7105.0.55.004 - National Agricultural Statistics Review

7105.0.55.004 - National Agricultural Statistics Review - Final Report, 2015

ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 29/07/2015 First Issue

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Foreword Executive Summary + Chapter 1 - Introduction + Chapter 2 - The current Australian agricultural statistical system + Chapter 3 - Stakeholder feedback on the current Australian statistics system + Chapter 4 - Principles of best practice agricultural statistical systems + Chapter 5 - Assessment of the Australian system against the best practice principles 1. Strong governance and coordination 2. A clearly articulated strategy to guide future investment 3. Use of best practice methods and sources to maximise data quality and minimise respondent burden 4. Investment in, and use of, innovative technologies, methods and processes across the statistical cycle 5. A culture of open data Chapter 6 - Towards a best practice agricultural system About this Release	1. STRONG GOVERNANCE AND COORDINATION The current Australian agricultural statistical system, with its predominantly centralised structure (i.e. with ABS and ABARES as the main producers of agricultural statistics) delivers a number of the advantages of centralised systems described under Principle 1 in Chapter 4. In particular, these include the advantages conferred by having Australia’s national statistical agency, the ABS, playing a leading role in the production of core agricultural statistics. The ABS enjoys a high degree of trust and goodwill supported by legislative powers to direct respondents to provide statistical data and to protect the confidentiality of the data. This ensures the ABS is able to achieve high response rates in its collections and produce high quality data while retaining the trust of respondents. ABS legislation also explicitly recognises the important statistical leadership role the ABS has as the nation’s central statistical authority. This role acknowledges that ABS and ABARES are not the only producers of important statistical information—there are a number of other organisations collecting agriculture, fisheries and forestry statistics. The NASR found that there are a range of organisations, including state/territory government, RDCs and industry bodies that produce agricultural statistics (Table 9 Appendix 4) and that may be prepared to play a role in improving agricultural statistics. With such a range of organisations involved, coordination and collaboration is required to support the efficient production of statistical assets and maintain data quality, especially the integration and coherence of statistics. There is evidence that a number of stakeholders (producers and users) have established relationships for the efficient production and use of statistical assets. Examples of good co-ordination came to light in the review such as in national fisheries and forestry statistics production, which could provide models of co-ordination for statistics collections in other industries. However, there is no overarching mechanism that is coordinating the contributions of all the various organisations, including industry bodies, producing agricultural statistics and no mechanisms for ensuring that the production and use of statistics is effectively planned and coordinated across the system, nor a knowledge of the surveys planned in any one year. This is distinct from the ABS’ role through the National Statistical Service⁶⁴ to help coordinate the production of statistics in government agencies. It is particularly apparent from the NASR consultation that the roles of ABS and ABARES in the statistical system are not sufficiently transparent. Stakeholders are unclear about the roles and responsibilities of each agency in producing statistics. ABS’ statistical leadership role is also not well understood or recognised. In addition, stakeholders do not always understand the role of other participants in the system—other Commonwealth government agencies, state and territory governments, the rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs), and other industry and research bodies. There are also differing expectations regarding the contributions of government and industry in meeting statistical needs, with some having the view that government should provide the majority of required statistics, and others seeing a stronger role for industry. The lack of a clear delineation of roles and responsibilities in the statistical system has led to a lack of coordination in statistical production, inefficiency, potential duplication and increased respondent burden. To be sustainable and effective, the Australian agricultural statistical system requires contributions from all stakeholders, both government and industry. The roles of ABS and ABARES, including ABS’ statistical leadership role, should be made clearer and communicated to stakeholders. The role of other government bodies, industry and the RDCs in contributing to the system should also be clarified. The ABS could influence and support better coordination and collaboration between producers of statistics to improve the quality and coherence of statistics, including promotion of the use of common standards, classifications, best practice methods and tools. The collaborative relationship between the ABS and ABARES allows for ABARES’ considerable industry knowledge and research expertise to be brought to the process of statistical collection. The sharing of statistical infrastructure between the two agencies in the use of a common frame, contributes to coherence of their statistical outputs and should be continued and further developed. FOOTNOTES ⁶⁴ See http://www.nss.gov.au for more information Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.