Essential Statistical Assets for Australia
Over the last 18 months, the Australia Bureau of Statistics has commenced work towards developing a list of the essential statistics required for critical informed decision making for the nation. Essential statistics are defined as those that meet a set of criteria; statistics that are required to meet domestic or legislative requirements, international reporting obligations, those that are of importance to key national progress measurement or critical for public policy or service delivery.
The identification of a list of agreed essential statistics and their underlying statistical assets (ie datasets) will enable the Australian Government, in partnership with state and territory governments, to pursue the following objectives:
- identification of critical information gaps, so that these can be addressed
- ensuring that the critically important information (statistics/data) are of sufficient quality; and
- the efficient use of government resources by identifying areas of duplication and underutilisation.
The Essential Statistical Assets for Australia initiative will produce a high level list that separates the essential statistics from the multitude of other official statistics generated by governments. This includes the identification of statistics considered essential that do not currently exist. This will be followed by a comprehensive quality assessment of the essential statistics and datasets that will aid in understanding their fitness for purpose in meeting the needs of users.
The following organising framework, based on the framework applied in Measuring Australia's Progress, will be used to organise essential statistics into three pillars; societal progress, economic development, environment sustainability and their specific sub-dimensions:
Essential Statistical Assets for Australia Framework
The ABS is currently finalising a preliminary list, based on intelligence gathered from consultation with the Australian Statistical Advisory Council (ASAC), peak state and territory statistical fora and other existing engagement networks, to support discussions with stakeholders. Commencing in November 2011 the next stage is for the ABS to engage in a wide external consultative process with the aim of developing a list of essential statistics that is supported across Governments and by the community.
A public information paper is being developed for future release on the ABS website in 2012, inviting comment and feedback from the broader ABS user community, input will be sought from relevant existing ABS User Groups, as well as a range of other key stakeholders (Government and non-Government) and the community. An update on the initiative was presented to ASAC on 15 November 2011, where the consultation plans were discussed.
For more information on ESA please contact Marie Apostolou (03) 9615 7500 or Paul Romanis (03) 9615 7362 or email inquiries@nss.gov.au
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