2.17 The constant challenge of modernizing official statistics

During the last few decades, the operations and products of NSOs and other producers of official statistics have undergone extensive modernisation in many fields. This has been possible by the recent and steadily technical developments and the simultaneous fall in relative prices of digital hardware and software. During this time, the demands made on official statistics have changed markedly. These have not only been for more significant provision of statistics in traditional fields but also for statistics on new and emerging subjects. There has also been growing demand for higher periodicity in statistical production, better regional coverage and small area statistics, easier and quicker access to the statistics as well as greater accuracy, granularity and quality. This development can only continue; it has already had a significant impact in the developed countries of the world but needs to be strengthened and secured in the developing parts of the world.

The digital age has dramatically impacted the NSOs, bringing considerable changes in their activities, leading to large gains in output, coverage, and quality of the statistics. The degree of efficiency has significantly increased. The NSOs and other producers of official statistics offices have offered much-improved services to their users regarding availability and coverage of the statistics, periodicity, ease of access, quality, disaggregation and relevance. Data collection has been transformed, as discussed above, with traditional paper questionnaires being replaced by electronic questionnaires via the Internet or uploaded on tablets, laptops, and mobile phones and transferred over a digital network to the central databases of the institutions. Many NSOs have also started to collect data from businesses through web-portals, in some cases with the businesses linking their information systems to the portals. Progress has also been made using aerial photography to gather data and information. This is thought to add new potential to acquiring information in several fields, not least for agricultural and environment statistics. This is mainly thought to bring increased data collection possibilities for the SDG indicators in these and other areas.

Among other advances that can be mentioned are new techniques for transferring data between computers, termed machine to machine transfer of data. Recent digital advances have also involved large increases in data storage and computing capacity. Significant advances have also been made in statistical software, transforming manual handling of data by digital handling, facilitating many tasks and processes, and increasing speed and quality of processes through automation. Data security and confidentiality have also been enhanced by recourse to digital means in data collection, data processing and data exchange.

NSOs and other statistical organizations have been undergoing transformation to increase efficiency, relevance, and quality. The restructuring of the statistical business process in accordance with the GSBPM results in greater efficiency and higher quality in all the production processes and the overall operations of NSOs. Critical factors in this respect are planning for reusing digital applications and specific functions between different subjects and departments and breaking down the stove-pipe structure barriers. Discussions are also ongoing in international fora on structural and organizational issues of NSOs, involving enhanced use of digital technology.