This session is addressed to those who shape the direction and culture of organisations producing, disseminating and working with official statistics - chief statisticians, strategists and managers alike. Based on the analyses and recommendations made in the presentations, the session will culminate with the demonstration of a toolkit (published in the Valuing of Official Statistics Report, endorsed at the CES in June, 2022) designed to facilitate the transition from largely production-based approaches, such as NSI metrics around quality, towards customer-centred measures of the value of official statistics. 

 The world is awash with data and NSIs are under increasing pressure to produce evidence of the impact of official statistics while the market for data and statistics widens, and the gap in the quality of statistics narrows. In their efforts to demonstrate the value of official statistics, the question that NSIs may benefit from asking is whose perception of value is important here and what exactly is being measured? 

 The participants propose a shift in the direction of how NSIs understand and measure their success. Instead of gathering individual metrics that strive to quantify how NSI outputs are distinctive and important, NSIs should focus on how they understand what users value, and how they are consistently delivering that value. NSIs are encouraged not to lose sight of their users and nonusers in their position as customers in the larger market of data and statistics. 

 To consistently win their preference, this session brings a suggestion to NSIs to reorient their focus from tracking production performance, to fine-tuning their understanding of what customers need. Some NSIs may have relied on user-satisfaction surveys for this purpose; however, these do not provide an all-encompassing customer perception of value: they are limited to reflections of experiences after engaging with a product (Sweeney and Soutar, 2001). 

Our proposal consists of a collaborative session between: 

 - The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), from the United Kingdom, who will discuss their vision for statistics serving the public good, and 

 - Members of the Conference of European Statisticians Task Force to Test and Develop the Framework for Measuring the Value of Official Statistics (whose work was endorsed by the CES in June 2022) from Hungary, New Zealand and the UK. 

The session will provide, among others: 

 - Insight into what it means for statistics to serve the public good, based on research with members of the general public 

 - A conceptual analysis of value in relation to objective and subjective measures of the properties of official statistics. 

 - Recommendations for NSIs to reassess the value they provide customers through their products and services, and on a wider scale, the extent to which their strategies are NSI- or customer-based. 

- A toolkit to facilitate NSIs transitioning from production- to customer-centric strategies. 

Proposed participants of the session Chair: 

Ed Humpherson, Director General for the United Kingdom’s Office for Statistics Regulation 

List of presenters: 

1. Dr Mary Louise Cowan, Office for Statistics Regulation, United Kingdom 

2. Andrea Ordaz-Németh, Hungarian Central Statistical Office, Hungary 

3. Angela Potter, Office for National Statistics, United Kingdom 

4. Giles Sullivan, Business consultant, New Zealand 5. Fiona Willis-Nuñez, UNECE 

Selected references 

Bakker, Carl (2021). Value of the New Zealand Census: August 2021. Available at: https://www.stats.govt.nz/reports/value-of-the-new-zealand-census-august-2021  

Bruce Hoag, Cary L. Cooper (2006). Managing Value-Based Organizations: It’s Not What You Think. 

Cabré, Maria Teresa (1992). Terminology: theory, methods and applications. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 

 Cowan, Mary Louise (2022). What does statistics serving the public good mean? Evidence from the UK’s statistics regulator. Available at https://q2022.stat.gov.lt/scientific-information/papers-presentations/session-31 

 Chang, C., & Dibb, S. (2012). “Reviewing and Conceptualising customer-perceived value” Marketing Review, 12(3) pp. 253-274. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1362/146934712X13420906885395 

 Conference of European Statisticians (2020). Task Force to Test and Further Develop the Framework for Measuring the Value of Official Statistics: Review of Progress and the Way Forward. Available at: https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/stats/documents/ece/ces/bur/2020/October/08_Value_of_official_stati stics_approved.pdf Conference of European Statisticians (2021). 

Follow-up work on Core Values of Official Statistics. Available at: https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/14_Core%20Values_approved.pdf # 

 Holbrook, Morris B. (2002) Consumer Value: A Framework for Analysis and Research. Routledge, London. 

Inter-Agency Expert Group – Sustainable Development Goals (2019). Sustainable Development Goal Indicator 16.6.2 on the Proportion of the population satisfied with their last experience of public services. Available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/files/meetings/iaeg-sdgs-meeting- 09/7e.%2016.6.2%20UNDP.pdf

 King, J. E., & McLure, M. (2014). “History of the Concept of Value,” Economics Discussion / Working Papers 14-06, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics. 

 Krizman, I. and Tissot, B. (2021), Data Governance: Issues for the National Statistical System, IFC Bulletin, 54, pp. 1–27. Available at: https://www.bis.org/ifc/publ/ifcb54.pdf 

 Kumar, V., & Reinartz, W. (2016). Creating Enduring Customer Value. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 36– 68. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/44134973 

Lateral Economics (2019). Valuing the Australian Census. Available at: https://www.abs.gov.au/census/about-census/value-census 

Parasuraman, A, Ziethaml, V. and Berry, L.L. (1988). SERVQUAL: A Multiple-Item Scale for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of Service Quality. Journal of Retailing, 62(1) pp. 22- 29.  

Quality Declaration of the European Statistical System, 2016. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-catalogues/-/ks-02-17-428 Sweeney 

Jillian C. and Soutar, N. Geoffrey. Consumer perceived value: The development of a multiple item scale.Journal of Retailing 77(2):203-220 2001. 

 Temmerman, Rita (2000). Towards New Ways of Terminology Description: The Sociocognitive Approach. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:John Benjamins. 

 United Nations (2014), Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. Available at: https://unstats.un.org/unsd/dnss/hb/E-fundamental%20principles_A4-WEB.pdf

Organiser: Mrs Angela Potter

Chair: Mr Ed Humpherson

Speaker: Mrs Angela Potter

Speaker: Ms Sofi Nickson

Speaker: Ms Andrea Ordaz-Németh

Speaker: Giles Sullivan

Speaker: Mrs Fiona Willis-Nunez