The collection of South Africa's official statistics is guided by a number of different processes that, when combined, form an ongoing value chain underlying statistical production.
Finally, publications are created from the datasets produced by the analysis and transformation phase, and disseminated in various forms.
Statistics SA has, over the past few years, added transparency and coherence to these previously implicit processes. Towards the end of 2000, Stats SA began analysing and defining the key inputs to its value chain and production systems, with the aim of improving the quality of statistical products.
The standards that are applied in the treatment and reportage on these statistical units and their respective data items over time.
Many of these elements already existed within the separate components of Stats SA responsible for collecting data. However, a silo-based approach to statistics, with each statistical series being administered within the walls of its own originating component, limited development of common standards, classifications and definitions. Inevitably, this influenced the quality of data and limited the opportunities for analysts to evaluate data.
For Stats SA, this highlighted the question of the overall management and organisation of data. Resources were allocated to investigate centralised data warehousing and to redesign the way in which Stats SA processes, transforms, analyses, stores and disseminates the data it collects.
This gave rise to a Data Management and Information Delivery (DMID) project, which is developing a system allowing for centralised management, storage and access to data and metadata. This is according to the elements of the statistical value chain and based on the key pillars of statistical production (statistical units, data items, classifications and standards).
Earlier this week, the governing committee for the DMID project met to consider progress made in developing an authoritative and consolidated register of all concepts and definitions used in official statistics.
Listing every statistical series published by Stats SA, this register specifies each key term used, defines it, cites the source for the definition, and attributes a status to each, ranging from incomplete to preferred standard, which confers near-compulsory use within official statistics.
Statistics serve as a representation of the material world and make no claim to mirror social reality in any absolute manner. However, that representation is always subject to change and the quality of data presented can improve or decline.
The codification of statistics according to the value chain, the ongoing assessment of the quality of statistical units, data items, standards and classifications, and the manner this is being operationalised in the DMID project, reflects the advances made in the quality of South Africa's official statistics.