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A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR

In the January 2001 edition of the newsletter, I noted that 2001 was going to be an exciting year for NCCRS. This certainly turned out to be the case. In particular, the key achievement of the past year was the release of the Australian Culture and Leisure Classifications (ACLC) - a document which contains three classifications: industry, product and occupation. These classifications are expected to be adopted widely by users of culture and leisure data in Australia, which in turn should result in improved coordination and comparability between data collections. Some of the other achievements of the year were as follows: NCCRS celebrated its 10th anniversary; initial work on developing a culture and leisure information model commenced; NCCRS was overwhelmed with the level of interest in the new data on children's activities during their free time; and, as described in this newsletter, a culture and sport and recreation theme page was launched on the ABS Web site.

As for 2002, this year should also prove to be an interesting and busy year for us at NCCRS. We will continue to work on key projects such as the development of an information model and the compilation of a data directory that contains details on both ABS and non-ABS data sets of relevance to culture and leisure. As we did in 2001, we will release publications regarding government funding of cultural activities and the book publishing industry. In addition, 2002 will see the first release of data from a new NCCRS collection of government funding of sport and physical recreation (described further in this newsletter), and a new collection of data on Australian book retailers. NCCRS also plans to commence an update of two highly popular statistical overview reports that were last released in 1997. These reports - one covering sport and recreation and the other, cultural topics - will present relevant statistics from a range of ABS and non-ABS collections.

A number of other data sets which contain information of interest to those in the culture, sport and recreation sectors will also be released by the ABS during the upcoming year. An example of some of the key data releases that are planned for 2002 are as follows.

• Data from the Community Housing and Infrastructure Needs Survey (CHINS) will be released in early 2002. Information on the existence, and frequency of use, of a range of sporting facilities in Indigenous Australian communities (with a population of 50 or more) will be available.

• Data from the 2001 Business Generosity Survey on the dollar values of sponsorships, donations and 'business to community projects' to the sport and recreation sector and to the arts and culture sector will be made available in mid 2002.

• Data from the Sport and Recreation Industry Surveys will be released from mid 2002 onwards, with the publications to be released by the ABS covering 12 ACLC classes (e.g., Sports and Physical Recreation Clubs, teams and Sports Professionals; Health and Fitness Centres and Gymnasia; and Amusement and Theme Parks).

• Data from the 2001 National Health Survey will be released in late 2002 providing up-to-date information on the exercise levels of Australians aged 15 years and over.