Governing Bodies

INSEE, whose missions are defined by the Ouvrir dans un nouvel ongletDecree of 14 June 1946, is responsible for coordinating the statistical methods, means and work of public bodies and private organisations subsidised or controlled by the State. Within the French Official Statistical Service (SSP) as defined by Ouvrir dans un nouvel ongletFrench Act No 51-711 of 7 June 1951 on Legal Obligation, Coordination and Confidentiality in the Field of Statistics and comprising INSEE and the Ministerial Statistical Offices (SSM), the Director-General of INSEE chairs the Statistical Programme Committee, which includes all the Directors of the SSM and is responsible for defining the programme of future statistical work.
The focus of the coordination work is on a range of topics of common interest to the SSP as a whole, whether of a strategic or technical nature. Among other matters, topics relate to quality: European peer review, harmonisation of rules on embargoed access to publications, development of quality action plans in relevant departments, etc.

The coordination role of INSEE was further enhanced under Ouvrir dans un nouvel ongletEuropean Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 (as amended) , which constitutes the European Statistical Law. The regulation specifies that “The national statistical authority designated by each Member State as the body having the responsibility for coordinating all activities at national level for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics (the NSI) shall act as the contact point for the Commission (Eurostat) on statistical matters.”.

The general coordination of the SSP is also ensured through staff mobility between its various constituent bodies, thus contributing to the quality of statistical output within the SSP. The service is based on a harmonised technical and intellectual framework rooted in the common training delivered to staff by a small number of schools and by a standardised system for managing the careers of a significant proportion of management and technical staff. The management staff of the SSM often include INSEE managers.

In practice, the coordination of the statistical system is also ensured by governing bodies adapted to the core requirements of the European Code of Practice, providing a means of identifying statistical needs and of ensuring the professional independence of the SSP.

These bodies include the National Council for Statistical Information (Ouvrir dans un nouvel ongletCnis) and the Ouvrir dans un nouvel ongletOfficial Statistical Authority (ASP).

Governed by Ouvrir dans un nouvel onglet Decree No 2009-318 of 20 March 2009, the CNIS ensures cooperation between the producers and users of official statistics to identify the needs of actors with the aim of understanding society in the social and economic fields. On this basis, and by incorporating requests originating either from the European Union or from French institutions, the Official Statistical Service defines its work programme, informs the CNIS thereof and carries it out.

Created under Article 144 of the Ouvrir dans un nouvel ongletLaw on the Modernisation of the Economy of 4 August 2008, the ASP ensures compliance with the principles of professional independence in the design, production and dissemination of official statistics as well as the principles of objectivity, impartiality, relevance and quality of statistical output. The authority ensures that French official statistics meet the requirements of the European Statistics Code of Practice.

The institutional framework is completed by three committees of a more technical nature: the Official Statistics Quality Label Committee, the Statistical Confidentiality Committee and the Committee for Litigation on Mandatory Statistical Surveys.

The Ouvrir dans un nouvel ongletOfficial Statistics Quality Label Committee erifies the technical quality of the surveys approved for inclusion in the official statistics survey programme, which is defined every quarter by the Ministry for the Economy. It may also be requested by the ASP or the CNIS to audit the quality of statistics with a view to granting them a quality label.

The Ouvrir dans un nouvel ongletStatistical Confidentiality Committee includes the producers of statistics, users and representatives of individual data providers and is responsible for advising government agencies on requests for access to individual data for research or economic evaluation purposes.

The Litigation Committee for compulsory statistical surveys is consulted prior to imposing fines on non-respondents to mandatory statistical surveys.

In France, the Official Statistical Authority is responsible for ensuring that French official statistics comply with the European Statistics Code of Practice. Each year, it issues a report on the implementation of the official statistics work programme, in accordance with European recommendations. The report, which is submitted to Parliament and made publicly available, constitutes the progress report referred to in Article 11, paragraph 4 of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 as amended.

To ensure compliance with the principles of the Code of Practice and meet the recommendations of the first peer review conducted by Eurostat, INSEE has put in place annual quality action plans since 2006. A quality monitoring committee was responsible for overseeing their proper implementation until 2015.

In 2015, the implementation framework of the quality policy was amended to take into account the priorities defined following the second peer review: enhanced quality monitoring within the Official Statistical Service, introduction of a quality assurance framework covering all statistical output, and systematic implementation of quality management initiatives across the board. Created in 2015, the Strategic Quality Committee is now the governing body responsible for defining the quality strategy of the Official Statistical Service and for overseeing its implementation. It ensures compliance with the commitments made, based on the peer review and the recommendations of the ASP.

Within INSEE, the Strategic Quality Committee relies on a Quality Unit responsible for overseeing the action plan defined on the basis of the peer review. It also provides the Official Statistical Service with a methodological framework and operational support for the implementation of self-assessment reviews. In addition, it supports professionalisation in the use of metadata by developing tools for the description of statistical activities and the release of documentation and metadata in accordance with international standards.

Under Ouvrir dans un nouvel ongletRegulation (EU) 2015/759 amending Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics, the Director-General (DG) of INSEE must hold relevant information to ensure the quality of the European statistics produced within the Official Statistical Service (SSP).

To this end, the Institute provides guidelines to the Ministerial Statistical Offices (SSM) forming the quality strategy 2022-2027 of the SSP and aimed at ensuring the quality of their structural statistics in accordance with the principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice. These guidelines constitute a reference document for the SSP in the area of quality.