Slide 1 Eurostat Unit B3 – Statistical Information Technology ITDG on October 2004 IDAbc Eurostat’s proposal for a statistical project in the European Union IDAbc programme Agenda item 3.7

Slide 2 Eurostat Unit B3 – Statistical Information Technology ITDG on October 2004 European Parliament and Council Decision adopted in 2004 IDAbc will apply a unique mix of competence in information and communication technologies (ICT) and understanding of user requirements to encourage innovative public sector services and solutions. The programme will pursue three distinct activities: 1)it will support trans-European projects implementing information flows between European administrations that are co-operating in specific EU policy areas 2)it will provide the horizontal technological platforms and tools that support trans-border information flows by encouraging interoperability between national IT systems and 3)it will encourage the emergence of cross-border services of direct benefit to the European citizen or business. What is the IDAbc programme?

Slide 3 Eurostat Unit B3 – Statistical Information Technology ITDG on October IDAbc Key user needs to be addressed  Current difficulties to validate and document the structure and coding of statistical data at all stages of the data life cycle  Need to maintain and improve arrangements for common datasets with ECB and with international organisations  Need to re-use data reported by businesses in other contexts  Demand from businesses and citizens to access statistics in formats which permit flexible presentation and analysis.  The need to maximise the sharing and re-use of informatics tools developed in the ESS (Open Source model)

Slide 4 Eurostat Unit B3 – Statistical Information Technology ITDG on October IDAbc Key ideas  Statistical information should be useable outside the context in which it was originally collected  Statistical data should contain its own description, cross referenced to standard repositories of statistical concepts  There should be a coherent vocabulary, expressed both in statistical and informatics terms, which describes statistical information at all stages of the data life cycle Sharing and re-use of informatics tools in the ESS through the open-source approach

Slide 5 Eurostat Unit B3 – Statistical Information Technology ITDG on October IDAbc IDAbc orientation vs. the needs of the ESS IDAbc ( ): Semantic interoperability Benefits for administrations, businesses and citizens ESS: Improve data exchange by implementation of SDMX Be ready for the challenge of the semantic web ensures enables generates

Slide 6 Eurostat Unit B3 – Statistical Information Technology ITDG on October IDAbc Proposed work areas

Slide 7 Eurostat Unit B3 – Statistical Information Technology ITDG on October IDAbc A.3 Sectoral networks for the exchange of statistical information Usage of common data formats in a business sector can facilitate business to business communication, simplify reporting for the enterprise and improve data quality Prerequisite: standards cover statistical needs and are harmonised at EU level Start with: XBRL for accounting and financial data, linked to adoption of International Accounting Standards

Slide 8 Eurostat Unit B3 – Statistical Information Technology ITDG on October IDAbc B.1 Advanced visualisation techniques B.2 Interoperability of Eurostat’s web site B.3 Access to large data sets Improved access to statistical information for businesses and citizens The Eurostat web site must be able to deliver the data produced in the framework of this project - especially XML-based data Exploitation of the tools both of IDA and of other work areas of this project Adding Knowledge Management features

Slide 9 Eurostat Unit B3 – Statistical Information Technology ITDG on October IDAbc Provisional Timeframe  November/December 2004: First expert meeting with the Member States participating in the SODI pilots  December 2004: Finalisation of the ex-ante-evaluation and presentation to the Eurostat Board, finalisation of the Global Implementation Plan for the SPC  January 2005: Finalisation of project proposal to DG Enterprise  February 2005: Approval of Global Implementation Plan by SPC  First half of 2005: start of the project (feasibility phase)  2006 – 2010 (budget year 2009): Development and implementation

Slide 10 Eurostat Unit B3 – Statistical Information Technology ITDG on October IDAbc Questions to Member States Member States are invited to comment on the project as a whole to comment on the proposed work areas to suggest additional work areas