SADC Course in Statistics Session 4a: The National Statistical Office and the National Statistics Act

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 2 Introduction This session focuses on the National Statistical Office and the National Statistics Act The development of the lecture is premised on the understanding that students are now aware of the National Statistical System, what it is? and its constituent components. Students should also be reminded that the National Statistical Office is at the centre of the National Statistical System of any country, playing a coordination, regulatory and supervisory role in addition to collecting and disseminating Official Statistics.

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 3 What is a National Statistical Office? It is an official organisation responsible for the collection, compilation, analysis and dissemination of all official data relating to the economic and social activities of a country. It is usually created by an Act of Parliament. It may be a government department within the Civil Service but the trend nowadays is that most NSOs are operating as stand alone institutions with some form of independence and autonomy from Government. In some countries the National Statistical Office is called the Central Statistical Office, Bureau of Statistics or the National Bureau of Statistics.

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 4 What are the functions of the NSO? The functions of a National Statistical Office are defined by the Statistics Act either by direct mention of the organisation/agency/bureau or by the duties assigned to the head of the agency/office/bureau. In general, the law list the following as main functions of the NSO: –conducting a Population & Housing Census after every 10 years –collecting, compiling, analyzing and disseminating statistical information –developing and promoting standards & methodologies

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 5 What are the functions of the NSO? – contd –developing & maintaining a Central Business Register In summary, its primary function is to provide Government Ministries and Departments, Non- Governmental Organisations and members of the public in general, with information for monitoring, evaluation and formulation of development plans and programmes. It performs this function through the collection, processing and analysis of data; reporting and dissemination of results through publications, reports, workshop and seminars.

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 6 The structure of a National Statistical Office The structure of the NSO varies depending on the status of the organisation. If still under civil service, the office is headed by a Director/Government Statistician (usually appointed by Government) who reports to a Minister responsible for statistics. This could be the Ministries of Finance/Planning/Economic Development.

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 7 Structure of the National Statistical Office – contd If the office is out of Civil Service, it is headed by a Director General/Statistician General, who in turn reports to a Board of Directors/Statistics Council whose main function is to ensure that good corporate governance is practised in the organisation. In such instances, the Director General/ Statistician General is the Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Operating Officer of the organisation and his/her function is to provide a link between the organisation and the Board of Directors/Statistics Council.

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 8 Structure of the National Statistical Office – contd The National Statistical Office has offices at Provincial and District level. The Provincial Office reports to the Head Office, while the District Office reports directly to the Provincial Office. Depending on the country in question, Provincial Offices are headed by a Statistician/Statistical Officer and District Offices are headed by a Team Leader.

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 9 What is the Act? All National Statistical Offices are governed by statistics acts that give them wide ranging powers of collection, compilation and dissemination of official statistics. At the time when this module was developed, one salient observation made, was that most of the Statistics Acts of the SADC member states were outdated with some of them have been formulated in the 1960s, e.g. Zambias is of 1964, Malawi 1967, Botswana 1967, Namibia Most countries worldwide are in the process of updating their Statistics Acts and SADC as a region is no exception.

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 10 What is the Act? – contd Some countries have modern Statistics Acts e.g. South Africa (1999), Mauritius (2000). Lesotho (2001) and Zimbabwe (2007), just to mention a few. In general the Act contains the following salient features, among other things: Functions of the NSO Powers of NSO. Responsibilities of the Director, Statistician General or Government Statistician Confidentiality and disclosure

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 11 What is the Act? – contd New statistics acts contain, besides those outlined above, the following: Definition of the National Statistical System Provision for more effective coordination of the National Statistical System Composition and Powers of the Board of Directors/ Statistics Council Special responsibilities of the Board./Statistics Council

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 12 What does a National Statistical Office produce? A National Statistical Office produces Official Statistics or National Statistics These can be economic, social and demographic statistics There are produced in various forms e.g. as reports, publications, ad-hoc reports, CD-ROM or posted on the National Statistical Offices website for ease of access

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 13 What are Official Statistics? Not all statistics are defined as Official Statistics are defined as Official if they are: –sustainable –relevant, and, –meet certain quality standards

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 14 The quality of Official Statistics Official statistics should satisfy the following quality requirements: relevance – statistics should meet current and future needs of users. methodological soundness – collection and handling of statistics must be guided by internationally accepted standards, principles, guidelines or good practice timeliness – there should be a minimum time lag between data collection and the release of information so as to maximise on the usefulness of official statistics.

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 15 The quality of Official Statistics – contd accessibility – this refers to the extent to which statistics are available to users and how they are assisted to get and use statistics. integrity and credibility

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 16 What is the role of Official Statistics? Official Statistics are used for a variety of purposes: measure the pulse of the economy thus allowing one to make comparisons with the past, with other countries and set benchmarks for the future. In fact, they provide a meaningful description of the economy. facilitate the decision making processes of businesses and individuals. Businesses make investment and employment decisions on the basis of Official Statistics. They support decision making processes by the wider community.

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 17 What is the role of Official Statistics? –contd policy formulation, implementation and evaluation by the Government resource allocation and targeting – statistics helps in identifying people and regions in need and allow authorities to make and implement timely interventions.

To put your footer here go to View > Header and Footer 18 Sources Information on National Statistical Systems How the National Statistics System Impacts on Service Delivery, Service Delivery Review, Volume 1, No 3, South Africa w%20the%20national%20statistics%20system%20impacts%20on%20ser vice%20delivery.pdf w%20the%20national%20statistics%20system%20impacts%20on%20ser vice%20delivery.pdf Paris21: Why Governments need good statistics? statistics.pdf statistics.pdf National Strategies for the Development of Statistics and their Expected Impact on Agricultural and Rural Statistics. Mr. Graham Eele, World Bank, United Kingdom National Strategy for the Development of Statistics, Paris21, Documents and Knowledge base knowledge- base/index.asp?orderby=e&orderin=1&tab=KnowledgeBase&option=doc knowledge- base/index.asp?orderby=e&orderin=1&tab=KnowledgeBase&option=doc

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