13-Jul-07 From quality reporting to quality assessment – Experiences of the first quality assessment round in the frame of European trade statistics Karo Nuortila Eurostat – Unit G5: International trade - production

13-Jul-07 Name of the presentation Trade statistics: some features Consist of two components: intra- and extra-EU trade statistics “Input-oriented” statistics European aggregates play an important role Huge volumes: richness of details, multidimensional, nearly exhaustive Face major challenges => Many issues to be taken into account in quality reporting

13-Jul-07 Name of the presentation Quality reporting practice before 2009 Trade statistics was one of the first statistical domains to implement quality reporting First Eurostat quality report issued in 2002 –Based on ad-hoc questionnaires and data at Eurostat Legal basis in intra-EU trade from 2005 onwards –Annual quality questionnaire and Eurostat quality report Conclusions from Intrastat simplification in 2007: –More emphasis need to given to quality as less data will be collected –Quality reporting seen as important tool to monitor quality

13-Jul-07 Name of the presentation New practice from 2009 onwards: from quality reporting to quality assessment Issues with the old practice –Rigidity: based on the indicators described in legal text –One-way communication from Member States to Eurostat but not backwards –Quality reporting vs. compliance monitoring: some quality indicators are legal requirements –Inconsistency over time New intra-EU and extra-EU legal acts adopted in 2009 –Include same quality articles –Consists of five successive steps

13-Jul-07 Name of the presentation New quality reporting and assessment procedure (1) Agreement on annual quality assessment –Contrary to the previous legal acts, precise quality indicators are not listed in the implementing rules –In order to manage quality reporting and assessment in a more flexible way than legal acts, a Committee document (Doc MET 1000) is used as an instrument –Doc MET 1000 defines the precise quality items to report –Introduces requirements and recommendations for items –Adopted annually by the Intrastat/Extrastat Committee Draft national quality report –Eurostat prepares a pre-filled draft quality report for each Member State –The report will be sent to Member States by the end of November following the reference year National quality report –Member States need to send the completed report to Eurostat within eight weeks

13-Jul-07 Name of the presentation New quality reporting and assessment procedure (2) Assessment report –Eurostat assess the quality of statistics and prepares an assessment report for each Member States –First assessment reports prepared in 2009/2010 –Compliance with legal requirements assessed –In case of non-compliance, action plans requested Summary Quality Report –Eurostat prepares and disseminates a summary quality report –Targeted to users of statistics; aims at informing readers on the various factors affecting statistics –In 2009, the summary quality report was revised to be in line with ESS Standard for Quality Reports

13-Jul-07 Name of the presentation Conclusions of the first round First quality reporting and assessment round undertaken in 2009/2010 Conclusions very positive –Data and national methods were scrutinised at the same time and with same criteria for the first time –Some shortcomings noted and communicated to Member States –Member States’ reaction mainly positive; some improvements implemented immediately, some will take more time In the future –The procedure will continue at annual basis –Some fine-tuning will be needed –Extension from requirements to recommendations –Need to reflect changes in underlying environment