in  2008,  by  the  Decision  No  234/2008/EC  of  the 
European Parliament and the Council. It gathers 24 members representing users, respondents and 
other stakeholders of European Statistics (including the scientific community, social partners and 
civil  society)  as  well  as  institutional  users  (like  e.g.,  the  Council  and  the  European  Parliament) 
According to article 8 of the Statistical Regulation (223/2009), the ESAC could be consulted in 
the process of possible new legislation.  

The preferred policy option has a significant impact on data producers and data users.  

Data users 

Data users benefit of an increased coherence of the different existing sets of social data. The use 
of  common  concept  definitions,  classifications  and  breakdowns,  statistical  units,  and  the 
coordination of survey calendars improve the quality perceived by statistics users.  

The  preferred  policy  option  allows  for  greater  flexibility  in  the  statistical  work  programme  by 
providing for mechanisms to accommodate emerging information needs. The current scenario is 
characterized  by  the  existence  of  flexible  data  collection  instruments  which  can  provide  for  ad 
hoc information needs (e.g. Eurobarometer or other surveys run for instance by EU agencies) but 
these  are  not  coordinated  with  European  social  surveys.  Under  the  preferred  policy  option,  the 
system will increase flexibility as well as integrate social surveys; this has the double advantage 
of  covering  new  information  needs  by  producing  new  data  and  by  combining  them  with  those 
already collected. 

In  order  to  fully  benefit  from  an  increased  coherence,  users  may  explore  innovative  ways  of 
combining  data  from  different  data  collections.  Methodologies  such  as  data  linking  and  data 
matching  can  be  applied  by  advanced  users  (e.g.  academic  researchers).  They  should  also 
contribute to the identification of potential inconsistencies across data collections. Feedback from 
users  can  be  institutionally  channelled  through  the  European  Statistical  Advisory  Board  and 
several other less formal channels, like domain specific networks and conferences.  

To benefit of greater flexibility, users have to closely work with statistical authorities to achieve 
proportionality  in  the  satisfaction  of  information  needs  and  production  efforts.  This  implies 
ensuring an effective mechanism for the identification of negative priorities (which can also be 
undertaken by the European Statistics Advisory Committee). At the European Commission level, 
the  institutional  users  (DGs,  agencies)  will  continue  working  closely  with  Eurostat  in  the 
definition  of  needs  and  develop  the  mechanisms  for  budget  delegations,  formalised  with 
Memorandum  of  Understanding  between  each  user  DG  and  Eurostat  and  the  annual  formal 
"hearing" with each DG. 

55 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Data producers 

The production of European social data is mostly done at national level by NSIs and other public 
authorities,  which  are  public  institutions  and  therefore  with  public  budgets.  Additional 
requirements  of  information  mean  higher  budgets,  unless  measures  to  significantly  increase 
efficiency are taken.  

The cost of accommodating new information needs includes new methodological work, new data 
collection,  new  processing  or  dissemination  methods.  The  bulk  of  costs  go  to  data  collection. 
Adding  new  variables  in  an  existing  data  collection  implies  adaptation  of  statistical  software 
(data entry, validation, processing, etc.) which can be offset with the modernisation of production 
(e.g.  using  more  administrative  data,  better  technology  or  sharing  methodological  solutions 
among NSIs).  

Carrying out new surveys, increasing the frequency of data collections or significantly increasing 
sample sizes (for better precision or more disaggregation of data) has a significant impact on cost. 
Unless constraints on the increase in cost are given, policy options increasing the flexibility may 
highly impact the budgetary needs of NSIs.  

It has to be mentioned that the most expensive surveys are those carried out with large samples 
and high frequency (e.g. LFS) or those based on diaries (e.g. HBS, HETUS). The current system 
of  modules  in  LFS  provides  for  the  accommodation  of  new  information  needs.  The  HBS  is 
already  carried  out by  all NSIs  even  if  not  legally  regulated.  The HETUS  has  a  low  frequency 
(every 10 years). Thus, important cost increases are expected if higher precision is required for 
existing  surveys.  Policy  options  that  consider  mechanisms  for  (1)  evaluating  the  relevance  of 
additional information requirements and (2) simplifying the work programmes by excluding the 
data  collections  which  are  not  deemed  relevant  anymore  (negative  priorities)  would  provide 
safeguards for un-controlled increases in cost.  

NSIs would however benefit of a simpler, integrated legislation that would allow for reducing the 
legal  work  to  update  the  statistical  regulations,  that  would  consider  the  whole  system  of  social 
surveys  when  planning  and  designing  each  data  collection  and  that  would  promote  the 
modernisation of processes (e.g. by facilitating access to administrative data and other sources) 
and increase the methodological coherence across surveys.  

Before adopting  by legal acts significant  modifications  of the current  social  surveys, feasibility 
and  other  technical  studies  will  be  carried  out.  In  particular,  additional  precision  requirements 
involving higher costs, as well as the introduction of new variables in data collections, should be 
duly justified by their relevance to users. A minimum time of 2 years for the implementation of 
significant modifications should be respected. These initial costs of methodological development 
may be supported by the Commission, and the long term costs limited.  

In practice, the joint work of Eurostat and the NSIs to integrate social surveys will continue and 
will  have  to  be  consolidated  in  implementing  measures.  The  role  of  the  DSS  will  thus  be 
reinforced as the main technical forum of discussion on social statistics, advising the ESSC and 
the Commission. The balance of costs and benefits, in financial terms, is difficult to assess since 
it  depends  on  the  actual  implementation  of  changes  in  existing  surveys.  Progress  in  the 
harmonised  and  comparable  measurement  of production  costs  in NSIs  would not  only  improve 
the  management  at  the  national  level,  but  also  provide  a  sound  basis  for  monitoring  and 
evaluating the impact of any modernisation process – be it or not related to legal obligations.  

56 

 
 
 
 
ANNEX 4: ANALYTICAL MODELS USED IN PREPARING THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT. 

This IA analysis has pushed at the maximum possible the use of quantitative data, having in mind 
a principle of proportionality. Due to a variety of reasons, the possibilities to use quantitative data 
couldn't cover all the aspects of the policy options envisaged. As a result, the use of modelling 
has  been  limited  from  the  start  and  decreased  even  further  in  the  course  of  the  IA,  due  to  the 
quality of the collected data. This is discussed in detail in the consultation reports. 

Worth  mentioning  in  this  Annex  is  the  approach  to  the  baseline  measurement  and  the  impact 
assessment  of  the  cost  related  to  data  production.  Two  aspects  should  be  understood  prior  to 
explaining the approach as such: 

1. 

2. 

There is a lack of existing harmonised and comprehensive data in the Member States. 
Targeted data collection was needed. 
Difficulties mentioned by stakeholders to assess precisely the future costs of the various 
scenarios. The details of the future regulation(s) are unknown but will probably 
determine a major share of the impact on cost. A qualitative approach based on changes 
in costs was proposed. 

Ad 1. Lack of existing harmonised and comprehensive data 

There  is  very  limited  information  available  on  the  ´problems´  identified  in  the  IA.  There  are 
Eurostat  studies  that  collection  such  information,  for  example  on  key  performance  indicators  , 
users  satisfaction  surveys    and  systematic  Rolling  Reviews  in  accordance  with  the  binding 
standards approved by the Commission.  

Rolling  Reviews  involved  not  only  the  assessment  of  the  statistical  data  produced  but  also  the 
process to produce them, the interactions with data providers and interactions with users of the 
data.  They  formed  part  of  the  Quality  Assurance  Framework  developed  by  Eurostat  in  2007. 
Each Rolling Review implies a thorough assessment of: (1) the process of producing data, (2) the 
quality of the data produced (3) the users' satisfaction and assessment of data quality, (4) the data 
provider's satisfaction, (5) the resources used by Eurostat and Member States. 

In addition, each  statistical domain  is  monitored through quality reports, regularly produced  by 
Member States and analysed and compiled by Eurostat, as part of the statistical quality insurance 
framework.  These  reports  encompass  the  following  dimensions:  Relevance,  assessment  of  user 
needs  and  perceptions;  Accuracy  and  reliability;  Timeliness  and  punctuality;  Accessibility  and 
clarity; Coherence and comparability; Cost and burden; Confidentiality. 

However,  due  to  the  limited  resources,  these  data  are  not  compiled  often.  Besides,  most  of  the 
data is not observed at a level of detail (variables, sources) that would be necessary and are either 
valid  for  the  whole  statistical  production  or  domain  specific.  Furthermore,  it  is  recognized  that 
“the methodologies for measuring production costs and response burden imposed by statistics are 
still rather heterogeneous both across various Member States and across different statistical areas 
as confirmed by data on total resources collected through Rolling Reviews”.  

Estimating the cost of surveys is a complex task, and has been in the debate in NSIs for decades. 
Attempts to standardise the methods for cost accounting have been made, but they are in general 
focused on household surveys carried out on a project basis. For recurrent surveys carried out by 
NSIs,  some  costs  are  spread  over  the  whole  statistical  production  (e.g.  management  costs  of 
NSIs, IT infrastructure, training of specialists). In the case of social statistics using administrative 
registers, the accounting for costs of the process of collecting such administrative records is not 
borne by NSIs but is still covered by government budgets. Differences in staff salaries, country 
size  in  terms  of  population  and  territory  add  to  difficulties  with  obtaining  comparable  data. 
Differences in frequency of surveys require considering an annualised cost dividing the total cost 
of a survey by the number of years between rounds (for instance, the cost of a survey carried out 
every 5 years is simply annualised by dividing this total cost by 5). 

57 

 
 
 
Cost accounting by types of expenditure (IT, salaries, printing and sending questionnaires, etc.) 
are  relatively  easy  to  collect  but  an  analytical  accounting  per  phases  of  the  process  is  not 
immediate. NSIs have, in general, put in place internal systems for obtaining estimates according 
to their own needs.  

There  are  in  general  two  sources  of  information  on  the  costs  of  statistical  production:  budget 
appropriations  and  analytical  accounting.  The  first  source  does  not  allow  completely  to 
discriminate  costs  for  social  statistics  from  those  of  other  operations  (for  example,  the 
institutional  IT  systems,  the  maintenance  of  a  cartographic  base,  the  general  training  of 
interviewers,  etc.).  The  second  is  in  general  institution-specific,  less  comparable,  and  most 
importantly, is not accessible externally to the institutions. It was therefore necessary to collect 
the information directly from the NSIs. 

For all these reasons, a limited collection of the costs at Member State level was necessary. This 
included  the  provision  of  estimates  of  costs  by  broad  phases  of  the  statistical  process  (design, 
data collection, data processing and dissemination) - described below. Some Member States were 
not able to provide the complete information  and thus some  modelling (imputation) of  missing 
data was necessary. 

Ad 2. Difficulties mentioned by stakeholders to assess precisely the future costs of the 
various scenarios 

The details of the future regulation(s) are unknown but will probably determine a major share of 
the impact on cost 

In the policy options defined in the main text, elements such as integration and harmonisation are 
defined  in  a  general  manner.  However,  actual  details  of  the  regulations  will  determine  the 
differences  in  cost.  As  such,  opening  up  the  possibility  to  integrate,  harmonise,  use  innovative 
methods  etc.  will  probably  not  make  a  big  difference.  Without  knowledge  of  these  details, 
quantification is impossible. For instance, there is no clear view on how these details (definition 
of  variables,  reliability  requirements,  etc.)  relate  to  available  administrative  data  or  alternative 
data collection methods.  

In  other  words,  the  approach  usually  applied,  using  the  Standard  Cost  Model,  is  not  feasible. 
Defining exact scenario’s in which all the relevant parameters were prescribed at implementation 
level  would  be  very  uncertain,  due  to  for  instance  the  multidimensional  nature  of  the 
assumptions.  Moreover,  cost  calculations  for  such  scenarios  would  have  required  an 
unproportioned effort from the NSIs. 

Using the NSI survey, an effort was made to come to an adapted version, refraining from using 
actual ‘costs’ in absolute monetary terms and using relative terms. The NSIs were asked to assess 
how the cost of different steps of statistical production would evolve under each policy option. 
However, the findings made clear this was not feasible either. Answers were spread wide, with 
no  logical  explanation  for  the  differences  found.  Apparently,  the  need  to  make  assumptions  on 
many options not yet known in details was too high to come to decent indicators. 

Cost measurement approach 

In  order  to  assess  the  cost  of  the  policy  options,  NSIs  were  asked  to  provide  a  baseline 
(quantitative) and to assess how the cost of different steps of statistical production would evolve 
under  several  scenarios  (defined  in  general  terms).  For  the  latter,  alternative  approaches  have 
been part of the NSI survey, but ultimately, a qualitative approach was used.  

Costs of existing data collections have therefore been collected, as well as some breakdowns of 
these costs. With some caveat, these data are however giving adequate orders of magnitude of the 

58 

 
 
 
 
 
 
baseline scenario. Qualitative impact on costs of policy options compared to the baseline scenario 
has also been sought, with mixed results. 

For the breakdowns of the current costs, in order to refer to a common language for describing 
the statistical process, the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) has been used. 
This  model  is  used  by  the  Commission  and  NSIs  to  improve  standardisation  of  statistical 
activities.  

The costs related to the statistical business process could in theory be broken down following the 
Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) and its eight phases as indicated below.  

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Specify  needs:  Identification  and  confirmation  of  statistics’  needs,  new  information 
request, statistical outputs required  to meet the user needs  and data sources  availability 
checks.  
Design activities: detailed design of statistical outputs, variables, collection methods and 
instruments,  design  frame  and  sample,  design  the  statistical  processing  methodology  to 
be applied (including specification of routines for coding, editing, imputing, estimating, 
…) 
Build:  design  collection  instruments  and  its  preparation  and  testing;  new  and  enhance 
existing  components  and  services  needed  for  the  “process”  and  “analyse”  phases 
(dashboard  functions  and  features,  information  services,  workflow  frameworks,…); 
components and services needed for the dissemination; technical testing of programmes 
and  routines;  test  of  the  statistical  business  process  (small-scale  data  collection, 
processing  and  analysis  of  the  collected  data);  and  activities  to  put  the  configured 
processes and  services, into production ready for use (documentation about  the process 
components – manuals, and training). 
Collect:  creation  of  frame  and  sample  selection  (including  coordination  of  samples 
between  instances  of  the  same  statistical  business  process;  quality  assurance  and 
approval  of  the  frame,…);  set  up  collection  (including  the  collection  strategy,  planning 
and  training  activities,  agreeing  terms  with  any  intermediate  collection  bodies,…);  run 
and finalize the collection. 
Process: activities to clean of data and their preparation for analysis (i.e. data integration; 
data classification and code; data revision and validation; edit and imputation; derivation 
of  new  variables  and  units;  calculation  of  weights;  calculation  of  aggregates;  and 
finalization of data files). 
Analyse:  production  and  examination  of  statistical  products  and  prepare  them  for 
dissemination (i.e. data transformation into statistical outputs, (e.g. production of indices, 
trends,  recording  of  quality  characteristics);  output  validation  and  explanation; 
application  of  disclosure  controls;  and  finalization  of  outputs  “fit  for  purpose”  and 
reaching the required quality level. 
Disseminate: update output systems (formatting and loading data and metadata ready to 
be  put  into  output  databases);  production  of  dissemination  products;  manage  release; 
promote dissemination and manage users support.  
Evaluate:  evaluation  of  the  success  of  a  specific  instance  of  the  statistical  business 
process by: gather evaluation inputs (e.g. feedback from users, process metadata; system 
metrics;  staff  suggestions);  conduct  evaluation  (i.e.  evaluation  report  including 
recommendations for changes if appropriate); and agreement of an action plan based on 
the  evaluation  report  (including  also  consideration  of  a  mechanism  for  monitoring  the 
impact of those actions). 

In order to reduce the burden for NSIs as much as possible, these eight phases were consolidated 
further to broad statistical phases: 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Design (specify needs, design activities, build); 
Data collection (Collect); 
Data treatment (process, analyse); 
Dissemination (disseminate, evaluate). 

59 

 
 
 
Not all NSIs were able to provide cost estimates with this breakdown by broad statistical phases. 
Missing information was imputed by using the data of the closest country in terms of population 
size. No  information has  been  collected  on the disaggregation  of cost according  to investments 
for each phase of the statistical process (e.g. development of new tools for data collection) and 
current  expenditure  (e.g.  salaries  of  interviewers  carrying  out  the  data  collection).  Thus,  the 
figures presented have to be taken with care. They do not represent a detailed accountancy of the 
cost of social surveys.  

*                            * 

* 

Overview of the costs of data production under different policy options: 

Under the paragraph 6.2.3, a box has presented several model based scenarios. The yearly details 
of the proposed approach are presented here. 

It is important to note that the model is based on several assumptions described in the paragraph 
6.2.3,  that  includes  the  acceptation  of  the  limits  of  the  data  collected  at  the  occasion  of  the 
consultation  of  the  stakeholders.  The  other  assumptions  are  summarised  in  the  following  table, 
together with the results aggregated for all the data collections. 

The  policy  options  1.1.  (No  change  in  EU  legislation,  defragment  production  processes  across 
data  collection)  and  1.2  (integrate  EU  legislation  and  no  change  in  the  fragmentation  of  the 
production  process)  have  not  been  subject  to  this  model  based  approach,  as  they  do  not  entail 
significant changes of costs (for the option 1.2) and because policy option 1.1 has a high risk of 
no efficiency gain, or at least a high risk of divergences between surveys and between Member 
States as described in paragraph 6.2.2. 

60 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Table 3: Assumptions and yearly details of the model based scenarios. 

61 

ScenarioAssumptionsChange in costs as compared to the baselineY1Y2Y3Y4Y5Y6Y7Total Net present valueDesign costs: +20%One off re-design costs6.813.530.000.000.000.000.0010.33Data collection costs: -5%Data collection costs-10.08-4.63-3.41-0.70-0.67-0.65-0.62-20.75Design costs: +10%One off re-design costs3.401.760.000.000.000.000.005.17Data collection costs: -2%Data collection costs-4.03-1.85-1.37-0.28-0.27-0.26-0.25-8.30Design costs: +20%One off re-design costs6.813.530.000.000.000.000.0010.33Data collection costs: -5%Data collection costs-10.08-9.69-9.32-4.28-4.11-3.96-2.92-44.35Design costs: +20%One off re-design costs4.311.120.000.000.000.000.005.43Data collection costs: -5%Data collection costs-6.38-1.080.000.000.000.000.00-7.46The period covered by the one off re-design costs is 2 years for the low frequency surveys (AES, AHIS) and one year for the high frequency surveys (LFS, SILC, HHICT). The period covered by the decrease of costs in data collection is 1 year for the high frequency surveys (LFS, SILC and HHICT), 2 years for AES and EHIS.-10.42-3.13-34.01-2.04All amounts are presented in present value with a discount rate of 4% and expressed in EUR million.Option 1.3 a (without HBS and HETUS)Scenario 1The period covered by the one off re-design costs is 2 years for the low frequency surveys (AES, EHIS, HBS, HETUS) and one year for the high frequency surveys (LFS, SILC, HHICT). The period covered by the decrease of costs in data collection is 1 year for the high frequency surveys (LFS, SILC and HHICT), 2 years for AES and EHIS, 3 years for HBS and 7 years for HETUS.The period covered by the one off re-design costs is 2 years for the low frequency surveys (AES, EHIS, HBS, HETUS) and one year for the high frequency surveys (LFS, SILC, HHICT). The period covered by the decrease of costs in data collection is 1 year for the high frequency surveys (LFS, SILC and HHICT), 2 years for AES and EHIS, 3 years for HBS and 7 years for HETUS.Scenario 3The period covered by the one off re-design costs is 2 years for the low frequency surveys (AES, EHIS, HBS, HETUS) and one year for the high frequency surveys (LFS, SILC, HHICT). The period covered by the decrease of costs in data collection is 3 years for the high frequency surveys (LFS, SILC and HHICT), 6 years for AES and EHIS,  7 years for HBS and HETUS.Scenario 4Scenario 2Option 1.3b 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
ANNEX  5:  DETAILS  ON  THE  IMPACT  ASSESSMENT  OF  THE  OPTIONS  ADDRESSING  THE 

RIGIDITY OF THE DATA COLLECTION. 

1.1  Introducing policy options 

This section details the impacts related to the policy options that modifies the level of flexibility 
in the data collection of European statistics that are summarised in section 6.3. 

Three main policy options have been defined:  

Baseline  (option  2.0):  Changes  to  programme  or  technical  elements  require  changes  in  legal 
instruments. 

Policy option 2.1: Statistical programming set by Parliament / Council, technical elements more 
flexible to change. 

Policy option 2.2: Statistical programming and technical elements relatively flexible to change. 

The options presented in this section can vary independently from the policy options presented in 
the  previous  section.  Possible  impacts  of  a  combination  of  the  shortlisted  policy  options  under 
this heading and on domain fragmentation are explored in more detail in Chapter 7. 

1.2. Baseline (option 2.0): Programmatic and technical elements mainly fixed by 
basic law 

The  current  legislative  system  for  social  statistics  consists  of  a  fixed  programme  for  data 
collection,  in  which  both  the  requirements  on  programming  and  technicalities  are  most  of  the 
time referred to the Parliament and Council. The programme is broadly set at the EU level on a 
multi-annual  basis (European  Statistical Programme)  with annual work programmes,  and at the 
national level in a similar way. Calendars of the different surveys are not integrated, but recent 
efforts have been made at the DSS level to map the entire system of social statistics. As a result, 
each element that has to be changed, either technical or programmatic in nature, needs to undergo 
a lengthy legislative process that fully involves the European Parliament and Council (in addition 
to “internal” technical discussions in working groups and the European Statistical Committee).  

Effectiveness 

The continuation of the status quo has a limiting impact on the effectiveness of the collection of 
social  statistics.  An  important  risk  that  affects  the  effectiveness  of  the  current  system  revolves 
around  the  quality  of  decision-making.  Due  to  the  indiscriminate  mix  of  programming  (policy) 
and  very  technical  implementation  matter  (technicalities)  in  legislative  packages,  political 
attention is diverted from the essential task to balance European information requirements against 
cost  and  response  burden.  As  a  result,  decision-making  on  programmatic  elements  of  social 
statistics is relatively rigid and prevents an adequate response of social data collection to societal 
needs.  It  currently  takes  a  considerable  amount  of  time  to  start  the  production  of  new  data  in 
response  to  newly  formulated  policy  challenges.  New  data  needs  may  require  changes  in  the 
definition of variables collected in the social surveys, a new relevant breakdown, cross-tabulation 
from different sources or other methodological innovations, in addition to changes in IT-systems 
for processing and disseminating the results at the level of NSIs. Any of these technical changes 
has  to  be  reflected  in  an  amendment  of  a  legal  act,  with  all  the  relevant  formal  processes 
associated  to  it.  As  a  result,  many  data  users  report  an  increasing  use  of  other  non-official 
sources, such as the Eurobarometer or other data sources developed for instance by EU agencies. 
The  methodology  of  these  data  collections  are  not  based  on  a  Parliament  /  Council  Regulation 
and can be adapted to the needs of specific users with relative ease.  

The status quo limits the possibility for Eurostat to act on immediate quality issues, as allowed 
under  the  ‘statistical  Regulation’  (Regulation  223/2009).  Even  though  currently  no  major 
concerns  were  identified  with  regard  to  the  quality  of  social  statistics  due  to  the  flexibility, 

62 

 
stakeholders  expect  that  with  the  increasing  use  of  new  and  innovative  methods,  it  will  also 
become more important for Eurostat to be able to act swiftly and effectively on emerging quality 
issues.  

The  current  legislative  environment  does  not  facilitate  the  development  of  innovative  methods 
and procedures for social statistics. Due to the role of the Council and Parliament in both setting 
legislation of the programmatic and many technical elements, the legal system is relatively rigid 
and limits the possibilities to introduce innovative elements into legislation.  

Efficiency 

Due  to  the  legal  structure  of  the  social  statistics  system,  it  is  not  likely  to  adapt  to  newly 
emerging  possibilities  and  possible  cost-savings.  The  availability  of  innovative  methods  and 
increasing  pressures  on  the  budgets  of  NSIs  across  the  EU  contribute  to  an  increasing  use  of 
innovative  and  cost-saving  methods  and  processes  at  the  national  level  (e.g.  increased  use  of 
administrative  registers).  Capacities  for  reacting  to  and  framing  these  developments  will  either 
prevent them or lead to divergence in the data coming from Member States. 

Despite these expected increases in inefficiencies, NSIs also pointed out the need for stability in 
data collection, both in programmatic and in technical terms. Frequent changes in data collection 
needs  or  technical  requirements  may  contribute  to  disruptions  in  existing  time  series,  add  to 
survey burden  and increase  the work required  by NSIs to implement  new requirements.  As  the 
baseline  scenario  highly  favours  the  status  quo,  the  short-term  costs  for  NSIs  remain  relatively 
low.  

1.3. Policy option 2.1: Programmatic elements fixed by law / technicalities more 
flexible 

Policy alternative 2.1 suggests splitting the flexibility for the programmatic requirements and for 
the  technical  requirements.  This  policy  option  proposes  to  focus  the  political  attention  of  the 
Parliament  and  Council  on  the  programmatic  content  of  data  collection,  while  leaving  the 
technical specification outside EU legislation, to be discussed and agreed upon within the ESS. In 
a way, this policy option implements the statistical governance based on the principle of division 
of  responsibilities  as  envisioned  in  the  EU's  statistical  law  (223/2009).  This  Regulation 
formulates the role for Parliament and Council in statistical programming (see article 13), while 
mainly  defining  a  role  for  the  Commission  and  implementing  partners  in  more  technical  and 
quality  aspects,  most  of  which  would  be  dealt  with  by  governance  supported  by  technical 
discussions  in  the  relevant  forums  (DSS,  ESSC  and  working  groups).  When  talking  about 
technical  quality  aspects,  this  would  concern  elements,  such  as  sample  size  and  precision 
assessment,  statistical  definitions,  geographical  detail,  quality  reports,  sampling  frames 
characteristics, transmission aspects, etc.  

Effectiveness 

This  policy  option  contributes  positively  to  the  responsiveness  of  social  statistics  to  societal 
needs. The European Parliament and Council are left to define the programmatic priorities of data 
collection  in  regular  multi-annual  time  intervals.  An  important  difference  with  the  baseline 
scenario  is  that  the  political  actors  no  longer  have  to  consider  technical  details  of  statistical 
methodology.  As  a  result,  these  political  actors  will  be  better  enabled  to  balance  European 
information  requirements  (data  needs)  against  cost  and  response  burden.  In  line  with  this,  the 
consulted  EU  policymakers  reported  the  need  for  better  accommodation  of  emerging 
informational needs in the European statistical programmes (multi-annual and annual), but also in 
the  national  statistical  plans.  The  removal  of  the  technical  content  from  the  political  level 
contributes positively towards focusing political attention on such needs.  

The  policy  option  also  improves  the  possibilities  for  Eurostat  to  ensure  the  quality  of  statistics 
collected  by all  Member  States.  In  cooperation  with  its  implementing  partners  (NSIs),  Eurostat 

63 

 
will  be  able  to  respond  more  rapidly  and  efficiently  to  certain  quality  issues,  as  its  technical 
changes to the regulatory system would not have to involve the Parliament and Council.  

Thirdly,  this  policy  option  is  more  effective  towards  facilitating  the  introduction  and  use  of 
innovative  methods,  as  developed  by  some  NSIs  into  EU  legislation.  Based  on  its  frequent 
interactions in forums and workshops, Eurostat can effectively and authoritatively work together 
with its implementing partners and respond immediately to their needs.  

Efficiency / impacts on stakeholders 

This  policy  option  creates  the  possibilities  for  the  system  of  social  statistics  to  benefit  from 
differences  in  cost  structure  of  various  data  collection  methods.  The  additional  flexibility  of 
setting  technical  elements  of  statistical  data  collection  allows  the  gradual  introduction  of 
innovative  methods  to  replace  methodologies  that  are  no  longer  cost-efficient.  As  such,  the 
flexibility of technical requirements has a positive impact on the future efficiency of social data 
collection.  In  the  short-term  however,  a  majority  of  NSIs  expressed  their  concern  for  such 
flexible arrangements with regards to technical arrangements in the production of social statistics, 
even  if  they  were  included  in  the  decision-making  process.  According  to  most  NSI’s  opinions, 
any reform of the legal environment should carefully tackle the issue of programming, ensuring 
mid-term predictability and responsiveness. 

For NSIs, the term flexibility often equals “programmatic flexibility”, i.e. additional or changed 
data  demands  in  terms  of  coverage  or  calendar  of  data  collections,  which  are  accompanied  by 
considerable implementation costs that are usually unforeseen in their budgets. For this reason, 
NSIs warned during the consultation for flexibility and indicated the need for NSIs to have the 
possibility to explore optimal solutions for data production in their national contexts. Technical 
flexibility is seen as a risk by some NSIs if costly requirements are made, such as an increased 
precision or greater disaggregation of the data, which lead to increased data collection costs.  

No specific impacts that result from increased “technical flexibility” have been identified for data 
users.  For  respondents  and  participants  in  social  statistics,  this  policy  option  does  not  have 
substantial  impacts.  Efficiency  gains  can  be  obtained  if  flexible  arrangements  are  used  in 
integrating various modules. However, these efficiency gains for respondents are modest.  

Impact of the policy option 2.1 on the core problems  

Lack of responsiveness 

Quality issues 

Hampered 
methods 

use 

of 

innovative 

Inability to reduce costs 

issues, 

to  quality 

Improvement  (++):  Political  actors  will  be  better  enabled 
to balance EU information requirements against costs 
Improvement  (++):  Eurostat/ESS  will  be  able  to  respond 
more  swiftly  and  effectively 
in 
cooperation with implementation partners.  
Improvement  (++):  Without  rigid  legal  requirements,  the 
development and use of innovative methods can be further 
developed,  through  frequent  interactions  between  Eurostat 
and stakeholders 
Improvement,  but  possible  implementation  costs  (+): 
Costs  for  data  collection  and  legislative  amendments 
reduced  on  the  long  term,  but  NSIs  can  face  short-term 
costs involved with implementation 

1.4. Policy option 2.2: Programmatic / technical elements flexible 

This  policy  option  introduces  additional  flexibility  for  the  technical  specifications  of  data 
collection,  but  goes  beyond  policy  option  2.1  by  also  increasing  the  flexibility  on  the 
programmatic  requirements  of  social  statistics.  It  would  introduce  a  legal  framework,  to  be 
approved by the Parliament and Council, which broadly defines the types of issues that belong to 
the  umbrella  of  social  statistics.  The  more  specific  programmatic  contents  would  be  set  by 

64 

 
 
Eurostat,  in  collaboration  with  its  implementing  partners.  This  would  provide  additional 
flexibility in responding to programmatic needs of the users.  

Effectiveness 

This policy option would increase the possibilities to respond rapidly to newly rising phenomena 
with  social  statistics.  As  such,  this  policy  option  contributes  to  a  higher  potential  for 
responsiveness  of  societal  needs.  In  order  to  collect  new  data  fit  for  policy  purposes,  it  is 
necessary  to  have  a  flexible  system  that  allows  rapid  responses.  The  European  policymakers 
interviewed for this IA further underlined this need.  

However, at the same time, this policy option limits the possibility of the Parliament or Council 
introducing  new  programmatic  elements,  as  these  would  be  set  in  detail  by  Eurostat,  in 
cooperation  with  the  NSIs.  Therefore,  the  impact  on  responsiveness  would  theoretically  be 
increased,  but  at  the  same  time  limited  due  to  the  lack  of  political  involvement  and  mandate 
given to statisticians.  

The impacts of the flexibility of the technical aspects are not different between this policy option 
and option 2.1. This policy option has therefore, no difference in impact for Eurostat’s ability to 
ensure the quality of data or the introduction and use of innovative methods by NSIs. It enables 
Eurostat to respond rapidly and efficiently to quality issues and also generates a similar effect on 
the introduction and use of innovative methods by NSIs, which is overall favourable.  

Efficiency / impacts on stakeholders 

The major impact on efficiency of production of social statistics depends on the flexibility of the 
technical elements of legislation and are therefore, not substantially different than policy option 
2.1.  

However,  the  added  flexibility  in  terms  of  programmatic  contents  introduces  a  considerable 
uncertainty for NSIs, who associated this policy option during the consultation with risks of very 
high  implementation  costs.  The  risks  perceived  are  so  high  that  they  reject  this  option.  Such 
implementation costs are for instance, those with regards to the design of new data collections, 
the data collection and the transmission of data. For this reason, NSIs underlined the importance 
that additional flexibility of programmatic provisions is also accompanied by the development of 
an  operational  method  for  negative  priority  identification,  in  which  users  and  producers  of 
national  and  European  data  would  discuss  which  elements  could  be  discontinued.  As  an 
indication  of  the  costs  related  to  flexible  programming,  NSIs  indicated  in  the  stakeholder 
consultation that the development of additional survey modules generally requires two years of 
preparatory work.  

However, the risks perceived by the NSIs are stakeholders are so high that they reject this option. 

For  data  users,  the  additional  flexibility  provided  by  this  policy  option  would  theoretically 
expand  their  possibilities  to  request  additional  data  collection,  and  therefore,  have  a  positive 
impact. In a similar logic, additional flexibility may also be used to decrease the number of data 
requests.  In  the  ICT-HH  survey  for  instance,  indicators  that  have  become  the  standard  (use  of 
mobile  phones,  or  internet  connection  at  home)  may  be  removed  when  no  longer  considered 
informational.  However,  as  noted  above,  negative  priority  setting  is  not  likely.    The  increased 
flexibility  for  programmatic  specification  does  not  necessarily  provide  a  substantial  impact  for 
respondents; this only becomes the case if the scope of social statistics is considerably broadened.  

65 

 
 
 
Impact of the policy option 2.2 on the core problems  

Lack of responsiveness 

Quality issues 

Hampered 
methods 

use 

of 

innovative 

Inability to reduce costs 

Improvement (+): Higher flexibility allows rapid response 
to new needs, but lack of involvement of lawmakers limits 
accountability  
Improvement (++): Eurostat will be able to respond more 
swiftly and effectively to quality issues, in cooperation with 
implementation partners.  
Improvement  (++):  Without  rigid  legal  requirements,  the 
development and use of innovative methods can be further 
developed,  through  frequent  interactions  between  Eurostat 
and stakeholders 
Improvement,  but  possible  implementation  costs  (+/-): 
Costs  for  data  collection  and  legislative  amendments 
reduced  on 
flexible  statistical 
long 
programming creates uncertainties for NSIs  

term,  but 

the 

1.5. Summary of impacts 

In addition to the summary of impacts presented under the item 6.3.2, under all policy options 2, 
users underlined the importance of securing outputs by addressing for instance the risks of breaks 
of time series and discontinuation of information. 

Policy option 
2.0 Baseline: 
Programmatic / 
technical elements 
fixed by law 

Effectiveness 
Political input ensured, but 
diffuse to high level of 
technicality  

2.1. Programmatic 
elements fixed by 
law / technical 
elements more 
flexible 

2.2. Programmatic / 
technical elements 
flexible 

Interventions on technical quality 
issues require lengthy formal 
legislative amendments 

Introduction of innovative 
methods requires formal 
legislative amendments  
(++) Political actors better able to 
balance EU information 
requirements against costs  
(++) Stronger role Eurostat/ESS 
allows more swift and effective 
response to quality issues 
 (++) flexible to incorporate 
innovative methods 

(+) Higher flexibility allows rapid 
response to new needs, but lack 
of involvement of lawmakers 
limits accountability 
(++)Stronger role Eurostat/ESS 
allows more swift and effective 
response to quality issues 
(++) flexible to incorporate 
innovative methods 

Efficiency 
Stable statistical 
programming / 
specification 
contribute to long-
term efficiency  

(++) stable 
programming / 
flexible 
specifications allow 
efficiency in 
production 

(-) flexible 
programming / 
specifications 
prevent efficiencies 
in production 

Impacts for stakeholders 
Political input and 
consultation of data users 
ensures relevance 

NSI face predictable 
costs due to stable 
programming  

No particular effect on 
respondents 

(++) political input and 
consultation of data users 
ensures usability 
(+) stable programming has 
low costs for NSI, flexible 
technical demands can create 
to costs 
(+) Modest efficient gains for 
respondents 
(++) Swift response possible 
to new user needs  
(--) flexibility in content / 
technicalities creates risk for 
sudden costs for NSI 
(+) modest efficiency gains 
for respondents 

66