1 1 UNECE: Work session on Communication of statistics Per Nymand-Andersen Geneva, June 2012 Communicating Statistics Professional users’ requirements for Statistics Knowing your users? What are the user patterns? What do users suggest?

2 Welfare enhancement FACTUAL AND INDEPENDENT STATISTICS Analysis & assessment Policy options Policy decisions Policy validations Analysis & assessment Statistical and financial literacy C OMMUNICATION Professional users and citizens Policy making Creating a “culture of stability” Knowledge based society Policy accountability

3 Measuring the requirements of professional users An array of user surveys  Survey of international statisticians  Survey of large data users/data vendors  Survey on the ECB web-site  Interviews with media/journalists

4 Workshops & training with media, contacts Communication initiatives ► Recommendations from journalists 15 recommendations Press releases together with statistics Facilitate the re- distribution of statistics Select, point, view and print series on screen Use common language Chart and facts of the week Euro & national statistics in one source Forecast statistics Overview of statistics & core statistics Statistics in context (high/low) User friendly and interactive web-sites Notification and alerts Search engine Euro area with other geographic areas Select data and charts from ECB publications

5 5 ECB web-site user survey results 44.1 % 68.3% 6.9 % 49.0 % 19.3 % 2.8 % 7.6%  Advising, accounting, daily business, Phd/reports, checking exchange rates/loan paybacks.

6 6 ECB web-site user survey results The ability to select, combine and visualise data before downloading data 18.3 %81.7 %83.8 %16.2 % The usefulness of selecting the underlying data from tables and charts used in the ECB ’ s Monthly Bulletin articles & other ECB publications directly ?

7 Survey of international Statisticians Main barriers for using and accessing E(S)CB statistics 136 replies on barriers by 83 respondents136 replies on barriers by 83 respondents Six broad categories;  Structure of the web-site  Searching for statistics  Description of statistics  Terminology  Language  Technical user friendliness

8 Users requirements for statistics 300 barriers / proposals

9 New initiatives to meet the challenges Provide a set of best practice and recommendations of new ideas to make ESCB statistics more understood, reach larger audience and easier accessible Task Force on Accessibility of Statistics: An ESCB concept Communication of statistics – a challenge for the statistics function Propose ways for representing the methodologies applied Work together with (sparring) partners from the private market Need for closer cooperation among ESCB and statistics organisations

10 Conclusions Task Force on Accessibility of Statistics: Recommendations, priorities, implementation strategy to make statistics more accessible Communication of factual and independent statistics enriches the political debate and has a welfare enhancement effect in society Measuring professional users’ requirements for statistics! ► Knowing users ► working patterns ► helping them - helping themselves Statistics needs a two-way communication strategy ► Building on synergies and sharing of functionalities ► building private partnerships ► pro-actively engage core use segments ► Focus on professional communication amplifiers ► Policy makers ► Journalists ► data redistributors ► Research centers Significant call for facilitating: Understanding, use, re-use & analysis ► Knowing users ► working patterns ► helping them - helping themselves

11 Effectiveness in communicating statistics Questions