JOINT UN-ECE/EUROSTAT WORK SESSION ON POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUSES GENEVA, 30 SEPT- 3 OCT 2013 TECHNOLOGY, INNOVATION AND OUTSOURCING OUTSOURCING RESULTS OF UNECE SURVEY AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR 2020 IAN WHITE, Office for National Statistics, UNITED KNGDOM

OVERVIEW OF THE RESULTS OF UNECE SURVEY: OUTSOURCING 37 countries reported outsourcing one or more services No register-based country did so Main outsourced activities included: - Printing of questionnaires (30 countries) - Printing of other field documents (29 countries) - Publicity (29 countries) - Delivery of questionnaires (24 countries) - Data capture and coding (21 countries) - Translation of field materials (19 countries) - Collection of questionnaires (19 countries) Russian Federation outsourced 21 activities The Albanian Army successfully delivers a load of questionnaires to the secure Census Office’s premises at Urë Vajgurorë

OVERVIEW OF THE RESULTS OF UNECE SURVEY: OUTSOURCING Main reasons for outsourcing No expertise available (26 countries) Save time (23 countries) Reduce costs (16 countries) Improve data quality (12 countries) Main benefit from outsourcing Expertise gained (29 countries) Time saved (23 countries) Costs reduced (19 countries) Quality improved (12 countries) Main challenges in outsourcing Keeping to schedule (26 countries) Managing the contracts (16 countries) Keeping to budget (15 countries) Integrating systems (12 countries)

PROPOSALS FOR NEW RECOMMENDATIONS: OUTSOURCING Expand the section on Chapter 1 and incorporate into the new chapter on Technology Identify specific activities for outsourcing: - printing of questionnaires - recruitment and training of field staff - publicity campaign - translation of field materials into other languages - delivery and/or collection/return of questionnaires/field documents - design and provision of questionnaire tracking system - provision of mapping services - primary data capture and coding - questionnaire destruction - provision of call centre/telephone help line - design and provision of online response technology - online/web access design for outputs - data storage - data editing and/or imputation - quality assurance - evaluation Focus also on need to: - protect confidentiality - gain public confidence - ensure data quality

PROPOSALS FOR NEW RECOMMENDATIONS: OUTSOURCING Issues for discussion   Should the CESR make specific recommendations and offer guidance or just leave it to individual countries to decide? What other activities might be included? What about Big Data?