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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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”

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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 ?

12. 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

13. Accuracy: BR “error” rate in NACE code

14. 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

15. 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

16. Small enterprise error rate

17. Large enterprise error rate

18. 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