1 1 General preconditions Training workshop on ¨censuses using administrative registers in Geneva 21 May 2012 Harald Utne, Statistics Norway

2 Preconditions for use of administrative sources in production of statistics Legal base Public approval Unified identification system Comprehensive and reliable register system Cooperation among authorities

3 Legal base National legislation should reflect the idea of re-use of administrative data for statistical purposes Legislation should be up-to-date –Statistics Act of Norway from 1989 –Replacing the former act of 1907 Legislation must give the NSI –Access to administrative data on a unit level, including identification information –Right to link data from different administrative sources Legislation on data protection In Norway: Principle of “One way traffic” Administrative data for statistical purposes Statistical data for –Statistical purposes –Research purposes (regulated by Statistics Act) –Never for administrative purposes

4 Public approval Broad public approval is very important –Influence on political decisions (legal base) Attitudes may be different between countries concerning –Existence and linking of administrative registers in general –Linking of register data for statistical purposes:  Lack of privacy: NSI knows “everything” about “everybody” (Big Brother) or  Data security better taken care of in centralized system Citizens may be reluctant to report data to the NSI if they know that the same data have already been collected for administrative purposes Common Nordic experiences –Work of register authorities (and NSIs) should be open and transparent –Open discussion and public debate

5 Unified identification system Unique identification numbers for basic units –Persons, enterprises and establishments, numerical addresses Unique ID-numbers not absolutely necessary, but indeed very valuable –Matching is possible without unique numbers, but more difficult and time consuming

6 Comprehensive and reliable register system Quality in administrative data important for individual’s rights and duties Registers used by many authorities (incl. NSI) have best quality Information items that are important for administrative authorities, have the best quality But: “Administrative” quality is not always the same as “statistical” quality

7 Cooperation among authorities Between different administrative authorities (registers owners) Between NSI and the registers owners Cooperation at all levels of the organisations Norway: National forum of register owners and users The NSI needs a lot of information about the registers –Regulations and practices in register keeping –Contents Register owners should inform the NSI about all kind of changes –In Norway regulated in the Statistics Act The NSI should inform the register owners about quality problems –But normally not on an individual level

8 Updated information Quality secured Full coverage Documentation Public sector Statistics Private sector The Quality Circle Use Quality Work together

9 9 Requirements to data from administrative sources Additional requirements for producing high quality register-based statistics

10 Units and identifiers Definition of units No problem for natural units (for example persons) Business units: Must be defined by very precise rules –New enterprise established or major changes in existing enterprise? Unique identifiers Identifying codes should not be changed during the lifetime of a unit Best solution: Using codes containing no information Example: Norwegian personal ID –Contain date of birth and sex: Changes may occur –Temporary ID-number changed to permanent ID-number

11 Time references and data on events Important to have dates of changes and events –Real point in time when possible: Births, deaths –Sometimes gradual changes: Industry of an enterprise Dates of actual changes and dates of registration Distinguish real events from corrections in registers

12 Thank you for your attention !