1. The thorough revision of the Urban Audit project Berthold Feldmann Eurostat berthold.feldmann@ec.europa.eu

2. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 2/22 Structure of the talk Why a fundamental reform? Major elements of the reform Time table

3. Why do we need a thorough revision of the Urban Audit? Chapter 1

4. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 4/22 Dimensions of the Urban Audit More than 300 variables collected from Member States Cover many demographic, economic and social aspects in European cities Data collections Exhaustive collection every three years – 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013 Annual data collection of 38 variables since 2010 Three spatial units 369 core cities larger urban zones (=including the city hinterland) sub-city information (reduced dataset)

5. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 5/22 Current situation of Urban Audit The Urban Audit project was started more than 10 years ago as a pilot project (58 cities) It has grown to an ambitious voluntary data collection in order to give a comprehensive statistical picture of urban life in more than 350 cities with over 300 indicators The Urban Audit data has been intensively used in EU Policy context and analyses Urban Audit has been very useful in defining harmonised concepts for core cities, larger urban zones and sub-city districts Overall response rate: only 60%

6. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 6/22 Major challenges in the Urban Audit Data delivery delays As a consequence to these delays of data inflow, the quality control, which needs a critical mass of data, is very delayed Comparability of the data is questioned by some This reduces the usability of the data for political analysis Missing data is a problem for all countries Different gaps in different countries due to diverging social and statistical history Estimations required – some countries estimate a lot, others dont estimate at all

7. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 7/22 Part of estimation in data delivery

8. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 8/22 Where the Urban Audit data comes from Inevitably a complex data collection system

9. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 9/22 Several Stakeholder meetings in 2010/11 Peer Review summer 2010 Conclusion: Actions are needed to raise awareness about the data collection and to reduce the amount of missing data Working Party meeting September 2010 Conclusion: there are a still several unresolved challenges related to the Urban Audit data collection High level stakeholder meeting December 2010 Conclusion: The Urban Audit should be continued. DG REGIO is ready to continue providing substantial financial support Think tank meeting March 2011 Conclusion: The proposed thorough revision of the Urban Audit found unanimous support

10. Ten proposed actions of the Urban Audit revision Chapter 2

11. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 11/22 1. Create a consistent list of cities The current list of cities is over-complex: standard list, additional list for some countries, large city Audit etc. New target: include all European cities with more than 50 000 inhabitants in the Urban Audit Advantage: Thanks to the revision of the degree of urbanisation, LF and EU-SILC will provide country level values for all cities These figures can be used in combination with other information, primarily administrative data, to improve the quality of the city specific estimates

12. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 12/22 2. Create consistent spatial definitions of cities Eurostat and DG REGIO are currently conducting a comprehensive analysis of all European core cities and Larger Urban Zones (LUZ), based on the newly developed urban-intermediate-rural typology This approach, based on objective criteria, will significantly increase the comparability of Urban Audit statistics As a result, there will be a list of European core cities (urban centres) and LUZ (agglomerations) following a harmonised methodology

13. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 13/22 3. Create a focused list of indicators Currently we collect 40 variables annually and 330 variables every three years In order to ease the burden on data suppliers, we will collect in future 85 variables annually and 175 variables every five years Policy relevance and response rate were the guiding principles for deleting or keeping variables

14. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 14/22 4. Revise the frequency of data collections There is a trade-off between response burden and timeliness of data Eurostat proposes to increase the scope of the annual data collection (=timely data) Decrease the frequency of the exhaustive data collection to every five years With a significantly shorter list than at the current stage These measures will considerably reduce the burden on NSIs

15. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 15/22 5. Reach an overall 80% response rate Reduce the number of required variables by deleting those with a poor response rate Increase the number of centrally collected variables, i.e. data put together by Eurostat from existing Europe wide source (EEA, Urban Atlas of DG REGIO etc.) Foster estimations of the data suppliers Grants for estimating missing data Create a Board of Urban Audit Advisers that gives advice on estimation techniques Collect at least data for all urban areas in each country (using the new degree of urbanisation)

16. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 16/22 6. Improve the data validation process Fine tuning of Eurostats validation tools Encourage validation by the data suppliers 7. Increase direct cooperation with cities After each collection round, the data set for each city should be sent to the individual cities Cities will be asked to confirm or improve the data

17. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 17/22 8. Improve communication with users Restructure the public Eurostat database (Eurobase), taking more into account the user perspective and the possibilities offered by the data explorer Intensify the dialogue with the cities involved

18. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 18/22 9. Increase awareness of urban statistics A joint Eurostat / DG REGIO publication on the "State of European Cities" should be launched starting 2012 This publication should have descriptive and analytical elements It should have an annual frequency

19. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 19/22 10. Exploit synergies with other statistical data collections Harmonised definitions shall be used as much as possible to support the analysis of functional regions, metropolitan regions, coastal regions, etc. Using the new degree of urbanisation concept, statistics can be produced for all urban areas in a country These figures can then be used as benchmarks for city specific estimations

20. Next steps and time table Chapter 3

21. Urban Facts' Centenary Conference 21/22 Next steps in the Urban Audit revision DM discussionMay 2011 Meeting of all national Urban Audit coordinatorsJune 2011 Present strategy at ESS-Com.Oct 2011 ImplementationJan 2012

22. Thank you for your attention! Any Questions ?