Abstract

Over the years, official statistics have shown increasing attention to the strong need for statistical information referring to sub-municipal levels. These data are useful for spatial analyses, business objectives and social, economic and environmental decision-making processes. In particular, users demand data with greater frequency, consistency and richness of information detail.
In this context, the Italian National Statistical Institute (Istat) has been engaged in a modernisation process that includes a significant revision of the production processes for official statistics. In particular, two important pillars of Istat's new organisational and production structure should be mentioned: the construction of statistical registers and the Integrated Register System (IRS); the design and implementation of the Permanent Population and Housing Census (PPHC).
The development of statistical methodologies and the adoption of advanced IT solutions represented the main topic to integrate administrative data with the results of sample surveys and to geocode information at a very fine level over the territory (enumeration areas or addresses). This has made it possible to define an integrated and georeferenced database for the territory, rich in annually renewable information on the main demographic, social and economic variables of individuals, household types and some characteristics of dwellings.
The new process meets high quality standards, allows for a high timeliness in the release of outputs and guarantees maximum data consistency. The results offer new perspectives for analysing the main socio-economic phenomena of the population at sub-municipal scale, both on spatial and temporal dimensions. It is possible to focus attention on specific issues (e.g. “household deprivation”) through the definition and calculation of appropriate indicators.
Istat is also planning the release of sub-municipal data and the design of a user-friendly platform for the dissemination and representation of results using GIS tools.