With the adoption of the European Statistics Code of Practice (ESS CoP), the Statistical Programme Commeetie (SPC – predecessor of the European Statistical System Committee – ESSC) committed itself to adhering to its principles. This applied also to Poland new EU Member State.
At its meeting on 25th May 2005, the SPC endorsed a stepwise monitoring procedure for the implementation of the Code over three years during which countries’ self-assessments should be combined with elements of peer review.
During December 2005 / January 2006 the National Statistical Institutes and Eurostat have completed their self-assessments, the results have been summarised by Eurostat in a report submitted to the Economic and Financial Committee in May 2006.
As a next step towards implementation of the Code, the European Statistical System was organising peer reviews to complement the self-assessments starting with 2006. The first round of peer reviews in the European Statistical System took place between 2006 and 2008.
The visit to Poland as part of the peer review exercise on the quality of European statistics produced took place on 25-27 April 2007. The members of the audit team were:
- Mr. Olav Ljones, Statistics Norway, Norway, Chair
- Mr. Jean-Etienne Chapron, INSEE, France
- Mr. Peter Bekx, Eurostat
The ESS CoP peer reviews followed a commonly agreed methodology focusing on the institutional environment and dissemination part of the Code comprising the following principles:
(1) Professional independence,
(2) Mandate for data collection,
(3) Adequacy of resources,
(4) Quality commitment,
(5) Statistical confidentiality,
(6) Impartiality and Objectivity,
as well as (15) Accessibility and Clarity.
In principle, the peer review was limited to the National Statistical Institute – Statistics Poland (known as Central Statistical Office of Poland back in 2007) and its co-ordination role within a national statistical system. A short document provided by the National Statistical Institute which summarised key aspects of the functioning of the national statistical system was published together with the report prepared by the audit team.