United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Statistical Division Data collection and the...

United Nations Economic Commission for EuropeStatistical DivisionUnited Nations Economic Commission for EuropeStatistical Division

Data collection and themodernisation of official statistics

Steven ValeUNECE

steven.vale@unece.org

Contents

Introducing UNECE Modernisation and the High-level Group How does data collection fit in?

Introducing UNECE Statistics

Conference of European Statisticians

• Gathering of chief statisticians since 1947

Open to all 193 UN member countries

And international organisations

• Eurostat, OECD, IMF, World Bank, ILO etc.

Bureau – Chief Statisticians of Canada (chair), Austria, Finland, Turkey, UK, Ukraine, Australia and Mexico

How do we work?

UNECE Statistics: Priorities

Population censuses, migration, Millennium Development Goals

Globalisation, National Accounts, employment, business registers

Sustainable development, environmental accounts, climate change

Modernisation

Why is modernisation important?

In the last 2 years more information was created than in the whole of the rest of human history!

Making sense of the Data Deluge

Statistics fights back!

High Level Group for the Modernisation of Statistical Production and Services (HLG)• Created by the Conference of European

Statisticians in 2010• 10 heads of national and international statistical

organisations

The Challenges

Increasing cost & difficulty of

acquiring dataNew competitors &

changing expectations

Rapid changes in the environment

Competition for skilled

resources

Reducing budget

Riding the big data wave

These challenges are too big for statistical organisations to

tackle on their own

We need to work together

HLG Vision

Stay relevant by producing new and better products and services more tuned to the way the world operates today

Improved processes and methods to deliver products at minimal cost, with greater flexibility

Cooperation between organisations to improve efficiency and effectiveness

Establish a culture for change Statisticians with new skills and knowledge

HLG strategy for modernisation Transform vision to reality New sources and products Streamlined processes Managing organisational change to support

modernisation and collaboration

HLG strategy for modernisation Transform vision to reality New sources and products Streamlined processes Managing organisational change to support

modernisation and collaboration

Conference of European Statisticians, June 2012

Endorsed

How the HLG works

Meeting / teleconference every 3-4 months Annual reports to Conference of European

Statisticians Annual workshops with around 30 expert groups

• Review progress• Agree priorities

Time-boxed projects• “Agile” methodology – “sprint” sessions, virtual task

teams, wikis, web conferences

Impact on data collection

New sources• Admin data, Big Data, mixed sources

New methods• Web scraping, data mining, data integration

New modes• Web collection, mixed mode

New tools

Governance:

A new structure to focus on delivering change

Get involved!

Anyone is welcome to contribute!

More Information• HLG Wiki:

http://www1.unece.org/stat/platform/display/hlgbas

•LinkedIn group “Business architecture in statistics”