PUBLIC CONSULTATION ON THE REVISION OF THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR EUROPEAN STATISTICS

Summary report on the public consultation

Disclaimer: the views presented in this factual summary report are not the views of the European
Commission but of the stakeholders that participated in this open public consultation. It cannot under any circumstances be regarded as the official position of the Commission or its services.

I.    Objectives of the consultation

The objective of the public consultation, which took place from 19 July to 25 October 2022, was to gather stakeholders’ views and experience on various topics in order to help shape the proposal for a revision of the legal framework for European statistics.

This summary report on the results of the consultation provides an overview of the contributions and presents some preliminary conclusions, in particular of a quantitative nature.

The public consultation targeted all types of stakeholders, including citizens and businesses. The questionnaire gathered feedback on the different measures considered in preparing the revision of the legal framework for European statistics. It notably touched on the following questions:

·What needs to be done to make European official statistics fit for the future and more relevant to user needs?

·What are the most important factors in ensuring that European official statistics better meet user needs?

·How important is it to make digital data held by the private sector available for the production of European official statistics?

·What are the thematic areas of European official statistics that might benefit the most from making data held by the private sector available?

·How important a number of conditions are for ensuring responsible use of digital data in European official statistics, including conditions relating to only collecting for statistical purposes and to the minimisation principle.

·If European official statistics are sufficiently responsive to emerging user demand, including during public emergencies and crises?

·How European official statistics can be made more responsive.

·For what purposes would easier and more systematic data sharing between statistics authorities be helpful within the European Statistical System?

·What kind of conditions and safeguards should apply when sharing data within the European Statistical System?

II.Who replied to the consultation?

204 stakeholders responded to the questionnaire from 33 countries (26 EU Member States, Bangladesh, China, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Switzerland and United Kingdom). Citizens constituted the largest share, with 86 respondents (83 EU citizens and 3 non-EU citizens). 71 respondents were public authorities, 14 were academics/research institutions, and 10 were business associations.

Of all respondents 3% replied that they considered themselves a company/business a data holder, i.e. a company/business holding personal data or non-personal data that could be used or is known to be used for the production of official statistics.

Academic/research institution (14), Business association (10), Company/business organisation (5), Eu citizen (83), Non-eu citizen (3), Non-governmental organisation (NGO) (2), Public authority (15), Trade union (1), Other (18)

Fig. 1: Distribution of responses to the public consultation by type of respondent

Country of origin

Fig. 2. Distribution of responses by country

II.Main findings of the consultation

To the question, what needs to be done to make European official statistics fit for the future and more relevant to user needs, respondents could select one or more options. 70% of respondents (or 143 out of 204 replies) considered it most important to combine sources to provide more and better insights into economic and societal developments, 66 % (or 135 out of 204 replies) considered it most important to provide more granular statistics (e.g. for social groups and territorial units), and equally 66% of respondents (or 135 out of 204 replies) considered it most important to provide more up-to-date statistics, e.g. through flash estimates and more frequent statistics. According to 57% of respondents (or 117 out of 204 replies) it was most important to respond faster to emerging demand for data and statistics, especially during public emergencies and crises, to 56% (or 114 out of 204 replies) it was most important to improve the way statistics are disseminated and communicated, to 51% (or 105 out of 204 replies) it was most important to provide more statistics about new phenomena, equally to 51% (or 104 out of 204 replies) it was most important to provide more metadata, explaining the statistics, keep a change log and notify the most recent update, and finally to 32% (or 66 out of 204 replies) it was most important to publish more statistics under development, to engage more intensively with users of European official statistics.

To the question, what are the most important factors in ensuring that European official statistics better meet user needs, respondents could select one or more options, where the most important options were considered to be as follows:

·Sustainable access to relevant data sources to be used for production of European official statistics (75% or 154 out of 204 replies)

·Modern IT infrastructure to support the production and dissemination of European official statistics (65% or 133 out of 204 replies)

·Sufficient resources for the European Statistical System (60% or 123 out of 204 replies)

·Reskilling and upskilling of staff in national statistical authorities and Eurostat (50% or 102 out of 204 replies)

·Better statistical processes (34% or 69 out of 204 replies)

On the question of the importance of making digital data held by the private sector available for the production of European official statistics, 83% of the respondents (or 169 out of 204 replies) considered this being of very high or high importance.

According to respondents the thematic areas of European official statistics that might benefit the most from making data held by the private sector available, are the area of Economy and Finance (70% or 142 out of 204 replies) followed by the area of Environment and Energy (60% or 123 out of 204 replies).

To the question of the importance of different conditions for ensuring the responsible use of digital data in European official statistics, respondents identified the following factors:

·The request for access to data should explain why the data are necessary or useful for compilation of official statistics (79%, or 162 out of 204 replies, of very high or high importance)

·Data made available for the production of official statistics should be used only for that purpose (68%, or 139 out of 204 replies, of very high or high importance)

·The statistics authorities should request only the minimum data they need (minimisation principle) (58%, or 119 out of 204 replies, of very high or high importance)

·The statistics authority and the data holder should be mutually obliged to collaborate in good faith (86%, or 175 out of 204 replies, of very high or high importance)

·The statistics authority and the data holder should ensure, where relevant, data privacy and confidentiality (99%, or 201 out of 204 replies, of very high or high importance)

·The reputation and business interests of the data holder should be respected and safeguarded (77%, or 157 out of 204 replies, of very high or high importance)

·The statistics authority and the private data holder should practise full transparency towards the public and the people the data relate to (87%, or 177 out of 204 replies, of very high or high importance)

·Mechanisms should be in place to address potential disagreements over data requests between the data holder and the statistics authority (77%, or 156 out of 204 replies, of very high or high importance)

11% of respondents (or 23 out of 204 replies) consider that European official statistics are sufficiently responsive to emerging user demand, including during public emergencies and crises, whereas 72% (or 146 out of 204 replies) consider that European official statistics are somewhat responsive, but not enough, and 8% (or 16 out of 204 replies) consider those statistics not responsive.

According to 56% of respondents (or 115 out of 204 replies) European statistics could be made more responsive by means of a more intensive use of digital data to follow fast societal, environmental and economic changes, whereas 50% of respondents (or 103 out of 204 replies) considered it could be achieved by making more and better use of already existing statistical data to respond to demand. 49% of respondents (or 99 out of 204 replies) it could be achieved through more collaboration with research and academic sector, 47% (or 96 out of 204 replies) considered that it could be done through more coordination at European level to better react to crises and emergencies, 38% (or 77 out of 204 replies) considered that it could be achieved by more experimentation and use of statistics under development for greater engagement with users, 31% (or 63 out of 204 replies) through more dialogue with users, and 30% (or 62 out of 204 replies) of respondents considered it could be achieved through more resources invested in dialogue, collaboration and experimentation.

As regards purposes for which easier and more systematic data sharing between statistics authorities would be helpful within the European Statistical System, 72% of respondents (or 147 out of 204 replies) consider it helpful to reduce response burden and allow for re-use of already collected data, 69% (or 140 out of 204 replies) consider it helpful to increase the quality of official statistics, 65% (or 132 out of 204 replies) consider it helpful to garner synergies and cost efficiency in production of official statistics at EU and national levels, 63% (or 128 out of 204 replies) consider it helpful to enable production of cross-border official statistics that cannot be compiled correctly as a sum of national estimates, 61% (or 125 out of 204 replies) consider it helpful to increase potential for research in official statistics (i.e. developing new methods for compiling official statistics), and 56% of respondents (or 115 out of 204 replies) consider it helpful to help develop new statistics (including for cross-border regions).

To the question, what kind of conditions and safeguards should apply when sharing data within the European Statistical System, 75% of respondents (or 154 out of 204 replies) consider that purpose limitation for sharing personal data (sharing of data only for agreed purposes) should apply, 72% (or 147 out of 204 replies) consider that effective protection of data using state-of-the-art technologies, should apply, 45% (or 92 out of 204 replies) consider that technologies to minimise the need to transmit data should be used, 31% (or 63 out of 204 replies) considers that purpose limitation for sharing non-personal data (sharing of data only for agreed purposes) should apply, and 8% (or 16 out of 204 replies) consider that no conditions should apply.

Finally, on the extent to which respondents agreed to a number of statements, the results were as follows:

·Statistics authorities should set standards for interoperability (86% of respondents, or 176 out of 204 replies, agree or strongly agree)

·Statistics authorities should develop and maintain a catalogue of data assets in their national data ecosystem, and make the catalogue publicly available (86% of respondents, or 176 out of 204 replies, agree or strongly agree)

·Statistics authorities should provide professional advice to organisations within their ecosystem on issues related to data and data processing, such as quality, data re-use, intellectual property, confidentiality, security and metadata (85% of respondents, or 173 out of 204 replies, agree or strongly agree)

·Statistics authorities should mediate among organisations interested in data sharing and re-use (61% of respondents ,or 124 out of 204 replies, agree or strongly agree)

·Statistics authorities should assess the quality of statistics made available to the public by other organisations (75% of respondents, or 152 out of 204 replies, agree or strongly agree).

III.Next steps

This online consultation is part of a broader stakeholder consultation process that will contribute to the preparation of an impact assessment accompanying the forthcoming revision of the legal framework for European statistics. In this context, the Commission will carry out a more in-depth analysis of the replies. The outcome of this analysis will be included in the full synopsis report in the Impact Assessment (Annex 2).