1. JOINT UN-ECE/EUROSTAT WORK SESSION ON POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUSES
GENEVA, 30 SEPT- 3 OCT 2013
TECHNOLOGY, INNOVATION AND OUTSOURCING
OUTSOURCING
RESULTS OF UNECE SURVEY
AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR 2020
IAN WHITE, Office for National Statistics,
UNITED KNGDOM

2. OVERVIEW OF THE RESULTS OF UNECE SURVEY: OUTSOURCING
37 countries reported outsourcing one or more services
No register-based country did so
Main outsourced activities included:
- Printing of questionnaires (30 countries)
- Printing of other field documents (29 countries)
- Publicity (29 countries)
- Delivery of questionnaires (24 countries)
- Data capture and coding (21 countries)
- Translation of field materials (19 countries)
- Collection of questionnaires (19 countries)
Russian Federation outsourced 21 activities
The Albanian Army successfully delivers a load of questionnaires to the secure Census Office’s premises at Urë Vajgurorë

3. OVERVIEW OF THE RESULTS OF UNECE SURVEY: OUTSOURCING
Main reasons for outsourcing
No expertise available (26 countries)
Save time (23 countries)
Reduce costs (16 countries)
Improve data quality (12 countries)
Main benefit from outsourcing
Expertise gained (29 countries)
Time saved (23 countries)
Costs reduced (19 countries)
Quality improved (12 countries)
Main challenges in outsourcing
Keeping to schedule (26 countries)
Managing the contracts (16 countries)
Keeping to budget (15 countries)
Integrating systems (12 countries)

4. PROPOSALS FOR NEW RECOMMENDATIONS: OUTSOURCING
Expand the section on Chapter 1 and incorporate into the new
chapter on Technology
Identify specific activities for outsourcing:
- printing of questionnaires
- recruitment and training of field staff
- publicity campaign
- translation of field materials into other languages
- delivery and/or collection/return of questionnaires/field documents
- design and provision of questionnaire tracking system
- provision of mapping services
- primary data capture and coding
- questionnaire destruction
- provision of call centre/telephone help line
- design and provision of online response technology
- online/web access design for outputs
- data storage
- data editing and/or imputation
- quality assurance
- evaluation
Focus also on need to:
- protect confidentiality
- gain public confidence
- ensure data quality

5. PROPOSALS FOR NEW RECOMMENDATIONS: OUTSOURCING
Issues for discussion
Should the CESR make specific recommendations and offer
guidance or just leave it to individual countries to decide?
What other activities might be included?
What about Big Data?