1. The work session on registers and administrative records for social and demographic statistics was held in Geneva from 23-25 January 1995. It was attended by Austria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The European Union was represented by Eurostat. The International Labour Office was also represented.
2. The provisional agenda (Working Paper No. 1) was adopted.
3. Mr. David Pearce (United Kingdom) was elected to chair the meeting. Mr. Richard Gisser (Austria) was elected Vice- Chair.
4. The participants noted that this was the first time in several decades that the Conference of European Statisticians had convened a meeting on registers and administrative records in social and demographic statistics. They welcomed its organizing of this meeting, and noted that the large number of papers that countries had contributed to the meeting (31) and the above average number of participants (50) were good indicators of the strong interest that countries have in exchanging experiences in this field of statistics. The Meeting also welcomed the fact that participants from countries that had not submitted papers to the meeting had reported orally on the situation in their country.
5. The participants agreed that this initial meeting should be used for the following main purposes: taking stock of recent and planned future developments in this field in countries throughout the region; providing a mechanism for countries interested in selected types of problems and issues to exchange views on them on a bilateral basis; and identifying a restricted number of key issues of future work in this field which could be addressed more effectively through broader fora of international statistical cooperation such as meetings organized by the Conference of European Statisticians, Eurostat or other international organizations.
6. The participants considered that it would be useful for countries to exchange experiences on challenges and developments in this field at a similar type of meeting in the future, focussed on a small number of more focussed key topics. They recommended, therefore, that the Conference organize a similar type of meeting in two years time, and preferably jointly with Eurostat. They also recommended that the following text be included in the Conference's programme of work:
Activities and means:
Activities of ECE: (CES Priority B)
Work session in 1996/97, jointly with Eurostat, to consider:
i) Using administrative data in support of, or as a supplement to traditional censuses;
ii) Methods of dealing with problems associated with using and/or linking administrative data for statistical purposes (e.g. quality assessment, estimation and presentation of measurement error, access, and personal identification numbers);
iii) Optimal delivery of outputs from a combination of different sources.
7. The participants requested that matters concerning the direct use of administrative records and registers should also be included from time to time on the agendas of meetings convened by the Conference in individual fields of statistics (e.g. labour statistics).
8. Some of the main other conclusions reached by the participants during discussion of the substantive items of the agenda are outlined in the Annex.
9. The participants adopted the report of the meeting at its closing session.
1. The following were some of the main conclusions that emerged during discussion on various different themes, and which the participants considered should be taken into account in any planned future work to be conducted under the auspices of the Conference of European Statisticians in this field.
2. Both the meeting documentation and discussion demonstrated that there is a large range of administrative records and registers being used for statistical purposes in countries throughout the region, and that they differ widely in type, scope and character. The meeting considered that it would be useful to prepare a general typology and inventory of some of the main types of sources described in the meeting documents, and therefore it appointed a small task force to attempt to draw one up so as to facilitate the planning of possible future work in this field within an international context. The task force prepared a general outline, and participants agreed to fill in the outline with details on the main administrative records and registers for their countries during the course of the meeting.
3. The participants considered that the resulting information, together with similar types of information from ECE countries who did not participate in the meeting would provide a useful overview for countries. The ECE secretariat and Eurostat agreed to liaise together in requesting similar types of information from these other countries on their data sources and registers by the end of February 1995, and Eurostat agreed to look into the possibility of publishing the results in its "Statistics in Focus" (formerly its "Rapid Reports") series. The United States offered to help with the processing of the national responses. There was general agreement that the responses could serve as a useful tool for guiding the planning of future international work in this field.
4. Many participants reported that they anticipated that their statistical production would increasingly have to rely on the direct use of administrative records and registers in the future. This trend is due to increasing pressures in countries to produce more comprehensive and relevant statistics in a more timely manner, at less cost, for small population groups and geographical areas, and in a way that protects confidentiality and lessens the response burden on data suppliers.
5. The participants agreed that privacy and confidentiality concerns, the national legal framework and public sensitivities about using and linking administrative records and registers were all some of the major factors which would determine the rate and amount of progress made in each country in using these sources more extensively in the future. Several participants cautioned against over-stressing these concerns, particularly since public opinion seems to be changing somewhat in some countries.
6. Several countries reported that because of cost and other considerations, they anticipated that they would have to rely more extensively on administrative records and/or registers in the future to prepare census type statistics and to support the traditional census. Some also considered that although their 2000 round census would probably be conducted in the traditional manner, the prospects for the longer term future in this regard were more uncertain, and therefore they stressed the importance of countries adopting a long term strategy to prepare themselves better for considerably different situations which may prevail in their countries when preparing for the 2010 or later rounds of censuses.
7. Although some countries in the region have unique personal identification numbers which enable the linking of different data sources, numerous other countries reported that such numbers do not exist in their countries and/or that the matching of individual data was restricted or prohibited. They also discussed problems of linkage, notably matching by personal identification numbers, by other identifyers and by statistical variables. It was noted that recorded identity numbers were not always 100% correct and that matching on several variables often was needed.
8. Many countries described the work they are doing in this field. The participants agreed that this was a difficult exercise in all countries, including those which use PINs in their data sources. Among the problems mentioned were disharmonies with respect to coverage, time references and variable definitions. The participants also agreed that this was an area where countries had to make progress in the future, and therefore they recommended exchanging information on experiences with these problems and steps taken to solve them at a future meeting.
9. The meeting agreed that this was another key area that should be taken into account in planning future work. With that in mind, the participants highlighted several different dimensions of the quality issue which necessitate a thorough understanding of the data collection process (e.g. the probable lower reliability of data on variables in the data sources which are of little relevance for administrative purposes; problems of internal consistency, changes over time or space, and comparisons with other sources; the limited extent to which statisticians can influence the content of administrative records; and estimation of the statistical error in administrative record data bases).
10. Several approaches of dealing with problems of data quality were identified (e.g. conducting statistical checks at the micro and macro level, and checking for internal consistency and changes over time).
11. The participants agreed that even though normal statistical theory cannot be applied directly to estimate bias and errors in administrative and register based sources, efforts should still be made to try to estimate errors in them.
12. Other issues closely related to quality concerns were coverage issues (e.g. differences in reporting or areal units) and content issues (e.g. overlaps and gaps).
13. The Meeting identified several types of topics which appeared to be less adequately covered in many register-based censuses (travel to work, voluntary activity, occupation, industry, the living condition of the population, and household and family data), in comparison to traditional censuses. However, the participants also noted the greater frequency of the registers, and their on-line characteristics. They also noted that high quality information on these topics in some cases could also be obtained from alternative sources (e.g., specialized registers and surveys).