Page 151 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 7

CPS2049 Mohammed Al Rifai et al.
4. Conclusion
There are many challenges for both statistical agencies and data-
producing institutions, when governments utilize administrative data for
official statistics. The biggest challenge is creating the climate of co-operation
between all the institutions involved to ensure the quality of the final outputs.
Statistics agencies are responsible for ensuring the statistical aspects of the
methodologies and technical processes follow international quality standards.
In addition, they must work within their countries’ legal environments to co-
ordinate access to the administrative databases. The data-producing
institutions are responsible for implementing the technical recommendations
and guidelines, which will achieve the common interest for all parties. This will
involve developing the statistical capacity among staff in the area of
administrative data.
The recommended procedures and guidelines, which should be adopted
by the statistical agencies and applied by the data-producing institutions, can
be classified into two parts. The first is recommended technical guidelines, and
the second is organizational guidelines.
A. Procedures and technical guidelines:
Statistical agencies must conduct comprehensive evaluations of the
administrative databases to assess the following criteria:
 Statistical coverage: Identify whether the coverage of the data meets
the required scope of statistical outputs, particularly for outputs for
small geographic areas, such as administrative regions. This
assessment needs to identify the gaps in the statistical coverage that
limit the statistical usage to the data.
 Data accuracy and consistency: Various statistical methods can be
used, including, the comparison of indicators resulting from these data
with available indicators from other sources; or linking the variables in
the database with each other to ensure that the data is homogenous.
 Data collection methodologies: The statistical agencies should study
the methodologies, concepts, manuals and classifications used in the
construction of administrative databases, to understand how
consistent the collection of the administrative data is with optimum
statistical methodologies; and whether the collection meets
international statistical standards. Such assessments will result in
statistical agencies providing technical support and techniques that fit
the requirements of official statistics. Statistical agencies will need to
justify and clarify the importance of international classifications and
standards and highlight the benefits to both parties. The data-
producing institutions need to co-operate in the implementation of
the proposed methodologies and make adjustments wherever
required.

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