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

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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? contd

• 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
contd

• 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
contd

• 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. Zambias 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? contd

• 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? contd

• 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 Offices
  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 contd

• 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? contd

• 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/how20t
  he20national20statistics20system20impacts20on
  20service20delivery.pdf
• Paris21 Why Governments need good
  statistics?http//www.paris21.org/documents/why-g
  overnments-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.u
  sda.gov/mexsai/Papers/strategiesp.doc
• National Strategy for the Development of
  Statistics, Paris21, Documents and Knowledge
  basehttp//www.paris21.org/pages/designing-nsds/N
  SDS-documents-knowledge-base/index.asp?orderbyeo
  rderin1tabKnowledgeBaseoptiondoc

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