Abstract

The Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics were adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission in 1994 and are now universally agreed as a comprehensive framework for the mission of National Statistical Offices. It gives a set of fundamental values and principles, which NSOs and other data producers should have for the public to have trust in the official statistics they produce. In other words, the fundamental principles are a set of governing values developed by the United Nations to ensure robust and independent statistics from the world’s national statistics offices.
According to their relevance, these principles should be treated as a key step in creating a solid policy platform for the governing of National Statistics Offices. The principles are not designed to replace legislation, but to operate alongside comprehensive statistics legislation as a powerful tool to ensure the robust operation of the national statistics systems, and to assure users of the transparency of official information. Further, the principles will provide guidance to, and inform discussions between, the national statistical systems, government, data users, and respondents, who are the main players in the official statistics production.
Statistics Centre – Abu Dhabi (SCAD) is the main authorized body concerned with official statistics in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. It is responsible for the collection, classification, storage, analysis, and dissemination of official statistics covering social, demographic, economic, and environmental indicators. It has considered the fundamental principles of official statistics as a foundation stone in producing the Emirate’s official statistics, to satisfy the highest level of data quality standards and to gain the trust of the public with its statistical production. In this context a set of legislations, policies, actions, and procedures were undertaken to serve the implementation of the fundamental principles of official statistics in SCAD. In addition to, different working frames and technical documents were developed, such as the assessment quality frame, a confidentiality policy, SCAD’s code of practice, SCAD’s code of ethics, etc.
This article will discuss the institutional, organizational, and technical activities that have been undertaken by SCAD to comply with the fundamental principles of official statistics. It will highlight the principles and implementations adopted by SCAD and discuss their impact and effectiveness in securing the trust of users of these official statistics.
Keywords: Fundamental principles, official statistics, Quality.