STATISTICAL SERVICES
OBJECTIVES
The Statistical Services program provides specialist services to meet new and ongoing demands in official statistics.
The program has specific responsibilities for supporting statistical collection and production processes and providing leadership in developing the future methodological infrastructure of the ABS.
The program also aims to minimise the load on data providers through efficient data collection methods, sample designs, techniques to control sample overlap between surveys and, in the case of Australian business surveys, through reviews and approvals by the Australian Government Statistical Clearing House.
OUTPUTS
The program's main internal products include reports and advice on:
- methods for making use of, and quality assuring, administrative data for statistical purposes
- sample design, estimation and other survey related methodological issues
- research into new methods to meet future statistical needs
- issues affecting the quality of the ABS’s statistical products.
Current research is published on the ABS website through the
Methodology Advisory Committee Papers.
The Statistical Clearing House produces an annual report of all surveys directed to 50 or more businesses conducted by Commonwealth agencies during each fiscal year. It also promulgates and promotes survey best practices in agencies conducting business surveys. Information can be found on the National Statistical Service website:
www.nss.gov.au.
DEVELOPMENTS
The main medium-term developments are to:
- implement methodologies for supporting multi-modal data collection for conducting and processing the Census of Population and Housing and household surveys - due February 2016
- investigate estimation techniques that incorporate external sources of data in order to reduce the volatility of monthly labour force estimates - due June 2016
- implement quality gates for all Main Economic Indicators, supported by enhanced documentation, guidelines and training modules - due June 2016
- develop improved methods for monitoring and measuring the statistical impacts due to changes in methods or processes - due June 2016
- develop the sampling framework, methods and procedures to support better integrated business and household survey vehicles - due December 2016
- develop strategies for evaluating and optimising the use of whole-of-government technologies in provider management processes - due June 2017
- implement a vision for quality management in the production environment created by the Statistical Business Transformation program - due June 2017
- develop flexible workload allocation methods to support the vision for an integrated workforce in the Survey Management Centre of Excellence (Geelong) - due June 2017
- research and develop question wording standards to enable more efficient multi-modal data collection instrument generation while managing quality impacts - due June 2018
- assist the implementation of new methods and tools that are part of the methodological architecture to support more integrated ABS statistical collections and products - due June 2019.
PROGRAM MANAGER
Paul Schubert
Statistical Methodology Branch
RESOURCES
| Program costs | $m |
| 2015-16 | 5.0 |
| 2016-17 | 8.4 |
| 2017-18 | 8.3 |
The level of funding for this program in the out-years has not yet been agreed.
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