Indicators, data and country level reporting: lessons for monitoring Expert meeting - Budapest, 28 April 2011 István György Tóth KÖZIGAZGATÁSI ÉS IGAZSÁGÜGYI MINISZTÉRIUM TÁRSADALMI FELZÁRKÓZÁSÉRT FELELŐS ÁLLAMTITKÁRSÁG

THANKS TO ALL SPEAKERS AND PARTICIPANTS FOR ALL THE VERY USEFUL COMMENTS !!!

Major dilemmas - Shall we be more ambitious or less ambitios?? -Shall we evaulate or shall we not do that?

The report text The indicator development process The scheme/format of presentation Data infrastructure (The politics/policy of regular monitoring) Key aspects of next steps

Time horizons By the end of the current contract deadline (next two weeks) Medium term: next half a year, one year … ?)

Tasks: the report texts, next two weeks Implement changes suggested by the participants of the expert seminar (what can be done consistently) –More careful evaluations, use the five steps suggested by Chris and document policy relevance of the new indicators –Re-calibrate evaluation thresholds in Policy Marker Report Cards (rather than simply 30%), together with statistical significance –BETTER REFERENCING and FULL RECOGNITION OF THE PREVIOUS WORKS and also to –Explicit reference to UNCRC –Connect to EU2020 and to the legally adopted (2010 dec) joint assessment framework (theme child poverty) –Reflect, wherever possible, institutional country specificities in some relevant dimensions (for childcare variables, for example) –Connect to ISG terminology –Mention caveats why we do not use socia participation and local environment variables –Datasets documentation (from expert studies)

Tasks: the report texts, next two weeks (contnd) Complete the analysis –Draw main conclusions, prepare executive summary –Copy-edit, finalise, dissemination plan –Make clear the status of this report: this is a statistical/analytical paper (rather than a political, though with policy focus). This is not an official presidency document even!!

Tasks: indicator development, medium term (to be summarized in exec summary) Complete still-to-be-dones outlined in main presentation on the basis of data available Special attention to further integrate EU2020 indicators See what can be done re the two unexplored dimensions (local environment and participation) Analyse 2009 EU-SILC module and implement results (make suggestions for regularly monitored indicators) Explore options for improvements in dimensions not covered with sufficiently standardised data collections (crime, institutionalised care, most vulnarable in general, etc) KEEP PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS AND DO NOT USE LESS RELIABLE, NOT ENOUGH TIMELY, NOT POLICY RELEVANT ETC INDICATORS!!

Tasks (for further developments) re scheme/format of country reporting, medium term Scorecard or not a scorecard??? Pluses and minuses or not? Let we make a policy marker report card to both keep the policy signal aim and try avoid government officials comparison phobia of naming and shaming!!! This helps develop a context in which governments compare themselves to achievements and not to each other!! Refine the structure of policy marker report cards: this is a first try of the experiment with this approach Further validate/reconsider actual lead indicators Refine/calibrate evaluation methods (what benchmarks, what averages, what thresholds) Improve on country specific data deficits Maintain independent professional control of the production of annual policy marker report cards

Data infrastructure (these to be mentioned in the report as summary recommendations) Collect context information on child and family related social expenditures, within the OMC reporting routines Integrate suggested new indicators into regular data collection instruments (like education deprivation indicators into EU-SILC) Investigate improved, regular microdata access to various valuable ongoing data collection excercises (most notably HBSC, ESPAD and others) Explore on improving incentives to support substitute or alternative datasets in national contexts Explore on options for monitoring the social situation of the children of migrants and Roma Further investigate the potential for utilising national administrative datasets Find out ways to monitor indicators/dimensions where data standardisation is problematic (crime statistics, children in institutionalised care, etc) Invest in panel surveys (national or EU level) to facilitate exploring causal relationships Involve researchers in questionnaire development

(The politics/policy of regular monitoring) Commission position on next steps? (recommendation in 2011) Balance for less developed countries (emphasised by A.C) In addition to the foreseen adoption of the new child well being indicators, what other SPC/ISG plans for the comprehensive indicator portfolio (including new breakdowns and health education and risk behavior indicators)? Relationship of Social OMC and EU2020 monitoring and the role of child wellbeing in these?.. And to the European platform against poverty? Cont(r)act major data infrastructures, ensure continued supply of good quality data Stakeholder involvement/ownership in keeping momentum? Forthcoming presidency activities?

Thanks again