Page 43 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS178 Barend de Beer
stakeholders’ needs, in order to adjust the suite of statistics to adhere to these
dynamic requirements.

5. Conclusion
Central bank statisticians by design fulfil a “service delivery” role in the
NSF. This is rooted in the reason for their existence which is to make a visible
and quantifiable contribution to the assessment of current macroeconomic
state of affairs. Although their value proposition should be segmented to
address their unique stakeholder base, their statistics outputs should strive to
provide information that contributes to the solution of important
contemporary issues within the economy. In pursuit of this it is important to
have an accurate and focused view of the stakeholder to be served. This
conclusion is echoed by the United Nations Statistics Division (2012) which
states that “a statistical agency has to understand its stakeholders and its
users’ needs. The statistical agencies should build and sustain very good
relationships with all of their key stakeholders, including users, data providers,
funding agencies, senior government officials, relevant community
organizations, and the media.” An agency like Statistics Canada confers with
this and further states (2016) that statistical agencies should consult
stakeholders for the following reasons: 1) They contribute to identifying data
gaps in statistical programmes, 2) They participate in consultations as new
surveys are developed or existing surveys are improved, 3) They provide data,
4) They provide administrative data files that can be used to complement
survey programmes, 5) They use data to inform programs and policies. Apart
from better serving the needs of stakeholders, a “network” of stakeholders
could also yield benefits to the Bank by providing insights and contacts that
allows them to detect structural changes in the economy and distinguish them
from issues which might be transitory. Given this, it is important that the Bank
have a SEF, and in addition, it is also advisable to have a unit/team dedicated
to interacting with stakeholders on a regular basis which is managed as part
of the SEF. This team could potentially be housed within a data management
unit which has primary responsibility for managing respondent stakeholders,
but the overall SEF should have management involvement and report back
channels to ensure uniform stakeholder management policies and to maintain
strategic momentum.

References
1. Banco de Portugal, (2017), “Making sense of central bank data – The
Banco de Portugal’s experience in communicating statistics”, whole
document.

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