Dissemination Policy –

Problems and Recommendations

Guideline on Best Practices

Outcomes of the Tacis Task Force on Dissemination Policy

Foreword

“The National Statistical Institutes should recognise the paramount importance of dissemination of statistical information. The final aim of statistics is to provide statistical information to users. Therefore one of the priorities of reforms of statistics is innovation of policy and practice in information dissemination” (the task force)

This document is based on the ‘Dissemination Policy Problems and Recommendations, Strategic document for the Highthe High level TACIS Seminar in Statistics in Alma Aty, October 1998’. The intention with the document is to encourage efforts in national statistical offices to develop a strategy for the dissemination of statistics. The Alma Aty document has proven to be an extremely valuable tool in practical work with dissemination strategy in statistical offices also outside the CIS region. Through this work much experience has been gained.

The Tacis workshop on dissemination in Bishkek 31 January - 2 February 2000 had further discussions on this issue and it was decided to include these findings into the 'Alma Aty paper', which is done hereby. Some parts of the original paper, which have been found relevant only for a specific country have been deleted in order not to make the paper too large and at he same time make it more reader friendly for other countries. The "Problem Tree" has been omitted because it has now played its role as a part of the creation process of the report. While many chapters of the original document were directly applicable in practical work, others have, in our opinion, gained in operational value by the amendments.

The TACIS High Level Seminar18 – 20 September 2000 in Kiev amended and finally endorsed the document as a tool for future practical work in statistical offices in the CIS, as well as in other regions of the World

The editors of this guide are deeply indebted to the Tacis Task Force on Dissemination Policy for their pioneering work and for the valuable inspiration from the workshop in Bishkek. It is our hope that the High Level Seminar will discuss and hopefully support the guide as a useful tool in practical work in statistical offices in the CIS, as well as in other regions of the World.

Copenhagen, March November 2000

Table of Contents

Foreword...... 2

Table of Contents...... 3

Part I Problem identification...... 5

Background for Tacis countries...... 5

A systematic approach...... 5

The Implementation of the Policy...... 6

Part II ThemesII Themes for discussion...... 6

A. Organisation...... 6

B. User types and user needs...... 8

B1. Categories of users of statistical information...... 8

B2. Users' needs...... 12

B3. Education and other supporting functions...... 13

C. Methods and media used for disseminating statistical information...... 15

C1. Publications...... 15

C2. On-line services...... 16

C3. Mass media and other forms...... 17

D. Standards...... 18

D1. Coherence in contents...... 18

D2. Coherence in format...... 19

D3. Quality declarations...... 19

D4. Implementing of standards...... 20

D5. Benefits...... 20

E. Marketing...... 21

E1. What and why?...... 21

E2. The scope...... 21

E3. The Marketing Plan...... 22

E4. Examples of marketing plans and activities...... 23

F. Pricing and contracting policy...... 24

F1. Product types and their prices...... 25

F2. Principles for price calculation...... 25

F3. Copyright and contracts...... 26

F4. Pricing of a publication...... 27

F5. Example of price calculations (standardizedstandardised products)...... 29

F6. Example of price calculations (User Specific Products or 'complex work')...... 30

Part III Appendices...... 32

Appendix 1. Draft Policy and Recommendations...... 32

Appendix 2. The work of the Task Force...... 33

Appendix 3. Documentation of statistical products...... 34

1

Part I Problem identification

Background for Tacis countries

Distribution of information in the former Soviet Union

The publication and distribution system used by statistical offices in the former Soviet Union was a highly centralised one. Its function was political, and its main task was to provide information on the fulfilment of annual and five-year plans.

This meant that the publication and distribution of statistical information was highly regulated. It was controlled by the state and the Party, and was used mainly for overall policy purposes; this applied to its form, its content and the way in which it was distributed.

Access to socio-economic information was provided to the government, state institutions, and the Party apparatus. Other interest groups, and interested members of the public had limited access to statistical data.

Public relations activities were engaged in little, and since the information was essentially intended only for decision-makers in the ministries and the government, there was no point in trying to market it to the wider public.

The publication and distribution systems operated by the statistical offices of the former Soviet republics were controlled by the central office in Moscow, which left very little scope for individual initiative. It meant that the staff of the individual republics' statistical offices did only what was planned and decided by the central office.

A new activity

During the years of economic transition the functions and the scope of statistical activity underwent revolutionary changes. The statistical offices of all Tacis countries were exposed to a request of information never faced before. They had to change coverage, methodology, adopt international standards, reconsider quality and reliability. Information was requested not only by government bodies, but also by mass media, research bodies, social associations and the population at large.

The Tacis countries issued new laws providing for access to aggregated statistical information to a wide range of users and for the necessary explanations on the methodology used to produce statistical data, including reporting in the mass media.

Tacis countries started to issue publications and bulletins of various kind and to make statistical information accessible in electronic form, the creation of user oriented databases is on the agenda of the development of their statistical system, most countries connected themselves with Internet, some of them are busy with the establishment of statistical libraries and of information centres open to the public.

A systematic approach

A development of a dissemination policy in a statistical office has the user’s needs as the ultimate target. It will inevitably involve a range of organisational, technical and personnel items in the office. A systematic approach to the dissemination policy is therefore necessary. The following classification has been used in this document:

A. Organisation: The management of statistical offices should realise that the system of publication and distribution of statistical data has to be organised and that resources also have to be devoted for the development of dissemination systems.

B. Categories of users and users’ needs: Although legislation provides for equal access to statistical information, dissemination of statistical information to the large public is a new activity in many countries and the statistical offices find it difficult to identify the different types of users and to target statistical production to their needs. Besides, users might have little experience in the use of statistics.

C. Media: Statistics are disseminated through different media both on paper and in electronic form. New types occur and it is a challenge for the statistical office to provide statistical information in the right form to each type of user. The use of the Internet has to be integrated in the dissemination strategy in any statistical office.

D. Standards:Effective communication, common comprehension and coherence of information have to be ensured. Harmonised databases are of extreme importance for more automated and efficient dissemination.

E. Marketing: Users must be made aware of what the statistical office can offer and on which conditions. Marketing is also to raise the interest among users. Long term as well as short term plans should be considered.

F. Pricing and contracting: The price policy should cover as much of the costs as possible. Contracts with users should take copyright issues into consideration.

The Implementation of the Policy

Commitment

A strategy can not be implemented in an organisation without the commitment and engagement of the staff. It is therefore important that representatives from various units could work out a draft proposal whichproposal, which later should be discussed in a greater forum (a seminar, staff meetings etc.). Comments to the draft should be taken into account before the final decision is made by the management.

Part II Themes for discussion

A.Organisation

Top priority

The dissemination of statistical information is a top-priority task of the statistical authority of any country and is first and foremost highly important for the work of the Government, the business world and the public at large. Statistics, which are not utilised as a basis for debate or decisions in society, are worthless - even if they have excellent quality.

All official information sent to the President and Government, as a rule, must become public property in due course, and must therefore be disseminated. The founding principle in the field of dissemination of statistical data is equal access to any statistical information.

A variety of tasks

The dissemination of statistical information includes a variety of tasks which have to be dealt with, starting first of all with the process of preparing data-analysis material and statistical publications on hard copy and in electronic form. Here it is important to ensure the satisfaction of all users’ requirements, making the dissemination user oriented. It should be noted that statistical dissemination is a professional task, involving knowledge of principles of good communication as well as of the technical measures available. It is not necessarily enough to be an expert of the specific statistics in question. It is also necessary to maintain coherence of information content and format. But this demands observation of strict standardisation and the development of a uniform strategy for information dissemination. As mentioned below, this strategy should be based on a corporate statistical database containing all kinds of aggregate statistics. From this database it should be possible to compile all types of data-analysis material and issue different statistical publications and products.

The dissemination unit

It is important to create an organisational unit, the Dissemination Unit, in the statistical body’s structure whichstructure, which has an overall responsibility for the dissemination of statistical material. Different solutions may be applied to carry out the activities. A very centralised system can lead to difficulties to create an understanding in the organisation and to motivate the staff in other units to contribute. On the other hand, there may be problems of co-ordination of dissemination activities if they are spread too much.

It has anyway to be taken into account that the experts of statistics are in the subject-matter departments. It is important that they also are in contact with users and understand the needs of users as they produce the input for the dissemination. It is both in Tacis and other countries important to stress the importance of the horizontal co-operation. If the dissemination of statistical information is more decentralizeddecentralised the dissemination unit has a role of co-ordination and also it should produce tools for the organisation concerning layout, pricing etc., so that the image of the organisation is uniform in any case.

It should be mentioned that, because of legal constraints, actual sales activities cancould in some countries be delegated to an affiliated organisation.

One task of the unit is the compilation of an “order dossier” in order to be in a position to fully meet actual demand for information at short notice, whilst at the same time not forgetting that information, like any other commodity, has to satisfy the demands of a whole range of quantitative and qualitative parameters - from content to packaging. Getting information to the user faster can only be done by introducing modern technology. For preparing publications it is necessary to create databases and databanks and make more extensive use of electronic media for disseminating statistics. This includes the Internet, which provides broad access to the data as well as a means of maintaining a permanent link with clients and being connected to statistical information users.

To improve the content of official publications it is important for the Dissemination Unit to get feedback from the user. Thus the information user's demands can be satisfied in the future.

The processes

The work of the Dissemination Unit should influence the policy and strategy of dissemination. The Unit should also have influence on the content of the produced statistical information and it should be involved in or co-ordinate processes which can be grouped around three main activities: publication and databases; sales and user services; and public relations and marketing.

Publication and databases

Operation of aggregated databases

Preparation of statistical information

In-house printing/reproduction

Layout of publications

Contacts with other printing shops

Issuing of CD-ROM’s

Organisation of work for the Internet

Sales and user services

Dissemination of basic information

Dissemination of information and publications on a commercial basis (sales activities)

Dealing with the queries of all types of users

The statistical library, an information centre and a bookshop

Public relations and marketing

Study of information demands from the users

Study of sales markets and channels for products and services

Organisation of user training, participation in exhibitions

Co-operation with the mass media and the general public

Internal marketing (or communication)

Revenues

A meaningful dissemination strategy requires that revenues earned can be used by the statistical office to cover costs for the employment of people or for other expenses. The motivation to extend or improve the dissemination will otherwise be absent or low.

Sales procedures

It must not be more difficult to buy statistics than other products on the market. Sales procedures are in some countries hampered by unnecessary bureaucratic regulations, e.g. demanding up-front payments. It should be possible to buy a statistical publication just as easy as it is to buy any book in a bookshop.

It is recommended that accounting and registration should be done by the unit selling the products. This makes it possible to reply to complaints flexibly and take into account the needs of users.

B.User types and user needs

B1.Categories of users of statistical information

Dealing with changing problems arising in all areas of society requires more detailed and individually-targetedindividually targetedinformation whichinformation, which is accessible to all user categories. It is important that the dissemination is well adapted for the needs of different types of users

Active and passive users

Various approaches have been used to define these user categories. First of all, information users may be divided into two major categories: active and passive users.

The term active users means those who actively seek information or take the initiative to obtain it and who are keen to receive specific statistical information immediately.

Passive users are those who obtain information which has been produced, but make no special effort to obtain it (e.g. the general public), the information obtained being largely used to supplement existing information rather than assisting in immediate decision-making.

In addition to active and passive users, it is useful to think of a particular category, the potential users. These are neither active nor passive, as they are not yet users of our statistical information. The potential user is a group to which we should pay attention in our marketing activities, as it includes people who may not know that we have anything to offer them.

Regular and non-regular users

Moreover, active users can be divided into regularinto regularand non-regular usersregular users depending on whether they make use of statistical information on a regular and constant basis or whether they use it fromit from time to time on a non-systematic basis.

This distinction is highly significant for information dissemination policy, as these two categories of active users differ considerably from each other and they may have diverse information requirements.

Specialist and non-specialist users

Lastly, regular and non-regular users may again be divided into two categories. In the first category are non-specialists, i.e. those who know about the subject of “statistics” and are interested in using information for professional purposes in quite well-defined areas. The other category covers specialists, i.e. those who, having obtained the information, are capable of producing analyses, calculations and other tasks in any specific area.

The main users’ groups

Moreover, it is fruitful to consider the following main groups of users of statistical information:

1. Government bodies

  • The President
  • The Council of Ministers
  • The Ministry of Economic Affairs
  • The National Bank
  • The Ministry of Finance
  • Sector Ministries and Departments

2. Municipalities

  • Regional government bodies.

In countries undergoing transition from a centrally-planned economy to a market economy there is a growing requirementgrowing requirement for statistical information from this group of users, as all government activity (developing policy, assessing its implementation, monitoring national socio-economic development) is based on statistical information.

3. Science and research

  • Scientific research institutes
  • Higher educational establishments (universities, institutes)
  • Libraries (Central National Library and research libraries)

4. International and intergovernmental organisations

  • Eurostat
  • the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, UN ECE, ILO, UNESCO, etc.
  • the Intergovernmental Economic Committee, Executive Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent states, etc. (for CIS member states)
  • Embassies (own embassy in other countries and foreign embassies in the own country)

5. Financial institutions

  • Banks
  • Stock brokers
  • Insurance companies

6. Other enterprises, associations and organisations

  • Trade unions
  • Trade associations
  • Companies

7. The general public

  • The Parliament
  • Mass media (television, radio and press)
  • Social work organisations
  • Education (eg.e.g. schools)
  • Public libraries
  • Ordinary citizens

Work with the general public is increasingly important. The utmost important client is the Parliament. We should serve the members of it very well because they are elected by the people and in a democratic society they should be able to take decisions on an objective and independent basis. On the other hand they decide about statistics laws and we depend tremendously on their understanding of our work. Without the mass media to disseminate statistical information it would be practically impossible to present statistical results to the public at large.