The mission of the Polish Official Statistics is to provide plausible, reliable, independent, and high quality statistical information about the state and the ongoing changes in the society, in its economy, and in its natural environment which meet the needs of domestic and international users.
Strategic and operational objectives resulting from carrying out of the above-mentioned mission create the quality policy in the official statistics.
The quality policy is based on continuous improvement of statistical processes and products in order to meet and satisfy the users’ needs, reduce respondents’ burden and to decrease the costs of statistical production. Quality in official statistics is based on the European Statistical System definition of quality and defined by the following six criteria:
- relevance
- accuracy
- timeliness and punctuality
- accessibility and clarity
- comparability
- coherence
In addition, when assessing the quality of statistics costs and burden on respondents and confidentiality, transparency and data security issues are considered. The Act of 29 June 1995 on Official Statistics is recognized by Statistics Poland as Polish Commitment on Confidence in Statistics.
Activities focused on quality improvements are in line with the following international and European standards:
- Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics
- Recommendation of the OECD Council on Good Statistical Practice
- Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics (amended on May 2015 - a link to the amendment)
- European Statistics Code of Practice
The European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP) is the cornerstone of the quality framework and sets the standards for developing, producing and disseminating European statistics. It is the result of work on development of a quality strategy in the European Statistical System and the instrument to enhance independence, integrity and accountability of statistical authorities. Its current version was revised and endorsed by the European Statistical System Committee (ESSC) on 16th November 2017.
In 2019 the European Statistical System Committee approved additional document supporting the implementation of indicators included in the Code of Practice i.e. the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF) which contains methods, tools and good practices suggested to be used.
The quality policy of Polish Official Statistics and the standard tools for measuring, assessing and monitoring the quality of statistical surveys are presented in the study Vademecum of Quality in official statistics. Vademecum is recommended to be applied by producers of European statistics including Other National Authorities (ONAs) in order to provide high quality data.
To review the compliance of the ESS with the principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice and help the ESS statistical authorities to further improve and develop the statistical systems peer review are conducted.
Until now there were following rounds:
- I round of peer reviews (2006-2008)
- II round of peer reviews (2013-2015)
- III round of peer reviews (2021-2023)
Details information concerning peer reviews:
https://bip.stat.gov.pl/en/activity-of-public-statistics/quality-in-statistics/peer-review/