Statistical Clearing House Key Roles and Responsibilities
There are various individuals and groups who have key roles and responsibilities in ensuring the Statistical Clearing House (SCH) undertakes and fulfils its role in an effective and efficient manner.
The Australian Statistician
- Ensures the SCH operates efficiently and effectively;
- Reports on the process in the ABS Annual Report to Parliament; including a summary of the Commonwealth Government's business surveys;
- Provides annual reports to agency heads covering surveys from the agency that were advised to the SCH, highlighting any data collection that was undertaken without appropriate clearance from the SCH, contrary to the Prime Ministerial directive; and
- Reviews appeals against the findings of the SCH brought to his/her attention by agency heads.
Statistical Clearing House
- Completes the clearance of a survey within 20 working days of the receipt of full documentation in the prescribed format;
- Promulgates and promotes survey best practices; and
- Ensures that all survey that are directed to businesses are developed, ensuring that respondent burden is kept to the absolute minimum;
- Creates an annual report of all surveys directed to businesses conducted by Commonwealth agencies during each fiscal year, together with details of the surveys planned for the coming year and the SCH survey clearance schedule; and
- Maintains the Australian Government Business Surveys Register;
- Ensures that the descriptions of approved surveys contained in the Australian Government Business Surveys Register are widely visible and accessible to Government and the community at large via the Internet.
Australian Government Agency Heads
- Ensure that, when authorising new surveys or continuations of existing surveys that are directed to businesses, their managers are fully aware of the associated respondent burdens, that these burdens are kept to the absolute minimum, and that the benefits of the surveys fully justify their costs to business and the Government;
- Ensure that survey managers are aware of their responsibilities with regard to SCH clearance;
- Ensure that surveys are conducted in an efficient and effective way;
- Nominate a Survey Liaison Officer (or Officers) to ensure there is effective communication with, and transfer of information describing the surveys to, the SCH; and
- Bring appeals against the findings of the SCH by their survey managers to the attention of the Australian Statistician.
Statistical Liaison Officers
- Manage the communication and liaison between the agency and the SCH;
- Ensure that the SCH is notified about all business surveys proposed or conducted within the agencies for which they are responsible;
- Facilitate exchange of information between agency survey managers and the SCH;
- Promote awareness of Australian Government statistical data integration principles and related resources (as agreed by the Cross Portfolio Secretaries Board in 2010); and
- Review and validate the information summarising the agency's surveys that is produced in the SCH Annual Report.
- For further information on the role of a Statistical Liaison Officer, see the Role Advice
(0.24MB).
Survey Managers
- Provide the information about their surveys to the SCH for review in the prescribed format (Scoping and Information Templates);
- Ensure that any changes specified by the SCH as a condition for survey approval are made before the survey goes into the field;
- Ensure that new or repeating surveys that have been reviewed and not approved are not conducted;
- Ensure the registered approval number appears on data collection material, in particular the survey form (if any) for approved surveys;
- Provide the SCH with details of any significant changes made to an approved collection during its conduct, and with specified operational results in the prescribed format (Post Survey Information Template); and
- Confirm detailed information about their surveys which is to be loaded on the Australian Government Business Surveys Register.
SCH Advisory Forum
- The SCH Advisory Forum (SCHAF) meets bi-annually at the ABS. For more information, see the SCHAF Terms of Reference
(0.16MB).
NSS QuickFind
