During a recent meeting of the Malta Statistics Authority (MSA) Board, Mr Aurel Schubert, Chairperson of the European Statistical Governance Advisory Board (ESGAB) was invited to address the Board, with the scope of understanding better the work of ESGAB in the context of the European Statistical System.
During his very interesting address, Mr Schubert explained how first and foremost, the role of ESGAB is to ensure that the principles of the European Statistical Code of Practice are being implemented correctly across the European Statistical System (ESS). He made mention of the Peer Reviews carried out by Eurostat as a tool built around maintaining the Code of Practice and how in turn it is ESGAB’s role to act as Peer Reviewer to Eurostat itself, in an egalitarian system which sees nobody as being above the law. In this case the law in question is Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics, a law which Mr Schubert explained is in the process of being replaced and ESGAB is actively involved in seeing this task accomplished before the European Parliament elections in 2024.
Also, on the agenda of ESGAB is access to privately held data for official statistics, a tool which would enable National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) to improve the quality of official statistics. Mr Schubert emphasised how the use of Big Data held by private entities is one of the ways in which NSIs can counteract the challenges posed by what he described as a new “Data Ecosystem” in which employing and maintaining personnel with the right skills is a constant challenge. In this context he explained how a new law for European Statistics will also need to make provision for new ways of obtaining information useful for official statistics. Increased data exchange among NSIs is another way in which institutions may strengthen their resilience in a bid to find more pragmatic solutions to the difficulties they are encountering. While ESGAB cannot intervene directly in this respect it is in full support of institutes taking this route and views it as being very much in line with the principles of the Code of Practice.
Lastly as independent reviewers of the ESS, Mr Schubert explained that it is ESGAB’s job to look closely at the work Eurostat is doing and how this aligns with the European Statistical Programme. In performing this task ESGAB will consider principles such as how users are being involved, how agility is being foreseen and how the European Statistical Code of Practice is being affected. In turn ESGAB will also produce its own Annual Report summarising its work.
Readers who wish to know more about ESGAB may visit: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/esgab
