Maintaining the credibility of official statistics

Abstract

This paper focuses on measures that may help a statistical agency to maintain the credibility of official statistics. Three broad sets of factors that have to be addressed in order to achieve and maintain credibility are distinguished. The first are structural factors having to do with the legislative and organizational arrangements within which the statistical agency operates. The second set are the statistical factors, which pertains to the way the agency collects, processes and publishes its data and manages the quality of those data. Finally, there is a set of factors that are referred to as reputational. These factors are aimed at ensuring that users, including importantly the media and the general public, see and appreciate that the outputs of the agency deserve to be trusted. Credibility is, to a considerable extent, a matter of perception.