Progress on ESS Validation Project 2nd Meeting of the Working Group Methodology Luxembourg, 5 April 2017 vincent.tronet@ec.europa.eu Eurostat, Unit B1

Medium-term goals for ESS validation Business Outcomes Goal 1: Ensure the transparency of the validation procedures applied to the data sent to Eurostat by the ESS Member States. Increase in the quality and credibility of European statistics   Reduction of costs related to the time-consuming validation cycle in the ESS ("validation Ping-Pong") Goal 2: Enable sharing and re-use of validation services across the ESS on a voluntary basis. Reduction of costs related to IT development and maintenance

May 2016 - ESSC conclusions In May 2016, the ESSC approved a set of follow-up actions to the ESS.VIP Validation. These actions focus on deploying into statistical production the deliverables of the ESS.VIP Validation.

Timeline of the project (ESSC May 2016)

Focus on Action 1 (Obtaining harmonised and jointly designed validation rules)

Task Force on Validation Mandate of the Task Force endorsed by Working Group meeting on Methodology on 7 April 2016 8 countries participate: Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and United Kingdom => Call for interest to revisit composition (linked to ESSnet) Focus on 7 pilot domains: -1- NAPS-S, -2- Animal production, -3- Energy, -4- Asylum, -5- Household Budget Survey, -6- International Trade in Services and -7- Short Term business Statistics

Mandate until 31 December 2017 Task Force Timeline Mandate until 31 December 2017 Pilot implementation of the methodological handbook, Pilot implementation of VTL, Finalisation of the Business and IT architecture. 4 meetings since 16-17 June 2016 5th meeting planned on 27th April

State of Play – Main achievements 2016 – Q1/2017 TF mandate: Feedback received on methodological handbook Business and IT architecture approved by TF Validation and ESS Enterprise architecture board Assessment of VTL for content validation rules in 5 domains VTL: Proof of concept of a VTL interpreter Contribution to improvement of VTL Services: STRUVAL available at Eurostat and exposed for sharing service CONVAL available at Eurostat in Process Manager

VTL – assessement of usability by statisticians 22 questionnaires returned Covering 5 domains From 6 countries + Eurostat who does what Animal production Asylum BOP-ITS International Trade in Services Energy HBS ESA (NAPS) STS (Short Term Statistics) DE 1   x  x  1 EE  X IE X IT 3 NL 2 PT SI  2    UK ESTAT Total Done 6 4 8

Results – scores Medium Level of understanding of VTL: on average between 2 and 4 Not clear if VTL is helpful to understand the rules in EN (score close to 3 for all domains: "Neither agree nor disagree") Level of understanding varies a lot according to the users for the same domain (some subjectivity or cultural influence may play a role ?) For one user similar level of understanding for all rules (except for ESA)

Results – summary of comments Rules in plain english and examples of bad/good data are both essential Rules in VTL may be useful as complement (to limit risks of ambiguity) VTL is not very intuitive Need to agree on way to express the rule (negative or positive) Suggestions for correcting or improving VTL scripts or language

ESSnet Validat Integration Timeline: Jan 2017 to March 2018 6 Participating countries: DE, LT, NL, PL, SE, PT Activities: Finalise Methodological Handbook Create a standard validation report structure Develop a cost/benefit model for the 3 scenarios of the Business and IT architecture 4 Regional conferences Outcomes of interest for grant planned at end 2017

Main actions for 2017-2019 (1/2) (May 2017) Validation Portal (summer 2017) Publication VTL 1.1 Standard framework (template, guidelines, best practices, …) for describing and agreeing on validation rules and roles covering progressively all statistical domains Tools and services …

Tools and services -

QUESTIONS ? More info: for Validation in the ESS at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5VRp6mrAjU&feature=youtu.be (See between 2:45' and 4:45') ESTP course planned on 22-23 Nov 2017