19 June 2007 Improving the quality of business registers UNECE/Eurostat/OECD 18 – 19 June 2007

19 June 2007

Improving the quality of business registers

UNECE/Eurostat/OECD 18 – 19 June 2007

Improving the quality of business registers June 2007

Description of SIRENE

SIRENE : – A national business register in which all businesses and their

local units are registered.– Since 1994 : a unique identification number, at the core of the

inter-administrative system– 6.72 million businesses and 7.66 million local units

Content of SIRENE :– Identification data : civil status of businesses, legal form, the

date it was set up and when it ceased trading– Address of local units – A code identifying the principal business activity carried out,

number of employees– As SIRENE is used in the areas of statistics and trade :

economic classification variables (list drawn up after consulting statisticians using the system)


From a product quality….

Quality = the “totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs” :

– Characteristics that are objective, but must be measured;– Purpose of these characteristics : to satisfy the needs of

users.

A question not of maximum performance but of respecting specified performance (which depends on users).

Can be measured in different ways: enumeration of anomalies, evaluation of user satisfaction.


…. To a quality approach : how to ensure quality ?

A quality approach is based on :– a quality control (internal objective) : the company implements

the necessary measures to ensure that the product has the desired characteristics

– a quality assurance : it concerns the relationship with the customer, the confidence between customer and supplier.

All stages must be described in precise instructions : training of staff, involving them Plan-Do-Check-Act (standard quality control strategy)

Temporal dimension


Inventory of requirements 1/2

Quality = users’ expectations

1st use : Inter-administrative use–administrative partners involved in managing the register

registration at the earliest possible opportunityunique identification number for each unitconsistency between SIRENE and the legal and administrative registers for businesses

–requirements of businessesthe code describing their principal activity.the reference to economic termination in the register.


Inventory of requirements 2/2

2nd use : Dissemination of informationthe “address” variablea correct activity code and a reliable indication of the size

3rd use : Statistical use– business demography (analysis of the economic climate, for

instance monthly statistics for business start-ups)– basis for sampling

identification data and stratification of good quality. metadataa standard error of zero for the largest units (for all variables, including address, number of employees, etc.).

– “survey” managers When utilizing data from administrative sources or from surveys, statisticians may sometimes query data in the register.


Re-engineering SIRENE, taking quality into account

A few years ago :–a national quality mission (updating the activity code)

–but obstacles : time-consuming but no visibility, role of SIRENE (both a system of inter-administrative regulations and a tool for business statistics)

Two aims in the register’s recent overhaul (SIRENE3) :

–to reduce the number of managements tasks

–to improve quality


The register’s recent overhaul (SIRENE3) 1/2

Taking quality into account in day-to-day management

–A new workstation with automated processing capabilities (receiving standardized “administrative” information via telematics) which guarantees uniform processing,

–Introduction of checks into the data-processing flow

–For the great majority of data, existence of metadata (in order to date information, to provide an indicator of data quality or to specify its source).


The register’s recent overhaul (SIRENE3) 2/2

Taking quality into account as an “independent component”

–INSEE performs operations unrelated to administrative requirements (known as “opérations qualité”)

at the initiative of register managers at the request of those in charge of statistical operations.

–The quality approach : no longer based only on a “national quality mission” but also including a local dimension (designation of a “quality manager” for each INSEE regional team).


Quality operations 1/2

Different ways of identifying targeted units : operations carried out

–at the request of one of the register’s users (to clear up discrepancies or inconsistencies)

–at the request of the register managers themselves (in a specific effort to improve the data available to users).

Different types of operation :–lists of units to be checked

–register improvement surveys

–mass updates

–consistency with other registers


Quality operations 2/2

Periodicity of operations and how they are carried out

–on a periodical basis (depends on user requirements and on the workload of SIRENE teams).

–on a one-off basis

–at first on a “one-off” basis and subsequently carried out periodically (a stock of units potentially unreliable is checked, then periodic checking prevents the formation of a new stock of potentially unreliable units).

A guaranteed response


Volume and conclusion

Volumes of quality operations– 210,000 legal units with their activity code updated-validated– 15,000 units checked at the request of statisticians (wrong

address, probable termination of business)– 15,000 possible duplicate entries examined– 45,000 units possibly misidentified as operational examined– 3.5 million units (legal units or local units) with employee

statistics and 2 million businesses with turnover statistics updated

Continuation :– still data populations that need to be checked, studied– the flexibility of the workstation enables further progress.

Documents

19 June 2007 Improving the quality of business registers UNECE/Eurostat/OECD 18 – 19 June 2007