Hon Laila Harré
Minister of Statistics

In her opening address, the Minister said that the conference will help to define the nature of requirements for official statistics. The underlying system for official statistics must be strong enough to meet wide-ranging needs. The Government is always looking for better ways to get information to make decisions.

She said that her experiences with the youth portfolio demonstrated that statistical information needs can be identified and catered for. A first look showed that there was very little hard data to back up assumptions on youth wages and wages for under 16-year-olds. A two-part approach was taken in response, built on reanalysing existing data from a youth perspective, and then setting about obtaining any specifically required new data.

The Minister noted that the conference represented an opportunity to stocktake where we are at, rather than being the only source of input for the department, and she concluded her address by saying:

"This is the users' day to put ideas on the table. The outcome will be a useful contribution towards the further development of official statistics."

Dianne Macaskill
Deputy Government Statistician
Statistics New Zealand

In setting the scene for the conference, Dianne described the department and changes in the statistics environment since the last conference in 1995.

She noted that Statistics New Zealand now has 600 staff, with 140 part-time field staff, and a budget of $45 million across three centres.

In 1995 the focus of the conference was about what Statistics New Zealand should do, but now the focus can turn to the wider statistical system. The timing of developments that took place in 1995 was driven by an investment programme to improve the department's information technology capacity. The programme was put in place because there was a need for core analyses and outputs, particularly for National Accounts, Balance of Payments statistics, a range of economic indicators, the Household Labour Force Survey, and the Census of Population and Dwellings.

In 1995 demand for better statistics to support decision-making in social policy was growing, and quality issues other than accuracy were beginning to be raised.

Access was also a significant issue. For example it was next to impossible to get unit record data for valid statistical research studies, and there were high charges for large volumes of output and customised analyses of data. A large number of new statistics were requested at the 1995 conference.

Dianne observed the following achievements of Statistics New Zealand since 1995:

• Recognition, in an output price review conducted by The Treasury, Statistics New Zealand and the State Services Commission, of the critical importance of core statistics. The revenue goals of Statistics New Zealand were also reshaped.
• Development of the Statistics New Zealand website, incorporating information on methodologies and summary information.
• Establishment of the Data Laboratory for users to access unit record data when aggregate data does not meet their needs.
• Increased reporting of statistics, with publications such as the 'New Zealand Now' series, the 'New Zealand Official Yearbook 2000', stories on the web.

A wide range of statistics is now available, including:

• More statistics on Māori (which has increased the Māori respondent burden)
• Updated and more accurate Balance of Payments and other economic statistics
• Results from many social statistics surveys conducted by Statistics New Zealand that had been funded by other agencies.


Improvements to existing statistics have also been made, and major upgrades of National Accounts, environmental and social capital statistics have been investigated. Three consultative committees have been established. These are the Māori Statistics Forum, the Advisory Committee on Economic Statistics and the Advisory Committee on Social Statistics, all of which meet regularly. Relationships with other statistical agencies have also been useful. For instance, Statistics New Zealand has learnt much from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and vice versa. This is despite Statistics New Zealand having a small budget, relative to other statistical offices, of $45 million annually excluding the census. In information technology, the major upgrade of the department's IT infrastructure was completed. There have also been developments in other areas such as computer assisted interviewing, a bilingual population census, and the monitoring of compliance costs.

As the newly appointed Government Statistician, Brian noted that he is currently undergoing a steep learning curve. He thanked Dianne for her stewardship of Statistics New Zealand following the departure of Len Cook to head the United Kingdom statistical office.

As our changing society is a challenge for official statisticians who are supposed to predict the changes, Brian said that he places value on strategic planning. He spoke of a desire to contribute to strategic management both in Statistics New Zealand and the wider statistics community.

He said essential issues for official statisticians are:

Official statistics:
These are collected by the government to inform debate, allow comparisons between periods of time and geographical areas, and allow actions of government to be assessed. It is a responsibility of governments to maintain confidence in them. There is a need for an independent view.



Important trends occurring in users' expectations:

• Demand for more detail (eg of Māori, older people, youth and size/breakdown of businesses) for policy and decision-making
• demand for mass customisation of data products and services, which places strain on processes and systems
• Continuing growth of information markets generally, with the implications for Statistics New Zealand being far greater competition in our traditional markets, and more innovation and heightened expectations regarding ease and cost of access
• Statistics New Zealand must maximise availability and official use of statistics. Increasing emphasis on self-help facilities means that users will have less need to deal directly with Statistics New Zealand staff


Compliance costs

• There needs to be a trade-off in reducing compliance burden against demand for micro detail.
• Increasing sample sizes is not an effective solution to providing more detail.
• Increasing collaborative use of other government information could increase the source of statistics. Statistics New Zealand already uses tax data, customs data, and building consents from other agencies.
• The Statistics Act provides the framework for this coordination.
• Statistics New Zealand may not always be the most appropriate agency to provide the data required.

Privacy

• It is essential, to retain public trust, that Statistics New Zealand not undermine the principles of the Statistics Act regarding confidentiality and privacy.
• Researchers have a greater capability to manipulate unit record data and a greater interest in this research approach. Statistics New Zealand can enable this research, but it must ensure that the integrity of Statistics New Zealand data is not compromised.
• Analysis of data by Statistics New Zealand must be accurate.
• The official statistical agency must always be objective.
• An official statistician is part scientist, part artisan and part diplomat. It is important that they strike the right balance between these three parts.

Dan Te Kanawa
speaking on behalf of
Māori Statistics Forum

In pre-European days Māori had autonomy. With the European came Māori economic growth and social prosperity. This was halted by treaty breaches. In post-colonial times government imposed control over Māori affairs and development. In the past 25 years New Zealand has grappled with Māori social and economic problems. In the future developmental changes are needed for Māori survival and well-being.

The current situation in New Zealand shows that Māori people are the most deprived with 25.8 percent of all Māori in the bottom income decile and 55 percent are in the bottom three income deciles compared with 24 percent of non-Māori. The challenge is to make substantial improvements to bring parity.

Rather than looking at why people are in the lower deciles it is necessary to look at how they get into the higher income deciles. To achieve parity with non-Māori, 44 percent of Māori will need to shift three decile groups, 32.3 percent need to shift two decile groups and 12.7 percent need to shift one decile group. The gap between where we are and where we want to be confirms the need for developmental change.

It is important that we develop an approach to identify and measure the right things. A framework for Māori well-being will need to include whanaungatanga (relationships), tikanga (cultural), wairuatanga (spiritual), oranga (social) and ohnga (economic). Statistics measures the tangible but we need to be able to measure the non-tangible as well.

Māori should aspire to a future in which Māori will achieve, by their own endeavours, a quality of life. This means that Māori are happy, secure and proactive members of their respective communities and value their Māori identity and culture.

The cycle of well-being includes beliefs and values, attitudes and behaviour, identity and lifestyle, well-being and aspirations. Experience suggests that well-being is best achieved by promoting self-reliance and not enhanced dependency.

Developmental change must be based on strategies in cultural concepts and dynamics and these strategies and initiatives must readily facilitate participation and self-management by participants.



This developmental change can occur in a number of ways including:

• By determining the topics and statistical information required to develop and monitor initiatives, it will be possible to undertake focussed research on case studies and develop strategies for Māori developmental change.
• Introducing policies and solutions which promote self-reliance rather than enhanced dependency. In turn, household programmes and initiatives, and separate social, economic and cultural deprivation profiles can be developed.
• The imperative of achieving social and economic parity between Māori and non-Māori is not only for the benefit of Māori, but also for the future well-being of New Zealand society as a whole. Whether this objective is achieved will depend upon reliable research and statistical information.

The main driver for the business user group is moving products and services into the market place. At the moment we have a static economy but cyberspace is making the world smaller, driving down quality expectations and the cost of data. Firms arriving in New Zealand are used to having data access, quality, and lower costs.

The business user group has some suggestions on improving the Statistics New Zealand website, including creating a frequently asked question category by sector, and smart indexing to information with smart search engines (eg Google).



Other suggestions include:

• The department should consult more widely and regularly with business users.
• Meshblocks should follow distribution areas used in business.
• The business community should have free access to data, as the business community pays for special surveys or analyses that end up in public arena.
• Relax confidentiality rules, which are making it difficult to obtain access to unit records.
• The department should provide other data services.
• Release data with accuracy that is "near enough is good enough" in some cases.
• Provide more data for regions.

The Advisory Committee on Economic Statistics is a group of active economists who provide advice to Statistics New Zealand on economic statistics. It arose out of a formal review of macro-economic statistics in 1991. The group met regularly from 1991-97 to review recommendations of the formal review. In 1998 the group changed focus and it now has more strategic terms of reference. Jas McKenzie is the current chairperson. The committee now brings together experts that represent a good cross-section of users of economic statistics.

The terms of reference of the current committee are to recommend priorities for strategic direction and data quality, provide professional guidance, and assure the public that users have been consulted. The guidance and advice has helped to direct the work programme with a particular focus on quality upgrades, such as Statistics New Zealand upgrades of quarterly Balance of Payments, and improving data on wealth and income distributions.

The committee has provided views on the future direction of quarterly Gross Domestic Product income measures, sector income and outlay accounts, and longitudinal business data. Although the Government Statistician does not always accept the advice of the committee, the long-term view of users assists Statistics New Zealand in developing its long-term development strategy. The committee also assists in difficult methodological issues.

The benefit of the Advisory Committee on Economic Statistics is that a core of people provide consistent views and advice to Statistics New Zealand on macro-economics on a long-term basis. The benefits can be seen in the
progress made on the quality of economic statistics. Statistics New Zealand has shown its willingness to listen and to explain when advice is not accepted. It would be more beneficial if meetings were held more regularly than every six months, as the frequency means that timely advice is not always given.

The committee's advice could be supplemented with more cost information enabling more informed priority setting.



Some suggestions from the committee for Statistics New Zealand include:

• Act as a champion for improvement in statistical services and quality across all government agencies.
• Develop a strategy for the measurement of services.
• Coordinate consultation with other advisory groups and consultation with a wider group of users.
• Put minutes of advisory committee meetings on the web.
• Set priorities by ascertaining what the growth sector is and prioritise by importance rather than randomly (eg review the move of the annual Household Economic Survey and Agriculture Survey to three-yearly cycles).
• Provide better information on data and methodologies, particularly blended data.

An official statistical office needs to measure an accumulation of things over time, including what is changing and what is relevant to the service's transactions.

Surveys are becoming more intrusive, which is leading to non-response. Change is producing the need for new measures and an expectation of greater data integrity. Developments and priority setting should not focus on short-term policy needs but should look at future social and economic trends.
 

It is suggested that new measures be developed to measure the following:

• Characteristics and work status of migrants.
• Information on income dynamics, which will partially be met by a longitudinal survey of income dynamics, has been made more difficult with the reduction in the annual Household Economic Survey.
• Dynamics of change, ie how people get to where they are, not just where they are.
• Temporary and seasonal casual work.
• The transition between education and employment and employment and retirement.
• Children's well being and international comparisons.
• Regional data and more information on families, communities, ethnic groups and values for which there is a growing interest.

Haami questioned the extent to which Statistics New Zealand is committed to not only measuring the deprivation gap but also to its obligation to protect Māori Tohunga (ie the Māori language).

He noted that a framework paper provides information to Māori on tackling the disparity gap. There is little emphasis on measuring the distribution gap. More measures on distribution of resources to population groups are required.

Statistics New Zealand has been building on work by Whetu Wereta. Most of the work on the protection of language has been externally funded. Census and Māori Language Survey questionnaires are available in the Māori Language. Many social surveys now have an oversample of Māori to provide better quality information for Māori.

Gordon suggested that the Household Economic Survey coincide with the census because he feels the data that relates to holiday homes for census households is important. What is the likelihood of obtaining data on Internet sales and retail spending by non-households?

Ian replied that questions on household Internet sales are being asked in the current Household Economic Survey. The Ministry of Commerce and Statistics New Zealand are currently developing a survey of businesses which should be available next year.

What are the challenges that central government agencies face in analysing statistics especially with respect to regional data?

The problems relate to the fact that Statistics New Zealand has largely a national focus. Regional data, particularly in the economic area, is often a by-product of national surveys. The main problem is that businesses do not operate regionally, ie financial information is not produced regionally. Biases may creep in when attempting to model regional data. Statistics New Zealand is investing in a number of model regional outputs such as unemployment and estimates of regional expenditure from the HES. The census provides a wealth of information about households and the self-employed. Taxation data (eg GST sales) provides valuable insights into expenditure patterns.

It is difficult to get financial information. The laptops for household surveys should improve timeliness. Trends in data may be disrupted during the upgrading of economic surveys. Statistics New Zealand should provide more information about relevance of data as this is difficult to maintain.

Statistics New Zealand should be concentrating on measuring emerging industries to ensure that bias is minimised.

Systems of measurement are rooted in an industrial society. All sectors need to be measured accurately. New measures for specific sectors must be balanced with measures for existing sectors. Fundamental statistics on these areas cannot be ignored. The advice from the Advisory Committee on Economic Statistics is to concentrate on long-term trends that drive and shape the economy. There is a need to decide where emerging industries fit.

When working on family profiles at a local or regional level it was difficult to get data. A lot of new policies are needed to track information at a lower level This leads to issues of resourcing. Is it better to spread resources and skills to a local level (ie data is not collected by Statistics New Zealand which is a national organisation)?

John Albertson
Retail Merchants Association of New Zealand speaking on behalf of Business User Group

John said that the business user community needs to understand what statistical outputs are produced and that they can republish statistics if the source (Statistics New Zealand) is acknowledged.

Suggestions for improvements include:

• Government agencies should use the same company identifiers for each company. The multiplicity of company identifiers makes analysis and matching of datasets difficult.
• Improve the quality of information in the agriculture and fishing industries and use product codes rather than ANZSIC codes.
• Improve the HES frequency or alternatively expand the sample size.
• Statistics New Zealand could raise its profile by ensuring that users understand that they can republish data as long as Statistics New Zealand is acknowledged as a source.
• Statistics New Zealand needs to keep up with developments, not just technological but also new markets. (Businesses have wider industry resources and networks which could be made available for statistical developments.)
• Although Statistics New Zealand consults on a regular basis with users, six-monthly is not often enough. Business can provide a commercial perspective.

Increasing local accountability requires better data. Three questions are:

• Why does central government only collect national data?
• Why does central government have access to unit record data while local government does not?
• Why does Statistics New Zealand only collect data with national priorities rather than for a particular region? Regions can have different statistical needs.

Helen Stott
Statistics New Zealand

Community capability will be improved by filling the gaps on linkages for policy analysis. Growing use of the website is making access to statistics less costly. As it is difficult for all to have access to the web, paper copies continue to be produced. Statistics New Zealand provides a free information service to libraries and on the web. It also provides training for community users. Feedback shows that services are appreciated.

It is recognised that more information on sub-populations is required.

There is a need to expand analytical series and develop a strategy for ensuring that information reaches the widest audience.

Seven months ago, Cabinet ordered the development of a framework for enhancing community capability. Community capacity-building generates well-being. The framework recognised that there was an inadequate community capacity-building process for Pacific Island communities.

Government agencies are working together with Pacific communities in the North Shore, central Auckland, south west Auckland, Hamilton, Porirua and Christchurch areas. The framework allows Pacific peoples to identify needs and resource allocation, and it works within community networks. In the long term, this should reduce Pacific peoples' reliance on government funding.

Cabinet is about to receive strategies on education, employment, housing, health, police, youth offending. Communities are best placed to develop local strategy. Reliable time series information is needed for each area to indicate the impact of initiatives. The census is the best source of data, at the moment, with few regional statistics available. Ideally, resources allocation should be spent on improving strategies for small areas, confronting administrative data, helping communities with integrating their own information, and facilitating community access (eg collate administrative data by working with other agencies).

Greater access is needed. Pacific communities need to know what is available and where, have a one stop shop, small area data and hard copy output. Statistics New Zealand should promote best practice and ensure that links exist between national programmes and local initiatives. It should also monitor and evaluate data, improve quality, monitor national well-being at the national level, and monitor local response to national initiatives.

Social statistics are in the second tier of what Statistics New Zealand does because they are non-business and non-government sector. Social services including the NZCSS wish to be directly involved in what is measured and how this is analysed.

The community doesn't know what is available and does not have the experience or the resource capability to analyse data. Statistics largely reflect the needs of the main government agencies, and communities tend to get involved when data is being analysed. There should be forums held around NZ every six months and education and information campaigns for non-government groups. Advice and support for community agencies should be provided so they can carry out their own research.

Issues affecting statistical users in the social services are:

• There is still a need for hard copy information as not all users have computers or a skill in IT technology.
• There is a need for a clearing house that provides information on what is available, accessibility of data, and methods of analysis. Local agents could fulfil this function.
• A lot of information is collected from the community but is not always effectively used.
• They need an ongoing interactive relationship with Statistics New Zealand.

Speakers refer to a need for Statistics New Zealand to help communities to do their own research. However, too many information requests from some communities could lead to lower response rates, and hence threaten the quality of information of all types.

Social services do not necessarily want help to run their own surveys, but want discussion on what is done officially. An interactive approach, perhaps fewer surveys, and assistance in analysing what is available, would be useful.

There is a need to record anecdotal evidence in a way that will be officially recognised.

The Massey Conference called for a transfer of skills to the community. Statistics New Zealand needs to listen to what is being called for, look at funding possibilities, and put up a good case for developments.

Community capability can involve central matters, as well as local. There is a limited amount of data on the web and a lack of long time series. Are hard copy year books sent annually to universities?

Information should be archived on the web - but paper copies will not become obsolete. It is acknowledged that longer time series should be on the web.

Statistics New Zealand should take on a leadership role. There is a Samoan proverb "leadership given through service".

Would like a hard copy year book to be printed each year.

Brian Pink
Government Statistician

The conference has highlighted a number of messages for Statistics New Zealand. Issues affecting statistical users in the social services are:

• It is evident that Statistics New Zealand cannot work independently of users.
• A major contribution could be to build community capacity by providing training, tools and knowledge to enable communities to help themselves.
• There is a need for information below the national level.
• There is a leadership role for Statistics New Zealand in information systems. As systems are different and access varies, Statistics New Zealand cannot necessarily do all the collections itself. The department needs to consider access and inform users of information, of what is available so as to maximise the use of statistics.

Regarding the issue of unit record data access, there needs to be a balance between ensuring confidentiality and keeping all parties happy. Statistics New Zealand needs to look at how it can help. There are also issues around fitness for purpose. Interaction with user communities is important. The website is not the only way for disseminating statistics. Alternative ways to direct data collection include tapping into existing statistics and reducing burden on providers of data.

Tu said that he was looking forward to seeing how Statistics New Zealand tackles the challenges. He thanked the chairs, presenters, and the audience.

Advisory Committee on Economic Statistics

Jas McKenzie
Geoff Bascand

Advisory Committee on Social Statistics

Maori Statistics Forum

Tu Williams
Ted Douglas
Prof. Mason Durie
Dr Maarire Goodall
Joe Malcolm
Hekia Parata
Dr Paparangi Reid
Whetu Wereta
Rev Tom Whittaker

Regional User Group

David Lindsey

Business User Group

John Albertson
Wendy Stockwell
Ross Beaven
Emma O'Sullivan
Fergus McLean
Graeme Webb
Peter Crawford
Jim O'Neill
Graeme Wilson
Loto Foa Fia

George Barker
Penny Fenwick
Prue Hyman
John Lepper
Nick Pole
Ian Pool
David Robinson
Neil Scotts
Donald Woolford

Chairpersons

Tu Williams

Speakers

Hon Laila Harré