6.4 Governance and leadership#
6.4.1 Chief statistician#
The chief statistician is the highest authority of the national statistical system (NSS) with respect to substantive statistical matters. The chief statistician is usually the head of the NSO. In some statistical systems (e.g., the UK) the chief statistician is the head of the National Statistical Authority, while in highly decentralised systems (such as the US) the chief statistician is the president of a coordinating body (such as the Statistical Policy Branch within the federal government’s Office of Management and Budget). Although in some statistical systems it may be difficult to identify the chief statistician, it is usually the person who has the authority to represent the NSS internationally. The rest of this section will primarily refer to the chief statistician as the head of the NSO, but the text may also be useful for other institutional setups.
Responsibilities of the chief statistician:
The responsibilities of the chief statistician can be described in a number of ways. Common element 3.6 in Chapter 4 of the UNECE (2018) Guidance on modernizing statistical legislation describes the main responsibilities of the chief statistician as follows:
The chief statistician shall lead the strategic development of official statistics, partnerships and stakeholder relations to enhance the value of official statistics.
The chief statistician shall represent the NSS at the national and international levels and coordinate the international collaboration of the NSS.
The chief statistician shall be responsible for the general management and development of the national statistical office and its staff, including its central and regional offices (if applicable), in full conformity with national legislation and professional independence.
The chief statistician shall independently decide on the structure, use of resources, tasks, and staff appointment.
The chief statistician shall decide on the content of the draft multi-annual and annual statistical programmes including the statistical outputs and the implementation reports in consultation with users of statistics and other producers of official statistics.
The chief statistician may issue standards and guidelines to be applied across the NSS for the development, production, dissemination and communication of official statistics.
The chief statistician may promote the use of the standards, classifications and terminology applied in official statistics and by respondents, to administrative data providers.
The chief statistician shall facilitate the correct interpretation of statistics and is entitled to comment on the use and misuse of statistics.
Authority of the chief statistician
Responsibility for the functioning of an NSO lies with the chief statistician, and the Government shall not intervene with matters pertaining to the professional independence of the NSO.
The main responsibilities of the chief statistician can be divided into two segments - professional and coordinative. On both of these issues, the authority of the chief statistician should be enshrined in the law, reinforced by personal attitude and competences. The Guidance on modernising statistical legislation (🔗) states:
“the Head of the NSO should have the authority to take professional decisions (without any kind of interference), especially regarding the scope, content and frequency of data compiled, personnel management, management of the operations of the NSO, release of statistical information and press releases and direct communication with policymakers and authorities. The Head of the NSO should also be at the most senior official level in a country, they should be considered a peer by the heads of other government departments and should be included in any regular meetings of such officials in order to promote and enforce decisions;”
Further, the guidance states:
“Statistical legislation should clearly designate the coordination of the NSS to the chief statistician of the NSO or another statistical authority. Official statistics produced by different producers of official statistics all need to meet the same quality requirements, professional ethics and principles. The chief statistician should promote the use of internationally agreed statistical standards, definitions and classifications in the NSS and have the possibility to establish a national Code of Practice and put in place measures to support statistical authorities in applying the Code. The chief statistician should also be assigned the responsibility to represent the NSS internationally and coordinate international activities within the NSS.”
Skills and qualifications of the chief statistician
A chief statistician should possess the following attributes:
proficient in statistics or have a profound understanding of statistics;
capable of running a large professional organization;
understand and be sensitive to the needs of users;
communication skills required for public communication and user relations;
the ability to understand complex processes essential for day to day decision-making
In terms of profession, chief statisticians are most commonly economists, statisticians and demographers with a proven track record of relevant professional experience. In recent years, data scientists, IT experts or other specialists as the chief statistician are becoming more common. Choosing a chief statistician is a difficult task, as the post requires a combination of skills that is not easy to find in one person.
A chief statistician is expected to provide expert opinion on many different subjects, and any gaps in expertise may diminish the perception of professionalism expected from an NSO. For these reasons, a wise chief statistician would rely on specialists who can provide helpful recommendations and consult them as much as possible. The job of the chief statistician is not only about professional competences. A successful chief statistician must also be a strategist who can recognise threats and opportunities, understand and address the problems of people working in the NSO and at the same time understand interests of the environment in which the NSO is functioning. Being professionally independent, the chief statistician should not be seen protecting the interests of the Government but servicing the user community at large – which is in the interest of the state and the people. Therefore, another important qualification should be a clear sense of public good and behaviour in line with the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. In any debriefing on various options, the chief statistician must respond quickly at times and patiently at other times and must always demonstrate an enormous capacity to listen.
Appointment of the chief statistician:
The Guidance on modernising statistical legislation (🔗) identifies the appointment and dismissal procedures of the chief statistician as one of the most common weaknesses of current statistical legislation in countries. The Guidance states that:
“The strong position of the Chief will enable compilation of statistics on an impartial basis and increases trust in official statistics. The chief statistician’s appointment should be non-political and based on professional competence only. Deciding on issues of professional independence, such as data sources and statistical methods, requires specific professional experience and knowledge. The chief statistician’s position should be filled following a published vacancy announcement with professional requirements and an open competition among applicants. Ideally, the position of chief statistician would not be part of mobility schemes in the public administration. In addition, the term of office of the Chief must be respected independently of changes in the government”.
Many recent international efforts have tried to strengthen the appointment procedures of the chief statisticians. The European Statistics Code of Practice (🔗) in its 2017 revision includes indicator 1.8 which states:
“the procedures for the recruitment and appointment of the heads of the National Statistical Institutes and Eurostat and, where appropriate, the statistical heads of other statistical authorities, are transparent and based on professional criteria only. The reasons on the basis of which the incumbency can be terminated are specified in the legal framework. These cannot include reasons compromising professional or scientific independence.”
A similar formulation has been added to Article 5a of the European Regulation on European statistics (🔗) in its 2015 revision, which states under point 4:
“Member States shall ensure that the procedures for the recruitment and appointment of heads of NSIs[1] and, where appropriate, statistical heads of other national authorities producing European statistics, are transparent and based only on professional criteria. Those procedures shall ensure that the principle of equal opportunities is respected, in particular regarding gender. The reasons for dismissal of heads of NSIs or their transfer to another position shall not compromise professional independence.”
A more detailed elaboration of the procedure that should be implemented in national statistical laws can be found in the article 6. of the Generic Law on Official Statistics (GLOS), and key characteristics for the appointment of a chief statistician should be the following:
publicly announced vacancy and open competition based on relevant professional competences only;
defined conditions for appointment (usually qualifications and years of experience);
defined duration of the mandate and specified rules for extension;
defined list of reasons for dismissal, as the term of office of the chief statistician cannot be terminated before its expiry for any reasons compromising statistical principles.
Terms of the office of the chief statistician
There are three standard variations related to terms of the office:
The chief statistician’s office term is the same as the term of the government’s executives (this is the case with the chief statisticians in several countries in Latin America)
The chief statistician is appointed for a fixed term of office that can be renewed (this is the case with the Government Statistician of New Zealand; the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labour Statistics of the United States; and the National Statistician of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority and the National Statistician of the Philippines).
The chief statistician serves an unlimited term, which ends either with his/her resignation, retirement or removal from office or for other defined reasons (e.g. in case of the chief statistician of Canada, President of the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia and in many countries in Asia-Pacific).
However, it should be noted that short terms of office interfere with continuity as statistical programmes tend to extend over significant periods of time. A series of chief statisticians may not share a common vision, and programme commitment could be unlikely to produce a consistent approach to statistical policy or predictably adapt to new circumstances. On the other hand, excessively long stays in office may produce stagnant programmes, lacking energy and innovation. While such a situation may keep the statistical organization out of potential conflicts, it may also marginalize the statistical organization and constrain its staff, eventually leading to reduced budgetary support.
The Generic Law on Official Statistics (GLOS) suggests that the chief statistician should be appointed for a term of office fixed in the statistical law for underlining professional independence and that the term of office should be different from the term of the government. The GLOS further suggest that the term of office should be renewed once and that it should be further renewed exclusively based on a new publicly announced vacancy and an open competition.
The GLOS also notes that the chief statistician should not be a member of the government and that the terms of office should be respected independently of changes in the government. However, the chief statistician would need to have direct access to ministers and other senior-level authorities in carrying out his duties.
Common element 3.5 in Chapter 4 of the UNECE (2018) Guidance on modernizing statistical legislation considers conditions for terminating the term of office of the chief statistician and states that the term of office cannot be terminated before its expiry for any reasons compromising statistical principles.
The term of office may be terminated only for the following reasons:
own resignation of the chief statistician;
termination of citizenship;
a court decision declaring the chief statistician incapable or of limited capacity to work;
a lawful sentence of the court for an intentional crime, or imprisonment according to the lawful sentence of the court;
death of the chief statistician.
6.4.2 Internal advisory and decision-making bodies
An NSO is typically a relatively rather large public sector organization that produces a wide range of statistical products and services. Thus, management processes can be quite complex. To alleviate this, specific management and substantive bodies or committees may be established to promote cross-division and cross-domain exchange of information and the coordination and consultation processes needed to support decision-making within the statistical office.
Large NSOs, similar to other public administration organizations, generally have an internal management committee consisting of senior managers such as the chief statistician, who presides over the committee, deputy(s), chief of staff, executive secretary, heads of highest organizational levels and heads of independent units (if any).
Committee meetings are held regularly, on a weekly, monthly or bi-monthly basis, to discuss management, development and coordination issues. These meetings run according to a standard agenda with items such as reports on important activities at national and international levels, joint projects, major decisions, key administrative and management issues, and other issues. At these meetings, the chief statistician will delegate tasks, seek advice on management decisions and share important information. The agenda and minutes with decisions and action items should be made available to all staff. The tasks of the management committee vary depending on the size of the organization but are generally oriented around two types of issues – managerial and technical. Issues affecting only one organizational unit are usually discussed outside of these meetings, bilaterally with the chief statistician or at the level of main organizational units. In some cases, such as when the chief statistician is not responsible for the administrative management of the statistical office (e.g., Austria), managerial issues are addressed separately from the technical issues by different high-level committees.
Regular meetings at the level of main organizational unit chiefs encourage a focus on decisions related to subject matter issues, organization of work, development projects, upcoming changes or revisions, modernisation of specific activities, or preparing for the dissemination of new statistical products or services. Although it is not expected that the chief statistician attends this type of meeting, occasional attendance can provide in-depth insights and can be motivational to the staff. In addition to this, regular team meetings contribute to smooth and effective work. NSOs may also have some standing and ad-hoc committees to advise the chief statistician. These committees may deal with cross-cutting issues such as statistical confidentiality and microdata access for scientific purposes, dissemination of special releases, modernisation of processes, quality management, coordination of work, among others.
Typically, internal committees are mandated by the chief statistician to provide advice in their area of competence. The committee needs a chairperson and when necessary, a secretary and terms of reference defining its objective, composition, expected outputs and timeline. The chair should be a person whose judgement is respected, even though his/her statements do not systematically carry the weight of an official decision. The committee’s purpose is to advise the chief statistician. While the chief statistician has the power to ignore the committee’s advice, in practice, and possibly with slight modifications, the committee’s voice will be heard.
Committee membership offers an opportunity to contribute to agency-wide policies. Such activity can serve as a training ground for future senior managers in the sense that it provides members with a broader perspective than they could acquire from their regular jobs and makes them aware of the wide range of considerations important to the organization. Ideally, committees should not grow too large, or else they become cumbersome and incapable of reaching closure on the issues they debate. Generally, committee meetings and activities represent a heavy burden on their members’ time. To maximize the training benefits that such committees confer on their members, some system of membership rotation could be adopted, but some stability is also required.
6.4.3 Internal communication and coordination
NSOs are usually relatively large organizations. In small countries, the NSOs tend to have lean management arrangements while the largest countries may have highly developed hierarchical structures. In large and complex offices, getting messages across can sometimes prove to be challenging. Hence, special efforts may be needed to strengthen two-way communication in larger statistical offices. Two-way communication involves feedback from the receiver to the sender instead of one-way communication which refers to sending a message without any feedback. Two-way communication may occur horizontally or vertically. When information is exchanged between superior and subordinate, it is known as vertical two-way communication.
On the other hand, when communication occurs between persons holding the same rank or position, it is called horizontal two-way communication. In effective organizations, communication flows not only downwards but also upwards and sideways in the organization. Before important decisions are made, prior two-way communication ensures that staff are consulted to consider their ideas and concerns. After decisions are made, it is important that they are communicated effectively to staff. The chain of meetings is important for the effective functioning of an organization. Information should flow efficiently from the management committee to chiefs’ meetings and further to team meetings, and also to the other direction to provide feedback.
While hierarchical structures have their benefits, without the direct engagement of the middle-management, they can lead to halts in communication and tensions between departments.
It can thus be useful for the organization if the chief statistician can periodically take part in management meetings at lower organizational levels, particularly when a strategic topic has to be discussed. This can bridge the gap in communication and allow direct engagement on subject matters and problems that are not visible from the top of the hierarchy.
Another way of supporting this bottom-up flow of information is to ensure that minutes of chiefs’ meetings, held even at team level, are made available, for instance through the intranet, to the entire staff including senior management and the chief statistician. Middle-and lower-management may sometimes consider meetings a waste of time; therefore, it is important not only to find the right topics to be addressed, but also adequate target participants, frequency, and duration.
Statistical offices frequently carry out activities that include multiple organizational units, and in such situations, tensions that arise as a result of misunderstanding are quite common. Usually, these can be resolved through firm involvement of the management, and if problems persist, an ad hoc body can be formed with the main task of proposing concrete solutions. Further, coordination can be fostered by using bodies set up for specific tasks, such as modernisation of specific activities through a project or preparation of large operations such as censuses.
Relationship with trade/staff unions and other staff committees
Fostering good relations and trust with trade and staff unions and representatives is important. These staff representative bodies are key to resolving staff issues, and it is critical, and in some countries even mandatory, to consult them before any major management decisions affecting staff, including changing the organizational structure. An important area where staff union’s involvement can be expected is occupational health and safety, flexible working arrangements such as telecommuting, and other issues related to work-life balance, motivation, and well-being that impact staff accountability and productivity. For all these reasons, the chief statistician needs a direct conduit to the staff, just as staff members need direct access to the NSO executive. This can be ensured by holding regular meetings with staff representatives, or, when relevant, staff unions. It is a good practice to have a staff representative participate in the management committee meetings. In some countries, it is obligatory to form a staff-management relations committee, where staff issues are regularly discussed. The committee’s agenda depends partly on which elements are handled on a government-wide basis and left for each agency head to solve.
Elected staff representatives may also be affiliated to trade unions that commonly have their respective central offices providing support, analytics and legal advice to their members. Therefore, it is in the interest of the chief statistician to foster relations with trade unions (or trade union association) as they can advocate for and contribute to strengthening the statistical system.
Sharing of information and communication through the hierarchy and across the organizational structure
Regular exchange of information is a part of corporate culture that should be promoted and fostered since the success of any organization depends upon the sharing of information. This is particularly important for an information compiler such as a statistical office. Although modern technology can facilitate the exchange of information, traditional exchanges of information through formal meetings should not be underestimated. Direct interpersonal contact is the most effective means of two-way communication exchange. One way to ensure regular flow of information is to set up a meeting schedule and to encourage the organization units to make short minutes of the meetings and make them accessible on the intranet. The chief statistician should use these meetings to listen to directors, chiefs and experts to form a vision for developing the statistical system. The NSO and its management then share and discuss the vision and how to implement it and then further develop the ideas. On the other hand, some information, such as news regarding changes in the environment, i.e., regulations on civil service or accounting standards that may influence the office can be discussed at physical meetings, but also be communicated directly via e-mail, the intranet or newsletters. Exchange of best practices should also be encouraged, as solutions used in one statistical area can often be used to improve another. Unfortunately, due to silos and extensive workloads, it often happens that statisticians are not aware that there are specialists or practices from another unit who can help them solve their problem. More information on knowledge sharing can be found in Chapter 14 - Data, Information and Knowledge Management.
Use of the intranet
In recent years, the intranet has become an essential part of any knowledge-driven organization. Typically, it is used to communicate basic staff related information such as the structure of the organization, a directory with office locations, email and telephone contacts, and collection of forms needed to perform administrative tasks and compliance with relevant legislation. But the intranet can and is often used to do much more. Currently, most statistical offices use it as a place for exchange of information, informal and formal discussions and for storing the minutes of meetings, sharing information on projects, international meetings and conferences, and exchanging relevant literature. Furthermore, the intranet can include “how to?” process instructions for various tasks, such as recruitment, project management and administrative tasks.
The advantage of the intranet is that information is searchable, and this allows this internal communication network to become a powerful tool for knowledge sharing and management.
The intranet can be customised to be used for many things, from blog posts on innovative practice, collaborative creation of documents to small applications that can be used to simplify bureaucratic procedures (i.e., travel forms). The key to building a good intranet site is to have a dedicated intranet administrator who can create engaging content and motivate others to do so by themselves. Ideally, each directorate should have its dedicated intranet page that is regularly updated with relevant information. Being well informed of current events and discussions in the statistical office, helps people get engaged in the work and contribute to development.
Development and communication of internal policies and decisions
Internal policies, procedures and guidelines can help ensure consistency of practices in an organization. In NSOs, they are most beneficial in standardising work processes, especially communications with users and respondents. Clear and transparent rules help standardise work and are essential for maintaining a good reputation and creating a strong brand for official statistics. Standardised approaches are particularly beneficial for organizations with a high turnover of staff, which is, unfortunately, becoming quite common due to relatively low salaries of statistical staff and the unique skillset of statisticians in demand by the private sector.
Most commonly, statistical offices have created a range of policy and guidance instruments, such as confidentiality policy and guidelines, data access policy, microdata access policy, pricing policy for tailored statistical services, press relations guidelines, government relations guidelines, dissemination and revision policy and many others.
Internal policies are usually the initiative of an employee, manager or chief statistician and are either created individually or through a dedicated working group or a standing committee. Policy creation through a working group or a committee is a good exercise for training and selecting future senior management as it requires a broad perspective and reaching a compromise with other members.
Signing an internal policy and posting it on the intranet is not enough to ensure that it is regularly enforced. Often, both soft and hard approaches are needed to ensure awareness and compliance. The chief statistician can address all employees in explaining the new policy, reasons behind its creation, and major changes, thanking the drafting team and linking to the intranet location where all internal policies can be found. This increases attention to new and existing policies, possibly leading to revising or updating some of them. On the other hand, enforcing the application of policies is not an easy task and the person who has to remind staff of their existence and ensure compliance will certainly not be the most popular person in the office. Enforcing compliance should be ensured by the responsible directors and chiefs as part of their regular management and decision-making tasks. As this is often an uphill battle, frequent reminders from the management and the chief statistician can be quite beneficial.
In recent years NSOs have become increasingly aware of the need to be transparent with respect to both their data providers and users. Many NSOs have partly responded to this need by posting key policy documents and guidelines on their websites. Nowadays, this is encouraged internationally as standard good practice. The thinking behind this is that there are no secrets in the statistical operations and processes and that increasing information to respondents and users is likely to enhance relationships with them, improve the NSO’s data sources, and the use the statistical outputs.
6.4.4 Role of the national statistical office in planning monitoring and coordination
While the purpose, coverage, process and content of multiannual and annual planning, priority setting and monitoring was discussed in Chapter 4 - The National Statistical System, this section will focus on the role and specificities of the NSO in those processes but also refer to the coordinative role of the NSO and its relevance to the whole NSS.
Apart from being the leading national statistical agencies, most NSOs are at the same time coordinators of the NSS and as such are expected to coordinate and lead the planning processes for the whole NSS.
Most commonly, statistical programmes are prepared by the NSO while other national producers of official statistics provide inputs to the programme or prepare their parts, as guided by the NSO. Preparation of the programme is usually organized through a dedicated unit within the NSO that coordinates the process, seeks inputs from both inside and outside of the NSO, filters and analyses those inputs and converts them into realistic and well-documented plans. These units are often also tasked with monitoring the implementation of statistical activities throughout the whole NSS, and often deal with other strategic issues, such as analysis of user requirements (see Chapter 7 - Users and their Needs), consultation with stakeholders and evaluation of plans and performance. Strategic planning units should also be involved in cost accounting and other similar exercises that provide estimates of costs for each statistical activity (if they are performed in NSOs). It is a good practice that such estimates are included into strategic plans.
An essential role of the NSO is the promotion of common practices across the NSS. This can be achieved by promoting cooperation and including representatives of other producers of official statistics, when possible, into relevant committees, working groups, task forces and other advisory bodies.
An example that can be used to improve cooperation within NSS and strengthen the coordinative role of the NSO is the formation of the National Committee of producers of official statistics[2] (as mentioned in the Guidance on modernising statistical legislation, UNECE 2018 (🔗)). This committee can transform and adapt policies and guidelines based on international recommendations that are used within the NSO into national policies and guidelines that aim to ensure quality in the development, production, and dissemination of all statistics produced by the NSS. Furthermore, producer committees at operational levels should be established in different statistical domains to promote cooperation, reuse data, and standardise practices within the NSS. Units that are tasked with the preparation of strategic documents often serve as the secretariat for such committees. Cooperation within the NSS should be actively maintained and developed, and the task and obligation of the NSO is to promote and ensure cooperation with (and among) other producers of official statistics. Ensuring cooperation is not only a matter of capacity (which may vary quite considerably among the producers of official statistics) but also specialised knowledge and access to sector-specific information. Strengthening the coordination function of the NSO is also important for facilitating the verification and production of indicators needed for monitoring the progress towards Sustainable Development Goals.
NSOs and other producers of official statistics are government-financed institutions and as such are expected to be transparent and cost-effective in terms of the use of resources. Procedures aimed at monitoring and measuring the use of human and financial resources should be put in place to promote cost-effectiveness. Some statistical offices have set up systems that link statistical activities with the cost they have incurred through accounting and records of working hours (cost accounting systems) and through them can provide precise estimates of costs for each statistical activity. This type of information provides valuable insights into the allocation of budgets and helps with prioritisation and evaluation of plans and performance.
The PARIS21 Advanced Data Planning Tool (ADAPT) is a free cloud-based tool for NSOs and other data producers that can be used to adapt their data production according to the data needs of policymakers and to adjust their existing data plans to any changes in priorities.
The UNITAR StaTact tool was developed in partnership with the UN Statistics Division to enable countries to address measurement gaps that impede monitoring national policies and resolve problems tactically. It provides an analytical framework and a multi-stakeholder methodology to enable national experts from national statistical offices, concerned Ministries and other parts of the data community, including non-traditional data sources, to design a short-term action plan with a focus on addressing institutional impediments to data collection, production and utilization.