7 Statistics
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6768/07
COM(07) 69
| Draft Regulation on population and housing censuses
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| Legal base | Article 285 EC; co-decision; QMV
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| Document originated | 23 February 2007
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| Deposited in Parliament | 1 March 2007
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| Department | Office for National Statistics
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| Basis of consideration | EM of 23 March 2007
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| Previous Committee Report | None
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| To be discussed in Council | Not known
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Not cleared, further information awaited
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Background
7.1 The last Population and Housing Census in the Community, conducted
for the reporting year 2001, was not based on any Community legislation,
but instead on an informal agreement. The Commission asserts that
this has shown that such an agreement does not sufficiently guarantee
the quality needed for the purposes the data are supposed to serve,
noting that:
- the wide variation in reference dates seriously reduced comparability
— they were spread over a period of 39 months, from March
1999 in the case of France to May 2002 for Poland, and with data
for Malta referring to November 1995;
- punctuality was not ensured — although the agreement
proposed all data should be transmitted to Eurostat by 30 June
2003, the last data were received in mid 2005, leading to a publication
in September 2005, 44 months after the end of the reference year;
and
- the data initially provided were often incomplete, not fully
validated or inconsistent. Numerous requests to recheck the data
greatly delayed production. Given the uses to be made of the census
data, higher metadata[21]
and quality assurance standards are necessary.
The document
7.2 The Commission proposes a framework Regulation to clarify
the roles and responsibilities of Member States in the decennial
provision of comprehensive data on population and on housing and
sets requirements concerning quality, including comparability
of data at Community level, and transparency of results and methods.
It leaves Member States free to produce data as they think best
in their respective countries. The draft Regulation provides for
specification of the details of outputs to be supplied to Eurostat
at decennial intervals in an implementing Commission Regulation
at each decennial interval. The proposed first reference year
for the supply of such information is 2011.
7.3 The substantive elements of the draft Regulation provide for:
- definitions of terms such as "population", "housing",
"usual residence", "national" , "regional",
and "essential features of population and housing censuses"
consistent with the joint UN-ECE/Eurostat Recommendations on
Population and Housing Censuses produced in 2006 by a Conference
of European Statisticians;
- Member States to provide Eurostat with validated data and
metadata on specific topics covering demographic, social, economic
and housing characteristics of persons, households, families,
housing units and buildings at both national and regional level
at the beginning of every decade;
- the base for statistics to be taken from a variety or combination
of sources, including traditional censuses, surveys, and administrative
registers or combinations of these;
- Member States to ensure that data sources and methodologies
are fit for purpose;
- measures to be taken to ensure the quality of data and metadata
to be provided;
- the content of a quality report and quality criteria for production
and dissemination of the data to be prescribed by Commission Regulation;
- the first reference year for data provided to be 2011 and
following reference years to be prescribed by subsequent Commission
Regulations;
- validated data and metadata to be supplied to Eurostat within
24 months after the end of the reference period;
- the Commission to adopt a programme of those statistical data
and metadata to be transmitted in a Commission Regulation;
- limits to the scope of the topics to be covered in the programme
of statistical data to those topics identified in the Recommendations
on Population and Housing Censuses;
- provides for the format for the transmission of validated
data and metadata in electronic form to be prescribed by a Commission
Regulation;
- transmission of any corrected or revised data to Eurostat;
and
- the principle that benefits of updating must outweigh costs
and that additional costs and burdens remain within a reasonable
limit.
The Government's view
7.4 The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (John Healey) says
that whilst the Government broadly supports the objectives of
the draft Regulation, it, along with other Member States, has
voiced concerns to the Commission and in the Council on a number
of key issues:
- the range of topics on which outputs will be based cover both
"core" and "non-core" data as defined by the
Conference of European Statisticians. Including non-core topics
within the scope of a statutory obligation to provide outputs
effectively makes them obligatory for Community purposes. The
Government may have difficulty in providing statistical output
for a number of non-core topics should these be included in any
Commission Regulation and so will seek to have the Annex to the
draft Regulation, which lists all the topics, omitted or, at the
least, have it refer only the core topics in the Recommendations
on Population and Housing Censuses;
- the Government is concerned that specification of the range
of statistical outputs and quality criteria for the production
and dissemination of data in a Commission Regulation would be
too late, at least for the current round of censuses, to be able
to influence those Member States whose dissemination programmes
may be well advanced. The UK Census Offices, for example, are
already consulting with users on such quality criteria for the
2011 Census, which are likely to be already well-defined by the
end of 2008. The Government would seek derogations in respect
of those outputs for which it would be able to supply statistics
within the timeframe available; and
- the draft Regulation would allow Eurostat to require anonymised
microdata (data about individual objects — persons, companies,
events, transactions, etc.) to
be supplied. Any such obligation to do so may, however, rest uneasily
with domestic public perceptions about Government assurances made
about the use and confidentiality of census information and the
protection afforded by domestic legislation, which might otherwise
prohibit disclosure of such information except within secure access
conditions. The Government will seek removal of reference to provision
of microdata or, at the very least, legislative clarity as to
whether the programme will or will not comprise microdata. If
it is to include microdata the Government will argue that it is
important for the Regulation to acknowledge, or refer to, the
issue of confidentiality in some way.
7.5 The Minister also tells us that no formal Regulatory
Impact Assessment has been provided for this proposal, rather
the Commission has carried out an "analysis of the consequences".
The Government is arguing for a full and robust impact assessment
to be made available to Member States before the proposal proceeds
any further. The Government will also expect the Commission to
produce a Regulatory Impact Assessment before any proposal for
any implementing Commission Regulation could be adopted.
Conclusion
7.6 We can readily see why statistics on populations
which is both comprehensive and comparable at Community level
is necessary for many Treaty functions. However, it is less obvious
to us that the same is true for housing statistics, since housing
policy is primarily for national governments. So before considering
this document further we should like to hear from the Government
the justification for a framework Regulation about Member States'
housing censuses.
7.7 We will also need to hear about progress on
the issues related to core and non-core topics, timing of legislation
and census timetables, microdata and a proper impact assessment
before completing our consideration of the document.
7.8 Meanwhile the document remains uncleared.
21 Metadata is an ICT term meaning data about data,
definition or description of data. Back
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