SADC Course in Statistics

Session 4a: The National Statistical Office and the National Statistics Act

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Introduction

• This session focuses on the National Statistical Office and the National Statistics Act

• The development of the lecture is premised on the understanding that students are now aware of the National Statistical System, what it is? and its constituent components.

• Students should also be reminded that the National Statistical Office is at the centre of the National Statistical System of any country, playing a coordination, regulatory and supervisory role in addition to collecting and disseminating Official Statistics.

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What is a National Statistical Office?

• It is an official organisation responsible for the collection, compilation, analysis and dissemination of all official data relating to the economic and social activities of a country.

• It is usually created by an Act of Parliament. • It may be a government department within the

Civil Service but the trend nowadays is that most NSOs are operating as stand alone institutions with some form of independence and autonomy from Government.

• In some countries the National Statistical Office is called the Central Statistical Office, Bureau of Statistics or the National Bureau of Statistics.

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What are the functions of the NSO?

• The functions of a National Statistical Office are defined by the Statistics Act either by direct mention of the organisation/agency/bureau or by the duties assigned to the head of the agency/office/bureau.

• In general, the law list the following as main functions of the NSO:– conducting a Population & Housing Census after

every 10 years– collecting, compiling, analyzing and

disseminating statistical information– developing and promoting standards &

methodologies

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What are the functions of the NSO? – cont’d

– developing & maintaining a Central Business Register

• In summary, its primary function is to provide Government Ministries and Departments, Non- Governmental Organisations and members of the public in general, with information for monitoring, evaluation and formulation of development plans and programmes.

• It performs this function through the collection, processing and analysis of data; reporting and dissemination of results through publications, reports, workshop and seminars.

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The structure of a National Statistical Office

• The structure of the NSO varies depending on the status of the organisation.

• If still under civil service, the office is headed by a Director/Government Statistician (usually appointed by Government) who reports to a Minister responsible for statistics. This could be the Ministries of Finance/Planning/Economic Development.

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Structure of the National Statistical Office – cont’d

• If the office is out of Civil Service, it is headed by a Director General/Statistician General, who in turn reports to a Board of Directors/Statistics Council whose main function is to ensure that good corporate governance is practised in the organisation.

• In such instances, the Director General/ Statistician General is the Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Operating Officer of the organisation and his/her function is to provide a link between the organisation and the Board of Directors/Statistics Council.

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Structure of the National Statistical Office – cont’d

• The National Statistical Office has offices at Provincial and District level. The Provincial Office reports to the Head Office, while the District Office reports directly to the Provincial Office.

• Depending on the country in question, Provincial Offices are headed by a Statistician/Statistical Officer and District Offices are headed by a Team Leader.

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What is the Act?

• All National Statistical Offices are governed by statistics acts that give them wide ranging powers of collection, compilation and dissemination of official statistics.

• At the time when this module was developed, one salient observation made, was that most of the Statistics Acts of the SADC member states were outdated with some of them have been formulated in the 1960s, e.g. Zambia’s is of 1964, Malawi 1967, Botswana 1967, Namibia 1976.

• Most countries worldwide are in the process of updating their Statistics Acts and SADC as a region is no exception.

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What is the Act? – cont’d

• Some countries have modern Statistics Acts e.g. South Africa (1999), Mauritius (2000). Lesotho (2001) and Zimbabwe (2007), just to mention a few.

• In general the Act contains the following salient features, among other things:

• Functions of the NSO• Powers of NSO.• Responsibilities of the Director, Statistician

General or Government Statistician • Confidentiality and disclosure

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What is the Act? – cont’d

• New statistics acts contain, besides those outlined above, the following:

• Definition of the National Statistical System• Provision for more effective coordination of

the National Statistical System• Composition and Powers of the Board of

Directors/ Statistics Council • Special responsibilities of the

Board./Statistics Council

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What does a National Statistical Office produce?

• A National Statistical Office produces Official Statistics or National Statistics

• These can be economic, social and demographic statistics

• There are produced in various forms e.g. as reports, publications, ad-hoc reports, CD-ROM or posted on the National Statistical Office’s website for ease of access

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What are Official Statistics?

• Not all statistics are defined as Official

• Statistics are defined as Official if they are:– sustainable– relevant, and,– meet certain quality standards

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The quality of Official Statistics

• Official statistics should satisfy the following quality requirements:

• relevance – statistics should meet current and future needs of users.

• methodological soundness – collection and handling of statistics must be guided by internationally accepted standards, principles, guidelines or good practice

• timeliness – there should be a minimum time lag between data collection and the release of information so as to maximise on the usefulness of official statistics.

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The quality of Official Statistics – cont’d

• accessibility – this refers to the extent to which statistics are available to users and how they are assisted to get and use statistics.

• integrity and credibility

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What is the role of Official Statistics?

Official Statistics are used for a variety of purposes:

• measure the pulse of the economy thus allowing one to make comparisons with the past, with other countries and set benchmarks for the future. In fact, they provide a meaningful description of the economy.

• facilitate the decision making processes of businesses and individuals. Businesses make investment and employment decisions on the basis of Official Statistics. They support decision making processes by the wider community.

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What is the role of Official Statistics? –cont’d

• policy formulation, implementation and evaluation by the Government

• resource allocation and targeting – statistics helps in identifying people and regions in need and allow authorities to make and implement timely interventions.

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Sources • Information on National Statistical Systems

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/inter-natlinks/sd_natstat.asp• How the National Statistics System Impacts on Service Delivery, Service

Delivery Review, Volume 1, No 3, 2002. South Africahttp://www.dpsa.gov.za/documents/service_delivery_review/vol1no3/how%20the%20national%20statistics%20system%20impacts%20on%20service%20delivery.pdf

• Paris21: Why Governments need good statistics?http://www.paris21.org/documents/why-governments-need-good-statistics.pdf

• National Strategies for the Development of Statistics and their Expected Impact on Agricultural and Rural Statistics. Mr. Graham Eele, World Bank, United Kingdomhttp://www.nass.usda.gov/mexsai/Papers/strategiesp.doc

• National Strategy for the Development of Statistics, Paris21, Documents and Knowledge basehttp://www.paris21.org/pages/designing-nsds/NSDS-documents-knowledge-base/index.asp?orderby=e&orderin=1&tab=KnowledgeBase&option=doc

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