European statistics code of practice
The European Statistics Code of Practice promulgated in the Commission Recommendation of May 25th 2005 on the independence, integrity and accountability of the national and Community statistical authorities has undergone a revision during the years 2009 to 2011. In adopting this Code Eurostat and the National Statistical Institutions (NSIs) of the EU-member states are obliged to adhere to principles and standards for the production and dissemination of high-quality statistics. The new version of the Code of Practice was adopted by the European Statistical System Committee (ESSC) on September 28th 2011 and released by Eurostat in January 2012.In addition to the integration of the quality declaration as a preamble the most important changes are the enforcement of professional independence and the inclusion of new indicators related to the use of administrative data. Furthermore the development of a quality assurance framework (QAF) was started which will serve as a living document to creating a basis to evaluate the compliance with the Code of Practice. This should give a reference to NSIs to enable them to prepare suitable for a new round of Peer Reviews. The boundary conditions for a new round of peer reviews (format, content, timing) are currently under discussion within the ESS.
In conjunction of peer reviews based on the first version of the Code of Practice the adherence to the principles 1 to 6 and 15 was monitored within the ESS during the years 2005 to 2008. Statistics Austria was subjected to a peer review form November 22nd to 24th 2006. As stated in the report (PDF, 158 KB), Statistics Austria achieved an excellent result in this peer review.
