Conferences

The quality of statistical data is a primary concern and substantial effort has been devoted by organisations involved to ensure high quality data is collected and disseminated. European surveys, implemented simultaneously on many countries pose significant challenges for statisticians and survey managers. Ensuring comparability in different legal, cultural and societal backgrounds is compounded by the fact that data collection is performed by independent organizations in each country while available budgets are constrained. A quality assurance framework is required to ensure that data produced meet the needs of users for high quality, comparable data.

The presented plan has been developed based on the needs of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS). It aims at ensuring that survey data collected and provided to the EU social policy debate are of the highest quality within the budgetary constrains of the Foundation. Data quality is based on Eurostat’s framework for data quality widely used in official statistics. The main aspects of the quality assurance plan are outlined in this presentation. It includes a thorough mapping of survey operations by the main survey actors. The plan identifies the key process variables that affect the quality of the statistical process and establishes a system for monitoring and control.

At the same time the dissemination of detailed quality information along with the estimates and the statistical data is also important as it allows users to make the best use of the data provided for their purposes. Survey quality characteristics are presented based on the six quality components defined by Eurostat along with the methodology used for their computation and the related information needs.