15 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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| Department | Office for National Statistics
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| Basis of consideration | Minister's letter of 12 October 2007
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| Previous Committee Report | HC 41-xvii (2006-07), para 7 (18 April 2007)
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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 | Cleared
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Background
15.1 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[31]
and quality assurance standards are necessary.
15.2 In February 2007 the Commission proposed 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 would leave 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.
15.3 When we first examined the document we said
that before considering it further we wished to hear from the
Government:
- on the justification for a
framework Regulation about Member States' housing censuses; and
- about progress on issues, mentioned to us by
the Government, related to core and non-core topics, timing of
legislation and census timetables, microdata and a proper impact
assessment.
Meanwhile the document remained uncleared.
The Minister's letter
15.4 The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Angela
Eagle) now responds on each of these points. She tells us that
following negotiations there is a revised text which reflects
satisfactorily concerns of the Government and other Member States.
She says, in particular, that:
- the issue of whether or not
housing statistics should be included in the Regulation has been
raised by the Government and was discussed by the Council Statistical
Working Party (STATIS). It was concluded that data on housing
units and buildings as well as on the relationship between the
population and their accommodation was essential for analysis
of social policy at Community level and therefore this element
falls within the scope of Article 285 EC;
- reference to non-core topics in the annex of
the draft Regulation has been removed at the request of the Government
and a number of other Member States. This meets the Government's
concern that the earlier draft of the Regulation would have had
the scope to require the supply to Eurostat of statistical outputs
based on topics not identified as core by the current Conference
of European Statisticians' Recommendations for the 2010 Census
of Population and Housing and which would not have been collected
in the UK Census;
- the Government believes that the timing of the
Regulation will not itself cause any particular difficulties in
the planning of the UK Census. It would provide for the first
reference year to be 2011, which is the year for which the next
UK Census is scheduled, and outputs would now be required to be
supplied to Eurostat within 27 months from the end of the reference
year, which also falls comfortably within the processing plans
of the Office for National Statistics. The Commission has noted
that the timing of the subsequent implementing Regulation, which
will specify the details of the outputs to be included in Eurostat's
statistical programme for the 2011 Census and which will be agreed
through the comitology procedure, will need to take account of
circumstances where Member States' plans for their own censuses
are too fully advanced to allow for further changes. The Government
has, separately, raised with the Commission the importance of
agreeing date and outputs for subsequent censuses much earlier
in the decennial cycle;
- at the request of a number of Member States the
draft Regulation now makes no reference to any provision to make
outputs available to Eurostat in the form of microdata as part
of the programme of statistical data. This addresses the Government's
earlier concerns that an obligation to provide Eurostat with data
in such a form might conflict with some Member States' domestic
legislation concerning the disclosure of census information; and
- the question of a full Regulatory Impact Assessment
has been raised with the Commission, which has said it will re-consider
the matter. However it seems that the UK is the only Member State
not satisfied with the Analysis of Consequences in the original
proposal.
Conclusion
15.5 We are grateful to the Minister for this
information. We have no further questions and now clear the document.
31 Metadata is an IT term meaning data about data,
definition or description of data. Back
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