4.4 Annual and multi-annual planning and priority setting#
4.4.1 Annual and multi-annual statistical programmes#
In most countries, the NSO and other producers of official statistics spend considerable effort in planning their activities. In well-established NSSs, the planning is coordinated within the system, in most cases by the NSO, and the planning activities and the statistical plans or programmes are seen as important vehicles for coordinating the activities of the NSO and the various other producers of official statistics.
It is customary to distinguish between two types of statistical plans: annual programmes of work and multi-annual strategic plans. Plans for capacity building of NSSs and individual parts thereof belong to the multi-annual programmes. The annual work programmes and the multi-annual strategic plans are typically drawn up under auspices of the NSS and under the leadership of the NSO. Ideally, they should cover the activities and outputs of all producers of official statistics, i.e. all members of the NSS.
The main objectives of the statistical programmes are the following:
Plan activities of the national statistical system in a coordinated way in order to ensure total coverage of statistical domains and avoid duplication and overlaps.
Set priorities for the period that are compatible with a realistic overall resource envelope for official statistics. To make such decisions possible, an estimate of the resources for individual activities of official statistics, especially for new activities or extensions, has to be included.
Obtain a mandate for the proposed set of statistical activities from the body to which the chief statistician reports, i.e. the government in most cases, or in some countries the executive board. The programmes legitimize the priorities proposed, the necessary data collections from respondents, and the necessary transmission of administrative data sets to the NSO or another producer of official statistics. In some countries, government approval or legitimization is not required.
Allocate professional responsibility for a given set of activities of official statistics to individual national producers within the NSS.
Define in federally organized countries, the extent to which the sub-national level must contribute to the production process of selected official statistics activities at the national level.
Set the benchmarks against which the performance of the statistical system and of each producer will be evaluated.
Serve as coherent framework for soliciting external assistance in the case of developing countries.
To define a strategic plan for capacity building in developing countries and countries with major shortcomings in their statistical system.
The statistical programmes should quantify the resources that are necessary for the planned activities, showing at least the total cost of statistical activities for each national producer and, at least for the NSO, the cost of the main sets of statistical activities, e.g. by subject area. This allows the government (or the adopting body of the programme if there is one) to better evaluate the programme and make informed decisions thereon. The chief statistician should ensure that, if the programme is adopted in its entirety, it can be implemented from the resources and management point of view.
The statistical programme’s adoption is an important step but is still not a guarantee that the competent authorities will provide the necessary resources in the annual central government budget. The central government budget will not show the appropriation of funds to the statistical system as a whole but to each of the institutions involved in the production of official statistics. Hence, this does not allow funds to be transferred from one national producer to another once the budgets are decided[1] (there may be exceptions to this in very special circumstances, such as in cases of transfer of tasks between institutions in very large joint projects, e.g. censuses).
As one of the important system-wide responsibilities, statistical programmes should be prepared by the NSO with inputs from other national producers of official statistics.
The chief statistician as leader and coordinator of the NSS should define the process by which the various parts of the NSO and the other national producers prepare and submit their inputs to the relevant department of the NSO or to the distinct body in charge of coordination within the national statistical system in countries where such a body exists. At this stage, all proposals for including activities in the statistical programmes should be assessed in terms of their relevance and against the programmes’ priority setting. To evaluate the proposals, the NSO has to have a good overview of user needs (see Chapter 4.5.3 – Interaction with user groups outside the statistical advisory council: capturing their information needs), as well as having an overview of existing official statistics and the data sources (surveys and administrative or other data sources) used in the production processes. It has to be knowledgeable about the multiple relationships between the various data sources and outputs, not only for the areas of responsibility of the NSO but also for those for which other producers are responsible. This means that the NSO has to build up some conceptual and methodological know-how in areas where the main responsibility is assigned to other producers.
The evaluation of proposals is not limited to those activities that are new or for which important modifications are proposed. Preparing the statistical programme entails a critical look at existing products, looking for possible efficiency gains, methodological improvements, and ways to make them compatible with newly developed international standards. One of the main purposes of the programme is to ensure that the producers respond to new information needs and aim to improve statistics that do not yet meet the principles of official statistics. The chief statistician can request changes and decide whether proposed activities should be included in the statistical programme as official statistics.
Concerning the use of new administrative data sources for official statistics or important changes in their use or content, it is desirable to include the administrative owner of the data in these discussions, irrespective of whether the administrative body has a statistical department that is part of the national statistical system or not. Sometimes, adjustments such as the use of economic activities classification are easier to apply before the data set is imported by the statistical system than afterwards. In such cases, the chief statistician has the important task of encouraging the administrative data owner to modify their processes accordingly and offer to assist in the implementation with advice and expertise by NSO staff. In some countries, the statistical law obliges the owner of administrative data to comply with requests from the NSO or chief statistician to make the administrative records as well fit for statistical purposes as possible. While this may not be possible or not fully possible, discussions between the chief statistician and the administrative authority should always be useful and may lead to closer cooperation than before. In some countries, such discussions have led to the establishment of formal agreements or memoranda of understanding, MoUs, on the use of the administrative data. Such MoUs may then involve specifications of the administrative data as well as provisions on the frequency and mode of delivery of the data or the access to the data by the NSO.
The Guidance on modernising statistical legislation UNECE 2018 (🔗), recommends inserting a provision in the statistical law by which providers of administrative data, when planning new data collections or revisions in existing data collections in a way that may significantly affect data provided for official statistics, would be obliged to consult the NSO in advance of the decision.
4.4.2 Types of statistical programmes#
The national and federal statistical programmes of countries vary in the coverage, period covered, and focus. The GLOS recommends using both annual and multi-annual programmes. Proposals for their content are given under Chapter 4.4.3 – Content of the annual statistical programme and Chapter 4.4.4 – The multi-annual statistical programme.
There are several options open for determining the coverage of the statistical programme. The following four possibilities concerning national or federal programmes are discussed here:
The statistical programme covers the statistical activities under the responsibility of the NSO.
The programme covers all activities of official statistics carried out by national producers.
The programme encompasses all statistical activities, whether official statistics or statistical services, carried out by producers of the national statistical system at the national level.
The programme involves all government data collection activities for statistical, administrative, or combined purposes, plus the subsequent processing and dissemination of all kinds of statistical information, whether as official or other statistics.
From the conceptual point of view, the second option is preferable since it matches best the definition of official statistics. However, for national producers other than the NSO, it may be difficult to split the statistical department’s total cost between official statistics and other statistical activities. From this point of view, most programmes, de facto, include all statistical activities of those organizational units that are national producers and thus follow the third option above. The first option is valid in countries with only one officially recognised producer of official statistics, the NSO. In both cases, the programme includes the activities of official statistics and other statistical activities in most countries, bringing the total of activities covered as closely as possible in line with the budgets of the national producers. In some countries, only the multiannual programme covers all national producers, whereas the annual programme is limited to the NSO.
However, it is important that in the first and third options above the programmes clearly assign the proposed outputs or activities to be either official statistics or additional statistical activities outside official statistics, with the understanding that in case of the necessity of downscaling the proposed programme because of insufficient resources, priority would be given to official statistics activities over the rest. It is also important that the statistical programmes do not contain any data collection or processing activities for administrative purposes in cases where the clear separation of statistical and administrative tasks has not yet been fully implemented. On the other side, where applicable, programmes should include statistical activities carried out by a national producer but financed from outside the responsible producer’s budget (e.g. by international donors).
When sub-national statistical offices are members of the NSS, their contribution is mentioned as part of the national or federal activity under the responsibility of the NSO or another national producer. Statistical activities that sub-national statistical offices plan to carry out based on their own legislation at the state level should not be included in the national programmes. However, it is recommended that each sub-national statistical office has a plan for its statistical activities.
The fourth option mentioned above used to be applied in countries where the concept of official statistics covers all government data collection without distinction between administrative and statistical purposes. This used to be the case in centrally planned economies and some developing countries. It is not recommended as a good practice and will not be discussed further here.
The focus of the statistical programme can be on one or a combination of several of the following aspects:
statistical activities (both strategic/new and other);- input data (statistical surveys and administrative or other data sources);
outputs (main indicators and major breakdowns, notably the smallest sub-national level for which results should be produced);
strategic developments and capacity building.
In most cases, programmes will be a selection and combination of the options above, to satisfy all stakeholders to a certain extent.
4.4.3 Content of the annual statistical programme#
The annual programme, also referred to as the work programme, is an operative plan, preferably for the whole NSS, or separately for each producer at the national level, notably the NSO. The annual periodicity is proposed to provide the basis for the standard budgetary cycle and form a stable annual preparation process. However, countries with a biennial budgetary cycle will prefer a biennial statistical programme. The annual (or biennial) programme should fit into the longer-term framework of the multiannual programme and highlight possible additions to this framework that were not foreseen at the outset of the multiannual programme.
In general, the annual statistical programme covers all main inputs, outputs, and activities in the national statistical system: official statistics to be released; data sources, such as statistical surveys, administrative data, and any other data sets; and annual development activities.
The annual statistical programme will also provide a list of producers of official statistics with responsibilities for the relevant inputs, outputs, and activities. For many activities, the outputs are likely to be unchanged from the preceding annual programme, even if some of the inputs or processing methods change. From the user perspective, it is therefore important to highlight significant changes in output from the previous period, including those affecting existing time-series.
Users (with the possible exception of re-users) are mainly interested in the output, especially in new series (or discontinuation or downscaling of existing statistics), and less in the way they are produced. From their perspective, it is up to the statistical system to bundle similar needs from different users into a set of operational activities, each of them covering most information needs of various user groups in a given subject area effectively. The term “effectively” means to make maximum use of data that already exist, not only in the NSS, but in the administration at large, and to minimise extra data collection through statistical surveys with due regard to the response burden. To assess the resource implications, programmes have to present activities, especially data collection activities, in a suitable grouping to which cost can be assigned. If one of the purposes is to provide sufficient legitimacy for collecting data from respondents or accessing data sets from administrative bodies outside the statistical system, data sources must be explicitly mentioned.
All statistical activities and surveys carried out by the NSO, and other national producers should be covered by the annual programme regardless of the source of funding, be it producers’ budgets, budgets of other government bodies, or external funding, either from national or international sources. Any statistics that may be under development but are not yet considered official statistics may be covered in the programme under a separate heading.
The annual statistical programme informs about, and in many countries legitimizes, data collection from respondents necessary for the programme’s outputs, and that is not already collected elsewhere, e.g. through administrative activities. It also declares surveys voluntary or compulsory. In federal countries, it also indicates the activities the sub-national bodies have to be involved in; typically data collection. Information on the costs of data collection activities and estimates of the response burden should be included. The latter can be based on the approximate number and type of respondents and an assessment of the average time needed to fill in or respond to each questionnaire.
Transmission of administrative data to a producer should be specified in the annual statistical programme if relevant, to ensure smooth access to and use of administrative data in the production of official statistics. The transmission details can subsequently be fixed through bilateral agreements or memoranda of understanding between the administrative data provider and the responsible producer.
4.4.4 The multi-annual statistical programme#
In some countries, a multi-annual statistical programme is drawn up at the same time as the annual work programme. These multi-annual activity plans, sometimes termed strategic plans, are not to be confused with major capacity building programmes as are frequently applied in developing countries and are discussed here below.
The purpose of the multi-annual programme is to outline medium-term plans, typically three to five years, for the statistical activities, particularly the development of statistics on new subject matters and changes in the composition of the statistical services and outputs, reflecting social and economic changes and changes in government policies. Hence, the multi-annual activity plans may reflect or set out specific goals for the activities in the medium term as well as indicate the main strategies for reaching the goals. One main purpose of the multi-annual programme is to ensure a balance between stability in the output on the one hand and changes due to new series or to important reductions in output on the other hand. This is important from the user perspective as it gives assurance that existing series are continued and that at the same time, some new information needs are taken on board. This is also important from the management point of view to avoid that too many simultaneous changes are undertaken and that new projects do not involve a risk of mutually reinforcing delays and other deficiencies.
The multi-annual activity plans normally extend to a period of three-five years. In some countries, the plans are also drawn up at such intervals. Another and better practice is to maintain the multi-annual plans as rolling plans which are renewed every year concomitant with the annual planning process or as an integral part of it.
Capacity building programmes are specific types of multi-annual statistical programmes. These refer to plans for major improvements in the statistical capacity of NSSs as are mainly undertaken in developing countries.
Such plans are normally supported by international development partners, such as international agencies or individual countries. They are frequently divided into strategic plans and implementation plans. The strategic plans are used to define the main shortcomings and needs of the statistical system and lay out the strategies for capacity building for improving the system and the services of the producers of official statistics. The implementation plans seek to spell out how and when the capacity building actions may be carried out and how they are funded.
The main examples of strategic plans for developing countries are the National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDSs). These have been developed in cooperation by the international statistical and development community and advocated as critical first steps in capacity building in official statistics. The NSDSs (in some countries also called master plans or something similar) have come to include analysis of the current situation, setting of objectives and priorities, and discussion and selection of strategies. Plans or scenarios for implementation are often included to indicate the timing of major steps and major activities, but it is more common that those are subsequently developed in detail in cooperation with the development partner involved. The Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21) has been the main promoter of the NSDSs, working in close cooperation with the World Bank and various other institutions and countries involved in work and funding of NSDSs and similar plans.
The NSDSs or master plans focus on long-term challenges and strategic development of the NSS as a whole. This includes the following aspects:
Strategies and priorities for developing statistics across the whole NSS. This is especially important for countries with major shortcomings in their legal and institutional set-up or their capacity to produce key statistics according to international standards.
Specific issues identified for improvement, in particular horizontal or systemic issues.
Analysis of changes of different user groups needs and changes in the context in which producers of official statistics are operating.
Weighing the development needs against a realistic projection of available resources.
The GLOS recommends that the NSDSs or master plans are aligned with any major national development programmes or plans. It is crucial that the national statistical system’s long-term strategic development, particularly for the NSO, gets support from the appropriate political body and access to funds for the overall national development programmes. In this context, the NSDS model developed by PARIS21[2]offers important guidance that many developing countries have used.
In preparing the programme, the NSO has to make sure that enough scope is given to crucial activities for which there may not be an explicit request from a user group within the country, such as:
information that the public at large needs in a democratic society;
anticipating future needs, notably for the implementation of forthcoming international standards of official statistics;
information needs deriving from national development plans where they exist;
systemic activities for the national statistical system as a whole, such as statistical registers or training activities for staff;
forthcoming information needs of international organizations of which the country is a member;
renewal or major update of key IT systems and other infrastructure;
active participation in international activities of official statistics that have considerable resource implications, such as the ICP or capacity building in other countries.
4.4.6 Follow-up and reporting#
Once a programme is adopted, and responsibilities have been assigned, there must be monitoring mechanisms for the chief statistician to get information on implementation progress, not only for the activities of the NSO, but for all official statistics. It is recommended to include this function as part of the quality management processes (see Chapter 7 - Quality Management) used by the producers of official statistics, notably the NSO. The NSO must keep track of the degree of implementation of all activities in the programme, not only those in the responsibility of the NSO, so as to assess as early as possible the impact a delay in one activity may have on other activities. The NSO is also responsible for informing key users about delays. Changes in the timing of surveys have also to be communicated to the respondents’ representatives, especially in the case of enterprises. Some countries require the establishment of interim reports for multi-annual programmes.
It is essential, as a corollary to professional independence and accountability to the government, users and the public to report on activities and deliveries of the NSS, including costs incurred. The adopted programmes are the benchmark against which performance can be assessed.
Therefore, most countries with statistical programmes require through the statistical law that the chief statistician prepares at the end of the period covered by a programme, a report evaluating the extent of implementation. The SAC or the executive board should review the report. Together with the opinion of the SAC or the executive board, the report should be made public to honour the principle of transparency. Some countries may ask for such reports to be formally brought to the attention of the government.