Venue: Virtual Meeting
Date: Thursday February 3, 2022 at 10.00am
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5 |
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6 |
National Statistics Board
Minutes
The meeting took place remotely using video conferencing software.
Date: Thursday 3rd February 2022
Members present: Ms. Anne Vaughan (Chairperson), Ms. Eithne Fitzgerald, Mr. John Martin, Mr. John McCarthy, Mr. John Shaw and Mr. Pádraig Dalton.
Apologies: Dr. Eimear Cotter, Mr. Gerard Brady
Non-members in attendance: Mr. Paul Morrin (CSO Senior Management) and Ms. Claire Hanley (Secretary).
Item 1: Minutes of NSB meeting December 2, 2021 (NSB 2022-1-2)
The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed. The ‘Communications’ theme, indicated in the minutes for the February meeting, was postponed to allow for the ES CoP Peer Review preparatory discussion. The Board agreed to come back to the ‘Communications’ theme during 2022.
Item 2: CSO Director General’s Report to NSB (NSB 2022-1-3)
The Director General, Pádraig Dalton, briefed the Board on a number of recent strategic developments relating to the priorities and actions set out in the NSBs Strategic Priorities for official Statistics 2021-2026. Some issues were discussed further, these included:
Item 3: NSB Strategy Implementation Plan (NSB 2022-1-4)
The Board was generally happy with the latest version of the NSB’s Strategy Implementation Plan and welcomed the layout and link with the CSO Statement of Strategy actions. The purpose of the plan is to identify the NSB recommendations where progress is lacking and in this context the Board requested that further thought be given to:
The Board discussed its role and how best to carry out its statutory function of assessing the resources for the compilation of official statistics in the context of guiding the strategic direction of the CSO. The Board agreed to reflect on this issue and will return to the topic for further discussion at a future meeting.
Item 4: ES CoP Peer Review preparation (NSB 2022-1-5)
This item was included in the private discussion under item 6 for non-CSO Board members.
Peer reviews form part of the European Statistical System (ESS) strategy to monitor the implementation of the European Statistics Code of Practice (ES CoP). The third round of peer reviews is currently underway and the CSO will undergo its review during the week beginning 14th February 2022. As part of the process, the NSB are to meet with the peer review team on 16th February. The Board discussed a number of topics in preparation for this meeting.
The next meeting of the Board will take place on April 14, 2022 and the theme will be ‘Housing’. Future themes suggested were ‘Eircodes’ and ‘Data Protection’.
A discussion took place for non-CSO Board members. Item 4 of the agenda was also taken in the private discussion session.
[1] The Data Governance Board, provided for in the Data Sharing and Governance Act 2019, is chaired by the Government Chief Information Officer, Mr. Barry Lowry. There are 12 members of the Board from across industry, academia, legal, societal representation and technical spheres in addition to the public service.