Statistics Council – a method for organised user interaction

Keywords

Principle 5, Statistical Council, Statistics Council, user surveys

In the Austrian Statistics Act the establishment of the Statistics Council (“Statistikrat”) is regulated as well as the frequency of meetings, the process of deciding on resolutions and a definition of its duties.

The Statistics Council comprises 16 members representing government, various ministries, the national bank, the Austrian association of municipalities/towns and various federal chambers.  The Statistics Council shall meet as and when required and at least quarterly and a written record of the proceedings and resolutions of the Statistics Council shall be prepared. Among the duties of the statistics council is also the preparation of an annual report and the issue of recommendations and statements.

In addition it is possible to establish national expert working groups on specific topics (e.g. working group on territorial matters; Building and Dwelling Register forum), which have the task to advise the statistical office on specific thematic matters.

Statistics Austria conducts user surveys to learn about user requests and additional user requests also come in by email/telephone, generally through contact of the staff with the customers. There is no limit to what users would need – they usually wish for data as small scaled as possible (building level) and as timely as possible (data as of today).

Read more about Statistics Councils at Statistics Austria: http://www.statistik.at/web_en/about_us/statistics_council/index.html

Read more about Austrian Statistics Act in English: www.statistik.at/wcm/idc/idcplg?IdcService=GET_PDF_FILE&dDocName=027192