Parallel Session: BR maintenance Quality in maintenance of a BR: 19th International Roundtable on Business Survey Frames Cardiff 16-21 October 2005 Parallel Session: BR maintenance Quality in maintenance of a BR: the Italian approach Giuseppe Garofalo (National Satistical Institute, Italy)

Some well known statements Quality does not exist in itself. Quality is not an absolute concept Quality of a product is in relation to the usage of the product Quality is a cost Quality is not only accuracy………… ………… but

Some well known statements: BR quality is connected to the….. User’ Needs STS SBS External UNITS Loc. U. Enterpr. Variables Qualitativ. Quantitat. simple complex large small TIME Frozen File Running

Quality is linked to a n-dimensional space Does not exist one “general” quality measure Quality must be defined on the basis of a set of indicators The “best” set of indicators (quality declaration) must be identified in a pragmatic way BR quality is connected to the identification of the “best quality route”

Look at the main aspects for the Italian BR quality declaration Yearly updating process Problem in using Adm. Sources Problems in software development Data check Continuous updating process BR use Accurasy Trasparency

Yearly updating process Problems in using administrative sources: Changes in legal and administrative rules Changes in units’ behaviour Mistakes and delay in data registration How to verify adm. Data ? Temporal consistency criterion The quality of data of the sources can be defined of the basis of comparison with the value of the previous supply. Define impossible or less plausible big changes from one period to another The criterion is used at “micro-cell” level Back to the sources

Yearly updating process Problems in software development and maintenance: In the case of : huge amount of data, complex procedures in data integration and methodologies application changes in applied rules (e.g. changes in classification, in adm. Sources contents, adding new information….) the results of the developed software must be strictly controlled. How to verify if software works well ? Sample checks Temporal consistency criterion (macro-cell analysis) Day-per-day relation with IT people.

Yearly updating process Control of the output of the process: identification of inconsistencies and errors Internal consistency: A value will be deemed “correct” if it is coherent in relation to other variables of the same unit. (turnover/employees, main activity/legal status). Define consistency edits are difficult to establish and often they are “plausibly” edits .If the variable passes the edit there is no guarantee that it is correct Temporal consistency: comparison at micro-cell with the results of the previous release

Continuous updating process Continuous updating: made by skilled staff The problem is to avoid the “free” interpretation on the events occurring in the enterprise’s life continuous training strictly collaboration between the experts precise documentation on the rules to be applied the experts have to be specialised in particular sectors or sub-set of enterprises cross-check among experts

BR use (internal users) Problems: Communication and inter-change of information How do they use the br How they acquire and interpret the changes Is the feedback correctly pour on the BR How to overcame these difficulties? Bulletin of the changes Protocol for the data exchange of data One (or more) BR’ expert responsible for the relationship with each survey

What is the best “witness” able to represent the reality ? ACCURACY It is the closeness between a parameter estimation (characteristic of the population under control) and its real (not known) value. What is the real value? What is the best “witness” able to represent the reality ?

A theoretical witness: statistical surveys Structural Business Survey: Total survey on enterprise with more than 99 employees Sample survey for the enterprises less than 100 employees The questionnaires of both surveys have a section able to acquire information for the BR e.g. they pre-print the description of economic activity and ask to re-write in case of changes or error

Accuracy: BR “error” rate in NACE code

Alternative witness: The Study Sectors Survey It’s a survey carried out by the Fiscal Authorities The purposes is the calculation to a “presumed taxable income” taking into account specific features of the business The scope is the medium and small enterprise in all (quite all) economic sectors An ad hoc questionnaire is provided for each sector The questionnaires contain more items useful to better classify the unit: Description of the input used in the productive process Description of the productive process List of the output (and its turnover %)V Some procedures are developed by using these items to attribute a NACE code to the units

the aim is to collect information on the multi-activity enterprise. Alternative actual witness: The Identification of the “potential KAUs”: the aim is to collect information on the multi-activity enterprise. A potential KAU is a part of an enterprise that for each 4 digit Nace code at least the turnover and the person employed is observed. The identification of the units was made to the integration of the information taken from surveys (STS and SBS), profiling activities, Balance Sheets analysis. About 1,600 enterprises (big) are analysed This activity has been useful to check the correctness of the main activity of the enterprise

Small enterprise error rate

Large enterprise error rate

Is a complete documentation on: What is the BR quality ? Is a complete documentation on: The sources that we use The adopted methodologies The developed procedures The errors that are detected and corrected Quality = Transparency