Commitment on Confidence in Statistics in the Czech Republic

Citizens’ Summary

The Regulation (EU) 2015/759 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2015 amending Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (hereinafter as the Regulation) includes Article 11 on ‘Commitments on Confidence in Statistics’, purpose of which is to provide for further progress in quality of the European statistics and to reinforce the users and public trust in the statistics. The Regulation emphasises shared responsibility of the Member States of the European Union for enforcement of principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice (hereinafter as the Code). In order to achieve these goals the (governments of) Member States adopt specific political commitments, which are to bring improvements in or to maintain conditions for implementation of the Code principles. This, in practice, shall mean, first of all, creating of suitable institutional environment, in which Eurostat, Statistical Office of the European Union, and national statistical authorities carry out their activities.

Under current conditions of the Czech Republic the ‘Commitment on Confidence in Statistics’ is already fulfilled by the valid legislation defining activities of the State Statistical Service, first of all, the Act No 89/1995 Sb on the State Statistical Service, supplemented with a system of regulations defining work of the executive sphere as, namely, the Constitution of the Czech Republic, Act No 2/1969 Sb, Legislation Rules of the Government of the Czech Republic, and Rules of Procedure of the Government. The aforementioned and directly applicable Regulation, which the Member States are bound to, forms an integrated part of the cited legal framework. The system of aforementioned regulations provides for conditions necessary for fulfilling of all principles of the Code concerning the institutional environment, and progress thereof, if necessary.

The Code establishes sixteen principles defining how statistics shall be processed, disseminated, and developed in accord with the Regulation and with the best statistical practice. In particular, a portion of the principles deals with institutional environment. These include professional independence, mandate for data collection and access to data, adequacy of resources, commitment to quality, statistical confidentiality and data protection, and impartiality and objectivity. Other parts of the Code then deal with statistical processes, procedures, and outputs, including quality thereof, and fulfilment of these is fully in competence of concrete producers of the European statistics. The Code has been revised and updated as necessary by the European Statistical System Committee. The European Commission (Eurostat) publishes its updates. The adherence to the Code is being monitored regularly by means of a self-assessments and also by external assessments, so-called peer reviews.