EUROSTAT
Directorate F: Social Statistics and Information Society /
Doc. Eurostat/F0/05/DSS/9/10/EN
Minutes
meeting of the european directors of social statistics
luxembourg, 28-29 september 2005
bechbuilding, room “ampère”
1. Introduction
1.1 Welcome by M. Glaude: Eurostat Director
The chairmanwelcome the participants and informed the DSS on the Eurostat reorganisation applicable from 16/9/2005. The new directorate on Social statistics and information society includes now science statistics and the unit on demographic and migrations statistics. Former units on businesses, transports and energy statistics are now part of other directorates in Euros tat.
Several general orientations were also mentioned:
-The evolution of gentlemen agreement towards legislations
-The new policy of subsidies that has as aim to buildstatistical capacity in Member states
-The Eurostat support to the development of CENEX to profit better of the existing expertise in Member states
-The need to build the ESS mainly on an output oriented basis
-The need to provide not only indicators, but to make available anonymized databases to be used by researchers.
The Chairman informed the DSS on how users demand are canalized by Eurostat. This demands come mainly from the hearings with Commission DGs that took place during mid 2005 but they may also come from other bodies. For example the demand from the Council requesting mortality rates by socio-economic group.
Some clarifications were requested on the needs for surveys such as TUS and HBS to adopt a legal framework. The chairman informed the DSS that there is no specific plan in this area and any proposal should be evaluated together with the Member States.
1.2. Adoption of the agenda
The agenda was adopted.
1.3. Adoption of the minutes of the meeting on 29-30 September 2004.
The minutes were adopted without amendments.
2. New legislation in social statistics
2.1. Draft regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the 2010 round of Population and Housing Censuses.
Eurostat underlined that harmonized census data were the indispensable backbone for regional analysis, sample surveys and population estimates. The European Union had competence in the area of regional cohesion which was expected to be the largest budgetary item in the financial period 2007 to 2013. The quality of NUTS-2 and NUTS-3 population estimates depended on the background source on which these estimates were based. Many sample surveys needed a harmonised framework from which to draw their samples. The production of high quality annual population estimates also required a sound basis. The European Statistics Code of Practice had called for quality data.
Eurostat explained the two major features of the draft Regulation: Flexibility and Quality. Flexibility implied that Member States could make use of the most appropriate source (output oriented approach) and acknowledged past, current and potential future developments in census methodology and technology. In this respect, the proposed draft Regulation provided a legal framework which encompassed a wide variety of approaches. It was therefore the collective responsibility of the ESS to ensure that this flexibility was supplemented with clarity and transparency regarding methodology and that it met high quality standards. The adoption of a legal basis in this regard would only facilitate the stakeholders in achieving these objectives. In terms of content, the approach adopted would benefit from the ongoing work at world and EU level, jointly undertaken by Eurostat and the respective UN agencies.
While the large majority of Member States agreed in principle with the need for adopting a legal basis, they expressed a number of concerns which Eurostat should take into account. The most important issues raised in the discussion related to the reference year, the deadline for data transmission, the provision of anonymised micro data, the inclusion (or not) of the list of core variables in the regulation, problems regarding coverage of some variables in registered based censuses, difficulties in meeting the requirements of the essential features and the extent to which a legal basis could improve comparability and quality.
In response, Eurostat thanked Member States for their valuable suggestions and underlined that these would be taken into consideration. In particular, the reference years should be those ending in ‘1’ and the deadline could be extended to 24 months after the end of the reference year. Transmission of a sample of non confidential, anonymised micro data should be regarded as a potential future development and not as an immediate obligation. The inclusion of the list of variables would not be appropriate for a framework regulation and should therefore be dealt with under Commitology; the explicit reference to the UNECE / Eurostat recommendations was a safeguard that decisions relating to the core variables will be based on appropriate experts consultation and review. It was understood that 100% compliance with the essential features would not be possible with all census approaches; it was important however to meet these features to a large extent and to explain to users the way in which an alternative census design addressed these issues. Experience suggested that a dedicated legal basis could help in obtaining increased resources for census activities. The legal base was expected to result in enhanced quality and efficiency for the census, including the completion of missing data through the use of appropriate techniques and supplementary surveys.
2.2. Draft regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning Community statistics on public health and on health and safety at work.
The Directors of Social Statistics’ meeting supported in majority the proposal prepared by Eurostat – in cooperation with the Member States - for a draft Regulation for an EP and Council Regulation concerning Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work.
A few Member States expressed some general comments (such as about the work advancing too quickly, on the text of the proposed Regulation either not being detailed enough, or on the other hand being too detailed, the need to demonstrate the added value and response burden, the need for financing, as well as on the role of the NSIs) as some comments of a more technical nature (such as on the possibility for surveys for children, on the detail of morbidity data, on the timing for submission of data on causes of death and the inclusion of deaths of non-residents in the data collection).
Eurostat explained that the good progress in the field of statistics on public health and health and safety at work is the result of the intensive work and engagements of the Member States; as in the past, Eurostat will continue to involve the different national statistical authorities (Ministries of Health, Institutes of Health, NSIs…) directly in the work; whereby the NSI could continue to take up a more coordinating role.
The main purpose of the proposed Regulation is now to enshrine the achievements made into a common framework with a clear identification of areas, domains and possible topics in the domains and transparency on rules and procedures for implementing measures.
Further details and specifications on data collections will, in domains and on topics agreed with the Member States and after sufficient preparatory work has been carried out, be laid down in implementing Regulations. Eurostat informed the meeting also of the support of the various Commission departments involved in action programmes and policies on public health and health and safety at work for the proposed framework Regulation.
With respect to financing, Eurostat referred to its new 2005 grants policy, whereby it is planned that, in the preparation phase of legislation and where new capacities have to be set up or adaptations have to be made, financial support could be provided.
The general conclusion of the DSS meeting was that Eurostat, by taking into account the various comments made, could proceed as planned with the proposed Regulation; Eurostat agreed to continue discussions with some Member States on a bilateral basis.
2.3. Draft Commission regulation implementing regulation N° 1177/2003 on StatisticsonIncome and Living Conditions as regards the list of target secondary variables (2007 module on housing conditions).
Eurostat presented the draft Commission regulation concerning the module on ‘housing conditions’ to be included in 2007 in the cross-sectional component of the EU-SILC project. This draft Commission regulation is planned to be approved by the SPC on 30 November 2005 and adopted by the Commission before the end of 2005. As some final decisions still need to be taken before transmission to the Statistical Programme Committee (SPC), Eurostat proposed the launching of a written consultation.
The majority of the Member States (with the exception of Finland and the Czech Republic) gave a favourable opinion regarding the draft Commission regulation on the 2007 EU-SILC module on the housing conditions and agreed on the launching of the written consultation. The discussion focussed on four different issues:
- In relation to the part on services, the question was asked whether the services present in the local area or the accessibility to the services used by the household should be covered. Eurostat strongly favoured this last option, but this issue will be part of the written consultation;
- The scale to be used for the services variables;
- The overburden of the SILC instrument with the modules and the possibility to use data from another survey where all these variables are available
- Difficulty to understand the utility of the variable ‘dwelling comfortably warm’.
It was decided that Eurostat would launch a written consultation to the DSS to tackle four remaining issues relating to:
- The addition of a single subjective variable ‘overall satisfaction with dwelling’;
- The definition, the scale to be used and the redefinition of ‘health services’ into ‘primary health care services’ for the variables on the accessibility to services;
- The collection unit for the variable ‘Change of dwelling’;
- The decision to substitute the ‘air condition’ variables withthe variable ‘risk of unwilling loosing dwelling within one year’.
2.4. Draft regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on ESSPROS (European System of integrated Social Protection Statistics).
Eurostat presented the draft regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on ESSPROS(European System of Integrated Social Protection Statistics) insisting on the importance for the two modules on pensions beneficiaries and on net social protection benefits to be part of the regulation to fulfil the needs of DG EMPL in the context of the Open Methods of Coordination in the fields of Social Inclusion and pensions. The SPC will give its opinion on this draft regulation during its meeting on 30 November 2005. The adoption by the Commission is likely to take place at the beginning of 2006 followed by a transmission to the Council and European Parliament.
The majority of the Member States (with the exception of Finland) were in favour of the introduction of a legal basis for the ESSPROS project. The discussion focussed on four issues:
- Sweden was in favour of dropping paragraph 3 of Article 5 on additional modules as they would like for the Council and the EP (and not only the SPC) to be involved for any regulation on new additional modules (apart from the modules on pensions beneficiaries and on net social protection benefits). Eurostat will give a favourable opinion to this request in the Council Working Group if this is the position of the majority of the countries;
- For Finland, it is important that the possibility exists (from paragraph 2 in Article 5) not only to discuss the content but also the timing for the introduction of the module on net social protection benefits (if decision to launch is taken in view of the pilot studies);
- Examples of new additional modules could be (1) the link with private protection in the field of social protection risks; (2) benefits paid by resident schemes to the rest of the world and benefits paid by non resident schemes to resident households;
- Finally, DG ECFIN referred to the interest of coordination with the work of the Task Force dealing with public and private expenditures
It was decided that the draft regulation of the EP and Council will be slightly amended in Article 5 - paragraph 2 so that it is clear that discussion by the SPC about the timing for the introduction of the module on net social protection benefits can take place.
3. Strategic issues
3.1. Harmonisation of core social variables.
In general, the DSS supported strongly the interest of defining and implementing a limited set of core variables in all surveys. The question was seen as important. A number of topics were identified as needing to be further analysed, in particular a reflection on the legal and financial implications of the proposal, and specific difficulties with some variables proposed, essentially the income. It has been made clear as well that the inclusion of the core variables in all the surveys is done for analytical purposes, as background variables and not to measure the phenomenon. In other words, no figures for income for instance would be calculated from the adult education survey. It was underlined as well that the work should be framed in the context of output harmonisation and that some variables should be added in order to be able to construct a socio economic classification.
It was concluded that a task force on the topic is created, with the mandate of further analysing the list of variables, their definitions and of developing an implementing plan. ES, DE, IT, FR and FI proposed to participate to the Task Force.
3.2. Households Surveys
3.2.1. European Households Survey
A majority of DSS expressed a positive attitude towards the proposal of thinking about a more flexible common household survey. A number of issues were clarified, like the absence of links between this project and the EU sample reflection, the status of the assumptions made in the document (type of interview, sample, and duration) that intended only to make a budget estimate. A number of clarifications are still needed at this early stage, ranging from political needs to practical concerns and strategic orientations.
It was conclude to create a task force for further elaboration of the debate. The mandate of the task force will be drafted by Eurostat and circulated for comments. DE, ES and IT showed an interest in participating in the task force.
3.2.2 . The experience from the Italian survey.
Mrs. Sabaddini presented the Italian household survey as an experience that could serve as guide for the implementation of the European Household Survey
3.3. LFS ad-hoc module on the labour market situation of migrants and their descendants
Eurostat presented the results of the feasibility study, paying particular attention to reliability of the results, non-response, coverage and other quality issues. Based on these analysis the Task Force considered the module as feasible although considerable work will still be needed before the implementation
The Directors of Social Statistics meeting (DSS) supported in majority the conclusions of the task force studying the feasibility of the 2008 ad hoc module. The general feeling was that:
-there is a need for the improvement of the LFS on the coverage of migrants, and in particular on non-response
-the task force has identified the main problematic areas but the solutions were only partially found and work needs to be continued
Statistics on the labour market integration of migrants is a topic not only restricted to the 2008 time frame, but also of concern in the medium and long term; therefore any investment in the improvement of the quality of the LFS in covering this sub population is welcome and essential. The 2008 ad hoc module is an opportunity to get support on this area and in the Employment Incentives measures program (EIM) it is envisaged to include in 2006 funds for Member states actions to prepare the implementation of the 2008 module
The general conclusions of the DSS meeting on this item were:
- MemberStates and Eurostat should go on in the preparation of the module but carefully, paying attention to the quality issues mentioned above.
- Eurostat will launch immediately a Task force to work onthe preparation of the module. At the same time Member States are invited to conduct in 2006, actions in parallel to maximise the chances of success of the module.
- Due to the specificity of this module, it was also agreed that Eurostat should pay special attention to the evaluation of the quality of the data before any publication of the results.
3.4. Statistics on crime, criminal justice and victimisation.
The Directors of Social Statistics meeting (DSS) generally approved the recommendations of the task force on crime, victimisation and criminal justice statistics, and the list of actions proposed in the document would therefore be implemented.
There was particular interest in the initiative to develop guidelines for the implementation of a module on victimisation. Several countries mentioned that they had surveys or were considering introducing them, and so it was important to achieve agreement on the main approach before differing methodologies emerged. Eurostat would therefore foresee a grant to be given (under the revised 2005 Financial Decision to be published soon) covering :
- analysis of the responses to the UNECE questionnaire on this subject
- definition of topics of common interest
- preparation of a common module
The list of variables proposed for an initial collection of existing data on crime was also approved.
The collection of data on organised crime was felt to present special problems, and in order to examine ways of doing so it was proposed that DG Justice Freedom and Security (JLS) would host a meeting in November 2005 to review the studies recently completed or in progress (EUSTOC, IKOCS, ASSESS-OC) and to study the metadata available in existing reports (Europol, Council of Europe).
The DSS took no decision concerning the creation of a working group but this might be examined later.
The list of contact points was updated with names for Belgium and the CzechRepublic. Luxembourg and Malta were asked to nominate contact points soon as possible. The EFTA secretariat kindly provided contact points for Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.