Page 307 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 2

STS496 Roeland B.
implemented in different ways (see section 3 below). Within the context of
official statistics production by government, professional independence
implies political independence. The mere suspicion of any political influence
on the development, production or dissemination of official statistics is
detrimental to the trust in and trustworthiness of the figures.
In practice, this means that decisions on the development, production and
dissemination of official statistics should be taken by the official statistics
producers and not by political or other administrative bodies. This professional
independence reveals itself in purely professional choices regarding statistical
methods, standards and procedures that are applied, and regarding the
content and the moment of publication of statistical information.
For the content of statistical information, this means that the figures
themselves should be produced by statistical experts in an independent
manner. The task of statistical experts consists in describing the figures in an
impartial way. Providing statistical commentary is an integral part of the job,
as not everyone has sufficient knowledge of statistics to be able to read and
interpret the figures. Moreover, the commentary should be descriptive, neutral
and impartial (although it should be recognised this is an ideal to strive for
rather than a gold standard which will always be achieved – see Spiegelhalter,
2019, p. 68). A clear distinction should be made between statistical comments
formulated by statistical experts and political comments on the figures, made
by politicians or policy experts. Statistical comments are produced
independently of political interpretations and policy comments, and are clearly
separated from them at the time of publication.
Decisions about when and how the figures and their statistical commentary
are published also belong to the exclusive competence of the official statistics
producers: political motives or newsworthiness cannot play any role in
determining the moment of publication. The only determining principle can
be that statistics have to be published as soon as possible after their collection,
allowing for the necessary quality control.
Guaranteeing the professional independence of official statistics is
therefore not just the responsibility of statistical experts or analysts. The
importance of this independence should be recognised and pursued by
anyone working within the government’s political and administrative system.
Only by building and maintaining a wide support base for professional
independence can the trustworthiness of official statistics be realised and
maintained.

2.2 Adequate resources
A second condition for an official statistic system to operate efficiently is
the recognition of the need for adequate resources. This means there should
be sufficient personnel and working budgets for the statistical service. Of

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