Standardisation activities in the statistical community Francesco Rizzo, Istat ESTP Training Course “Information standards and technologies for describing, exchanging and disseminating data and metadata” Rome, 19-22 June 2018

Summary The international context Issues and common challenges The emerging worldwide vision The answers of the official statistics High Level Group for the Modernisation of Official Statistics The European Statistical System Vision 2020 OECD Statistical Information Systems – Collaboration Community Enterprise architecture and standards

The international context Satisfy new demands for statistical information: more statistical indicators more sectorial and territorial details timeliness better quality Governments needs to help the formulation of good policy, not only at national level Reduction of financial allocation The ICT development has allowed a cost reduction in producing statistics and its easily accessibility and dissemination this has implied competition from private enterprises Internet and other new means are offering new opportunities: creating new information products and new ways of combining and using information wide variety of new information sources are available with few constrains and a lot of details In the last 10-15 the way to produce statistics is radically changing due the a series of challenges and chances that the producers of official statistics have to face. First of all NSIs and IOs have to “satisfy new demands for statistical information” because both traditional and new users (institutional users but also consumer users) are requiring: more statistical indicators more sectorial and territorial details timeliness better quality Furthermore policy makers need statistics not only at national level in order to formulate good policy. On the other side NSIs have to deal with big constraints due to the reduction of financial allocation. In this scenario the technology is playing a fundamental role: From one side the ICT development has behaved a cost reduction in producing statistics and its easily accessibility and dissemination. This has implied competition from private enterprises. (e.g. Google has recently started producing price indices based on online transactions, and disseminating statistics through its platform “data explorer”) From the other side, Internet and other new means are offering new opportunities: creating new information products and new ways of combining and using information wide variety of new information sources are available with few constrains and a lot of details

Issues and common challenges Rigid processes and methods Technology environments inflexible and dated High maintenance costs of the business model and the associated asset bases Many statistical organizations have already started modernization programs Vision Implementation strategy Enterprise Architecture for driving and handling the modernization process

The emerging worldwide vision Modernization of the statistical information systems standardization and industrialization new products able to be competitive within the global market harmonization of the information (concepts, classifications and dictionaries) overcoming of the “stovepipe” logic new methods for interchange of data and metadata Reduce costs of producing data Foster the collaborative development of tools Managing information throughout its lifecycle Statistical information systems metadata-drives Industrialisation is: Common processes Common tools Common methodologies Recognising that all statistics are produced in a similar way: No domain is “special” Increased flexibility to adapt to new sources and produce new outputs Example of Industry standards widhin the statistical context are: Generic Statistical Business Process Model Generic Statistical Information Model Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange Data Documentation Initiative

“As-is” situation within a statistical organization Specialized business processes, methods and IT systems for each survey / output Accidental architecture

The result of the standardization within an Organization Applying Enterprise Architecture Disseminate

... but if each statistical organization works by themselves ...

... we get this ...

Standardization within Statistical Organizations .. which makes it hard to share and reuse!

Reusing among statistical Organizations … but if statistical organisations work together to define a common statistical production architecture ... ... sharing is easier!

The answers of the official statistics International level - High-Level Group for the Modernization of Official Statistics Oversees activities that support modernization of statistical organizations Stimulates development of global standards and international collaboration activities “Within the official statistics community ... take a leadership and coordination role” European level – European Statistical System Vision 2020 It is the key reference to guide strategic decisions within the ESS in future years (until 2020) Modernization programs within NSIs

High Level Group for the Modernization of Official Statistics Created by the Conference of European Statisticians in 2010 Driven by Vision and Strategy endorsed by CES 11 members (IRL, AUS, CAN, IT, MEX, NL, NZ, KR, SLO, UK, ESTAT, OECD, UNECE) The objectives of the HLG-MOS are: To promote common standards, models, tools and methods to support the modernisation of official statistics; To drive new developments in the production, organisation and products of official statistics, ensuring effective coordination and information sharing within official statistics, and with relevant external bodies; To advise the Bureau of the CES on the direction of strategic developments in the modernisation of official statistics, and ensure that there is a maximum of convergence and coordination within the statistical "industry". These objectives are met in a number of ways: Annual projects on topics identified as key priorities by the Statistical Modernisation Community Expert groups, task teams and evaluation projects on specific themes related to statistical modernisation

Key models promoted by HLG-MOS projects Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) Generic Statistical Information Model (GSIM) Common Statistical Production Architecture (CSPA) is a reference architecture for the statistical industry covers statistical production across the processes defined by the GSBPM provides a practical link between statistical conceptual standards includes application and technology architectures and associated principles for the delivery of statistical services Generic Activity Model for Statistical Organisations (GAMSO) Describes and defines the activities that take place within a typical statistical organisation (Strategy & Leadership, Capability development, Corporate support, Production)

How the HLG-MOS is organized Data Architecture  Common Statistical Data Architecture (CSDA) Data Integration  Data Integration Guidelines Blue Sky Thinking Network  is the “ideas factory” for the statistical modernisation community. The network provides a research and innovation platform where members can share ideas and look for partners to explore how new innovations to our production process can benefit statistical organisations. The Network aims to identify and evaluate new opportunities and to produce reports, CSPA compliant software or proposals for further work Supporting Standards  The goal of the group is to find ways how to develop, enhance, integrate, promote, support and facilitate implementation of the range of standards needed for statistical modernisation. It has operational responsibility for the maintenance and development of GAMSO, GSBPM, GSIM, and CSPA.

European Statistical System Vision 2020 It is a common strategic response of the European Statistical System (Eurostat, EU Member States and EFTA countries) to the challenges that official statistics is facing. It was adopted by the ESS Committee in May 2014 Developed jointly by all ESS members, it represents an adequate compromise to respond to both National and European needs It will be the key reference for guiding strategic decisions within the ESS in the future years (until 2020) It will serve as the basis for a revision in the medium term of the multiannual statistical program It allows to align all the already running activities within the ESS (ESS.VIP, FRIBS, Modernization of social statistics)

The five key areas of the ESS Vision 2020 Projects/Acronyms Definition SIMSTAT: SIngle Market STATistics ESBRs: European System of interoperable Business Registers (network of European business registers) VALIDATION: Common Data VALIDATION standards and rules ADMIN: Enhanced use of administrative data sources for statistical production SERV: shared SERVices - Towards sharing specific services in statistical production DIGICOM: DIGItal COMmunication - Optimizing user analytics and communication and data dissemination tools BIGD: BIG Data - Harnessing the arising new data sources (focus on Big Data) ESDEN: Data highways for microdata exchange between ESS partners

OECD Statistical Information System – Collaboration Community Vision The SIS-CC vision is to provide an international collaboration framework for a more open, innovative and industrialised data dissemination, to collectively develop software, leverage innovations, mutualise costs, and promote standardisation. Strategic objectives Collectively produce and develop software Share experiences, knowledge and best practices Contribute to International Collaboration, by accelerating the implementation of standards and contributing to the international ‘Plug and Play’ architecture vision. OPEN INNOVATION IN PRACTICE Pooling together ideas, skills, resources and developing products to better meet the needs for public statistics Collectively produce and develop software, by leveraging on the .Stat platform and related components, and in so doing build a robust, component-based and scalable architecture Share experiences, knowledge and best practices through multilateral collaboration and building of a collective capacity, concerning the Community. Contribute to International Collaboration, by accelerating the implementation of standards and contributing to the international ‘Plug and Play’ architecture vision. Members: Australian Bureau of Statistics; International Labour Organisation; International Monetary Fund; Italian National Institute of Statistics; National Bank of Belgium; OECD; Statistics Estonia; Statistics New Zealand; UK Data Service; UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Enterprise architecture and standards GAMSO

Useful links High-Level Group for the Modernisation of Official Statistics: https://statswiki.unece.org/display/hlgbas/High- Level+Group+for+the+Modernisation+of+Official+Statistics The European Statistical System Vision 2020: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/ess/about-us/ess-vision-2020 OECD Statistical Information System – Collaboration Community: https://siscc.oecd.org/