NSB 2011/2/2
Venue: Department of the Taoiseach
Date: January 18, 2011 at 10:30
The following members attended: Dr Patricia O’Hara (Chairperson), Mr. Ciaran Dolan, Mr. Michael McGrath, Professor Philip Lane, Mr Fergal O’Brien, Mr. Paul Sweeney, Mr Gerry O’Hanlon
Mr Gerry Brady acted as Secretary. CSO Assistant Director Generals Mr. Aidan Punch, Mr. Padraig Dalton and Mr. Steve MacFeely also attended. Mr. Martin Fraser attended on behalf of the Department of the Taoiseach, pending the appointment of a representative from the Department.
The minutes were accepted without amendment.
Given the short working period since the previous NSB meeting, a brief progress report was requested. The Lean Six Sigma process mapping exercise in National Accounts will conclude at the end of January 2011. A small number of subject matter areas will be selected to pilot a processing model using SAS BI as the processing tool instead of Excel. The overall objective is to move to a more stable database processing environment than Excel.
A draft national sustainable development strategy was forwarded to the CSO by the Departments of the Taoiseach and Finance for comments. The CSO has replied with observations.
The supervisory field force for the Census of Population is now fully in place with the appointment of 440 Field Supervisors on Monday 10th January. Online recruitment of the 5,000 enumerators commenced at 9 a.m. on Tuesday 4th January. The pre-notified quota of 15,000 applicants was achieved by 3.45 p.m. on Wednesday 5th at which stage applications closed.
The meeting briefly reviewed the progress made under the various recommendations in the NSB Strategy 2009-2014. A meeting of the Liaison Group comprising statisticians working in the various government departments and agencies, and statisticians in the CSO Administrative Data Division took place in November 2010. This Group will meet on a regular basis.
The NSB recommendation for the CSO to make increased use of administrative data is being pursued. The use of unique identifiers is critical to activities involving data matching from different sources. One data matching project currently being undertaken is an analysis of employees by length of service, gender, age, enterprise activity etc. This project involves linking the Department of Social and Family Affairs Client Records file, the Revenue Commissioners P35 file, and the CSO business register. A joint project with the Department of Education and Science to identify the destination of secondary school leavers using DES data sources has been agreed. The Data Protection Commissioner has expressed reservations relating to the collection of the PPSN by the Department, as part of these administrative data. This makes it significantly more difficult to undertake statistical analyses involving data matching.
No constructive progress has been made with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation (DETI) in connection with establishing a unique business identifier. The Department of Health and Children will use a unique health identifier to manage its patient data systems rather than the PPSN.
The Cabinet agreed to the procurement system for the introduction of a national postcodes system at its last meeting before Christmas. The process to award the contract for the project – with estimated costs of less than €15 million – will be completed by summer 2011.
The case for having business and personal unique identifiers to facilitate data matching centres on the need for good data to underpin policy development and cost efficient delivery of programmes and schemes. Accordingly administrative and policy departments need to take a lead role in promoting the need for these identifiers. It was agreed to discuss the development of unique identifiers in more detail at a future NSB meeting. The CSO should hold further discussions with DETI regarding how to progress the development of the unique business identifier, and meet with senior staff in the Department of Education regarding the benefit of using an identifier such as the PPSN to facilitate data analyses and support policy development.
Progress on developing environment statistics has been delayed because of staff resource difficulties in the CSO. The Board reiterated its commitment to regarding environment as a priority area for development as set out in its current Strategy.
This paper sets out five initial characteristics for a new vision for the Irish Statistical System:
Promoting the use of statistical information to support evidence based policy making;Optimal usage of all potential data sources (statistical and administrative);Adherence to best international standards in relation to the processing, compilation and dissemination of “Official Statistics”;Establishment of a coordinated structure that would clearly define the role of statistical units within Departments and ensure that they can operate in a professionally independent manner in the production of official statistics;The ISS should be based on a partnership between CSO and Departments agencies where the work is undertaken in the most cost-effective manner having regard to the relative competencies of the partners.
The Statistics Act, 1993 does not adequately address the position of statistical units based in government departments. As statisticians their work should adhere to the United Nations fundamental principles of official statistics. Statisticians working in policy analysis areas in government departments are not Officers of Statistics under the Act and have no more right of access to CSO micro data than any other person outside the CSO. In a revised ISS, a situation could be envisaged whereby departmental statisticians could be granted limited additional access rights, solely for statistical purposes.
It was agreed that in the medium to long term, some changes may be necessary to the Statistics Act. However in the short term the CSO should engage with senior management in government departments to agree a mechanism for considering statistics produced in statistical units within departments to be produced in full accordance with the UN principles.
It was agreed that the paper should be developed further for our next meeting by elaborating on the roles envisaged for the CSO and the NSB in the development of the Irish Statistical System.
There was a brief discussion on this paper. The Adult Education Survey will require all of the available module capacity in Quarters 3 and 4 2011. Hence the envisaged modules on green issues and on social capital and physical exercise will not be taken in 2011.
It was agreed to include a few questions in Quarter 2, 2011 on how people are managing in the current economic climate. These questions should be at a high-level and seek to fill existing data gaps. Example topics include:
How are people funding their expenditures (debt, borrowing from family members, not paying bills, etc.)?Any change in behavior regarding purchase of imported and domestic produce?
CSO staff will consult further with NSB members before finalising the module.
Over the last decade the CSO has re-profiled its staff numbers upwards to become more in line with other National Statistical Institutes. In the current resources situation, cutbacks are being managed by trying to achieve more with fewer resources. IT and better work structures and practices have realised certain efficiencies.
See discussion under item 3.
In December, all Department and Offices were instructed to review and update their "Croke Park" Action Plans in the light of the National Recovery Plan and Budget 2011. The CSO submitted its updated Action Plan to the Implementation Body on 6th January.
As part of the funding assistance being received by Ireland from the EU and IMF, a budgetary advisory council will be established to manage data monitoring requirements. There may be a need for the CSO to provide statistical data to the council.
The dissemination of CSO releases will proceed as usual during the impending election period.
The next meeting will be on March 7th, 2011 at 10:30 in the Department of the Taoiseach.