Page 38 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS178 Barend de Beer
that “those groups who can affect or are affected by the achievements of an
organisation’s purpose should be given the opportunity to comment and
input into the development of decisions that affect them.” (Jeffery, 2009). It is
thus more prudent to pre-emptively identify and actively seek out
stakeholders in a managed approach, as opposed to haphazardly responding
to their demands. However, in order for the Bank to manage its stakeholders
it is necessary to understand their requirements so as to align the value
proposition offered to their needs. This emphasises the need for a coherent
and unified SEF.
Diagram 1 shows a possible visualisation of a SEF in the context of the
Bank’s macroeconomic statistical framework based on two foundational
pillars, namely: 1) the fundamental principles of official statistics, and 2) the
principles governing international statistical activities. The central question
throughout the framework relates to what is understood as the value
proposition rendered to each of the identified stakeholders, i.e. what is the
value to them of the produced statistics? A key related question is how the
value of produced statistics is measured, which is a topic that will be discussed
later in this paper. At this juncture two related concepts – the SEF and the SVC,
need to be merged, with the basic proposition being that the SEF needs to be
built and managed around the SVC. In its simplest form the SVC has three
distinct but interrelated components, namely; data sourcing, data
interpretation and statistics compilation, and then statistical output. Each of
the three components of the value chain needs to be assessed separately due
to significant differences. By segmenting the SVC into these three components
it allows to define the value proposition for each one and generate a SEF per
component. Furthermore, the value proposition for each component needs to
be built around practical and tangible criteria. Each of the three components
will now be discussed separately.
Component 1 of the SEF relates to the stakeholders identified within the
data sourcing phase of the SVC. The primary stakeholders are the respondents
from which data is sourced. Respondents can be internal or external to the
Bank and given their critical role in the data sourcing process it is non-
negotiable to develop a stylised SEF aimed at managing the relationship with
them. Tangible criteria that will form part of such an SEF can be summarised
as follows: 1) Clear guidelines detailing expectations and providing guidance,
2) Dynamic survey forms with customizable parameters, 3) Optimised
respondent burden throughout the national statistical framework (NSF), 4)
Effective respondent support and engagement, and 5) Respondent self-help.

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