Improvement Actions Ireland

Recommendation 7

The Central Statistics Office should pursue the Pathfinder programme to continue providing insights into the potential use of integrated data for statistics and policy analysis and thereby convince public sector data holders of the benefits of a National Data Infrastructure with a view to maintaining momentum in this direction. (Improvement-related: ES CoP, Indicators 9.4, 9.5, 9.6 and 15.3).

Current situation:

CSO will retain its focus on Pathfinder Projects, with a focus on health, education, equality, and housing. These projects have increased the profile of CSO as a provider of analytical services through the provision of aggregated data to policy makers and demonstrated an agility and flexibility in how the CSO does its business. As an additional support to Public Service Bodies (PSBs), the new 'Data Science and Statistical Support Unit' will provide additional short-term analytical capacity in Departments who are either facing ‘crisis’ situations or are developing complex multi-dimensional policy proposals. 

Improvement sub-action 7.1:

Establishment of a new 'Data Science and Statistical Support Unit'. A list of Pathfinder Projects will be formalised and communicated to stakeholders on an annual basis. The new Data Science and Statistical Support Unit will have additional resources assigned, to be either loaned to Departments for short periods (e.g., three-months) or to provide ‘Pathfinder’-type supports from within CSO, including ‘dashboard’ reporting. The first two projects are a loan statistician to the Department responsible for Ukrainian refugees and a CSO based resource to support a major policy initiative in the Department of Social Protection.

Deadline:

Q4 2024.

Responsible institution for improvement sub-action 7.1:

Central Statistics Office .

Improvement sub-action 7.2:

Regular report on projects on hand and potential new projects. Reported to the Management Board only on a quarterly basis. Implementation of projects and resources to be agreed upon by the Management Board.

Deadline:

Q1 2024 (quarterly afterwards).

Responsible institution for improvement sub-action 7.2:

Central Statistics Office.

Recommendation 8

The Central Statistics Office should consider ways to reach consensual agreements with holders of privately held data on access to such data in order to benefit from their potential for statistical innovation and to reduce the burden on traditional providers of information. (Improvement-related: ES CoP, Indicators 2.4 and 8.6).

Current situation:

The revision of Regulation 223 will facilitate more data access for CSO, in addition to the sources currently available under the Memorandum of Understanding and voluntary arrangements. The difficulties with obtaining sustainable access to privately held data were discussed extensively during the Peer Review. While data availability improved temporarily during the COVID-19 crisis, this was not sustained subsequently. Also, the data provided was generally in aggregate format which cannot be integrated with other data sources.

Improvement sub-action 8.1:

Identify key datasets, creating an initial list of high value private datasets to get access to, in addition to the those already received. 

Deadline:

Q4 2024.

Responsible institution for improvement sub-action 8.1:

Central Statistics Office.

Improvement sub-action 8.2:

Develop acquisition strategies for each of these datasets, including pilot arrangements and similar short-term actions.

Deadline:

Q4 2025.

Responsible institution for improvement sub-action 8.2:

Central Statistics Office.

Improvement sub-action 8.3:

Analyse the revised EU legislation and consider ways to integrate/take it up for national legislation or MoU with holders of private data.

Deadline:

Q4 2024.

Responsible institution for improvement sub-action 8.3:

Central Statistics Office.