1. Internal audits in the CZSO and their impact on National Accounts
Vítězslav Ondruš, CZSO
Vladimír Kermiet, CZSO

2. Presentation consists:
System of internal audits in CZSO
Internal audits on National Accounts
Internal audits on main data sources 2

3. System of internal audits in CZSO(1/5)
System of periodical internal audits was adopted by top management in 2003
aim and expected outputs of audits - main attributes of quality were investigated: Relevancy (relevance, importance), Accuracy, Seasonableness, Availability, Comprehensibility, Coherency (connection, continuity
role of auditors was defined and audit‘s groups were created by external (mainly academic) and internal experts
audited statistics (departments) were chosen and time schedule of audits was adopted 3

4. System of internal audits in CZSO(2/5)
The first cycle of 23 internal audits (all statistics): period from 2003 to 2008 –covered
System of internal audits started in the Quarterly National Accounts Department during the 4th quarter 2003
Annual national accounts were audited in 2004 4

5. System of internal audits in CZSO(3/5)
Standard practise:
Auditing group usually consists of 3 external and 2 internal experts
Outcome: Final report prepared according to the general scheme
Final report was discussed by the top management, the head of auditing group and director of audited department
Time schedule of further steps was usually prepared and monitored 5

6. System of internal audits in CZSO(4/5)
Standard practise - final report consisted mainly of:
Audit assignment including rough time-schedule
Correspondence between standards and practice of EU statistical service
Satisfaction of users needs (statistical outputs)
Assessments
sufficiency of written methodology documentation  
quality dimensions of output (like in EUROSTAT quality report)
benchmarking
Suggested further actions and improvements (including opinions of auditing group members)

7. System of internal audits in CZSO(5/5)
Future works:
The first round of internal audits has been evaluated by the Czech Statistical Council as satisfactory and highly appreciated work
The second round is anticipated – arrangements are almost completed 7

8. Internal audits on National Accounts (1/6)
Quarterly national accounts (2003) - important findings and improvements:
Inadequacy of written documentation
the written documentation ,,QNA Inventories” was completed in the year 2008
Relevance - it took very long time to revise quarterly data after publishing ANA
new revision policy was established: the QNA data are revised promptly in next quarter after the ANA data are published 8

9. Internal audits on National Accounts (2/6)
Quarterly national accounts (2003) - important findings and improvements:
Accuracy – there were some doubts about basic data quality resulting from sampling errors and non-sufficient sample size
responsibility for source data is now clearly defined by new system of SLA
Availability – at the time of the audit the usual praxis quarterly estimates were publish not until T+70 to T+100
flash GDP estimates have been published strictly in T+45, QNA in T+70 and QSA in T+90 9

10. Internal audits on National Accounts (3/6)
Quarterly national accounts (2003) - important findings and improvements:
Coherency - non-coherency of NA and relevant short-term statistics was identified
it is the most complicated finding - working group for coherency, compatibility and consistency (CoCoCo) has been established, however the solution to this issue has not been found yet and the non-coherency still exist 10

11. Internal audits on National Accounts (4/6)
Annual national accounts (2004) - important findings and improvements:
Inadequacy of written documentation
written documentation ,,GNI Inventories” was completed in 2006
Availability – not clearly define publishing schedule for ANA
new revision policy was established and strictly fulfilled: preliminary version of ANA in T+9 month, semi-definitive version in T+18 and definitive version in T+30 11

12. Internal audits on National Accounts (5/6)
Annual national accounts (2004) - important findings and improvements:
Comprehensibility - NA data were published without any meta-information and published structure could lead to confusion
new NA web sites including methodological explanations were established in this system is permanently updated, supplemented and improved 12

13. Internal audits on National Accounts (6/6)
Annual national accounts (2004) - important findings and improvements:
Comparability and coherency – many lacks of comparability with branch statistics were found - it is the biggest deficit in CZSO
some particular shortcomings have been resolved under the CoCoCo (coherency, consistency and comparability) working group
general reason of incomparability and incoherency still exists – it is question of the role of individual statistics, their interrelations and harmonization of their revision policy
this issue should be one of the most important topics of next round of internal audits 13

14. Internal audits on main data sources for ANA (1/3)
Statistical business survey (2005) - important findings and improvements:
Extensiveness of questionnaire – questionnaire was assessed as too extensive, bringing a significant administrative burden and not reflecting specifics of individual industries
small reduction of questionnaire has been done yet without conceptual discussion
next reduction is prepared for 2010 year, but also without deep conceptual discussion
conceptual discussion about role of administrative and statistical data sources started this autumn 14

15. Internal audits on main data sources for ANA (2/3)
Statistical business survey (2005) - important findings and improvements:
Using of administrative data – assessed as an insufficient and recommended to focus on changes in legislation limits
legislation limits have been removed
regularly updated databases of ADS (mainly tax declarations and financial statements) has been in disposal for the CZSO since 2007
until now any concept of direct use of ADS is missing. 15

16. Internal audits on main data sources for ANA (3/3)
Statistical business survey (2005) - important findings and improvements:
Outputs of data processing – significant shortcomings and inconsistencies caused by using of different outputs of data processing were identified (mainly due to different revision policy in NA and SBS)
basic rules for data processing and using of final outputs have been adopted and incorporated into SLA
still not yet any agreement concerning preliminary outputs (NA use August version and SBS use October version) 16

17. Thank you for your attention