ANALYTICAL SERVICES
OBJECTIVES
Analytical Services Program conducts Research and Development in data access, integration, confidentialisation and analysis methods for traditional and emerging data sources. It also supports business-as-usual (BAU) statistical production in the ABS through the provision of analytical products and methodological advice to subject matter areas. As part of its BAU support function, Analytical Services delivers specialist consultancy services to statistical users in other government agencies.
By providing analytical products and methodological advice, the program contributes to the delivery and continued improvement of ABS statistical outputs. In particular, time series in seasonally adjusted and trend form are an important input to policy formation, decision making and research in government, academia and the private sector. The advancement of data access, integration and analysis methodology underpins the creation of a richer, more dynamic and focused statistical picture of Australia for better informed decision-making by government, business, academia and the Australian public. Dynamic data confidentialisation methods, especially those applied to microdata, are intended to provide robust protection for the confidentiality of information provided by individuals or businesses.
OUTPUTS
The main outputs of the program are:
- ongoing seasonal adjustment of critical time series used by Australian government economic policy agencies, commonwealth, state and territory governments, and local government service delivery agencies
- new and innovative analytical products - including conceptual frameworks and models - that enhance the presence of the ABS in the information economy and meet the diverse needs of users of social, economic, environmental and demographic statistics
- methods, tools and practices that reduce the end-to-end cost and time-to-market of current statistical production, and advance new directions in data access, integration and analysis, particularly those that utilise emerging sources of administrative, transactional, sensor and social media data
- generalised, architecturally-compliant statistical solutions that can be incorporated into re-engineered business processes and service-oriented metadata-driven enterprise systems developed under the ABS transformation program
- methodological advice and assistance to users and producers of statistics within the ABS and across the National Statistical Service (NSS) - in areas such as data linking, disclosure control, longitudinal data analysis, small area estimation, time series analysis, demographic analysis, and econometric modelling - and the support of mission-critical ABS statistical processes.
The research outputs of the Program are released in a series of Research Papers (ABS cat. no. 1351.0), and are routinely published in journal articles and conference papers. Time series products and analyses appear in many ABS publications on a regular basis.
DEVELOPMENTS
The main medium-term developments in the program are to:
- develop methodology for the integration and confidentialisation of multiple data sets - due June 2015
- develop methodology for the confidentialisation of geospatial data - due June 2015
- evaluate new approaches for the confidentialisation of business microdata - due June 2015
- evaluate model-based methods and tools for seasonal adjustment - due June 2015
- develop a course in analytical methods using ABS data - due June 2015
- develop methodology for longitudinal analysis and visualisation using the Australian Census Longitudinal Database - due June 2015
- develop visualisation methods and tools for exploratory data analysis - due June 2015
- develop methodology for the use of satellite and ground sensor data for agricultural statistics - due June 2016
- develop methodology for dynamic and longitudinal microsimulation in economic, demographic and social analysis - due June 2016
- develop methodology for firm-level productivity analysis using linked employer-employee data - due June 2016
- deploy next generation automated coding into production use - due June 2016
- develop methods and tools for representing, extracting and linkage different entities in heterogeneous data sets - due June 2016
- develop methodology for modelling time series - due June 2017
- develop methodology for the use of mobile device location data for population mobility - due June 2017.
PROGRAM MANAGER
Ric Clarke
Assistant Statistician (A/g)
Analytical Services Branch
RESOURCES
| Program costs | $m |
| 2014-15 | 4.8 |
| 2015-16 | 4.3 |
| 2016-17 | 4.2 |
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