National Quality Assurance Framework

Quality of official statistics is a central concern for all national statistical offices. A number of countries and international organizations have developed detailed concepts and procedures of quality control. Whilst there is considerable overlap in these various quality frameworks, as of yet no generic national quality assurance framework (NQAF) exists which could be utilized by a country to introduce new quality assurance procedures or to systematize those it currently uses. Such a generic NQAF would have to be based on a broad consensus regarding the notion of quality and build on the experiences developed so far.

As a first step in the direction of developing a generic NQAF, the UN Statistical Commission has put the issue of developing an internationally agreed national quality assurance framework on its agenda for the 2010 session. A paper has been drafted by Statistics Canada to facilitate the discussion.

This webpage displays the Draft Report on a National Quality Assurance Framework (English and French versions) and invites review and comments by national statistical offices and international organizations around the world. The comments received on the Draft Report are listed below, followed by background documents on national and international approaches to data quality assurance.

For comments - À commenter :                     Draft Report on National Quality Assurance Framework                     Ébauche du Rapport sur le Cadre national d'assurance de la qualité                     Letter from the Director of UNSD - English, Français

Comments received on the Draft Report on a National Quality Assurance Framework
(All files are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format )
Country or International Organization	Date Received
Australia	17 September 2009
China, Macao SAR	19 October 2009
Egypt	25 October 2009
Estonia	2 October 2009
Eurostat	28 September 2009
Finland	29 September 2009
France	23 October 2009
Hungary	22 September 2009
International Monetary Fund	9 October 2009
Mongolia	5 November 2009
Netherlands	8 October 2009
New Zealand	15 September 2009
Norway	19 November 2009
Qatar	28 September 2009
Slovak Republic	23 September 2009
Switzerland	10 November 2009
Thailand	2 October 2009
Turkey	17 September 2009
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)	28 September 2009
United States	8 October 2009

BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS

NATIONAL APPROACHES

• Australia
• ABS Data Quality Framework, May 2009
• ABS Internal Quality Manual
• Reference Papers

• Netherlands
  • Object Oriented Quality Management
  • The creation and application of a new quality management model (v6, 10 August 2009)

• New Zealand
  • Quality and Risk Assessment Framework

• Norway
  • Systematic quality work in Statistics Norway

• United States
  • Statistical Standards Manual (Bureau of Transportation Statistics)
  • Performance Measurement: A Technical Perspective (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

INTERNATIONAL APPROACHES

• European Central Bank
  • Quality Assurance Procedures within the ECB Statistical Function

• Eurostat
  • Quality Assurance Frameworks - Progress report (prepared by Eurostat)
    
  • International Statistical Processes Assessment Checklist (ISPAC) (version 3.0)
    
  • Guidelines for the implementation of quality assurance frameworks for international and supranational organisations compiling statistics (Nov. 2009)
    

• International Monetary Fund
• Data Quality Assessment Framework