Principle 11: Relevance  European Statistics meet the needs of users

Procedures are in place to consult users, to monitor the relevance and value of existing statistics in meeting their needs, and to consider and anticipate their emerging needs and priorities. Innovation is pursued to continuously improve statistical output.

The National Council for Statistical Information (Ouvrir dans un nouvel ongletCNIS) plays a key role in verifying the relevance of survey projects submitted by the French Official Statistical Service, ensuring the usefulness of the statistics and that they are adequate for needs, as well as in identifying needs that are not covered and directing the work programme.

INSEE strives to measure user satisfaction, the relevance of existing statistics and the alignment of dissemination products with needs via a multi-layered system including user satisfaction surveys, monitoring of questions asked by users, monitoring of social networks and the press, meetings with national and regional public stakeholders, professional federations, etc. These actions also aim to anticipate or monitor, as closely as possible, the emergence of new needs, thereby working alongside the CNIS.

The website insee.fr receives special attention. Its redesign in 2016 made users the central focus, with a view to facilitating access to all of INSEE’s output. The ways in which users navigate the website (using the tree structure or the search engine) are studied and consultation statistics are produced and disseminated within the INSEE services. This allows continuous improvement of the website.

Priority needs are being met and reflected in the work programme.

The National Council for Statistical Information (Ouvrir dans un nouvel ongletCNIS) plays a leading role in identifying priority needs. The opinions expressed by the committees of the National Council for Statistical Information (CNIS) regarding the alignment of the draft annual work programs of the French Official Statistical Service with needs are taken into account by INSEE and the Ministerial Statistical Offices (MSOs). In addition, the medium-term guidelines defined by the National Council for Statistical Information (CNIS), as well as the specific opinions expressed by the various CNIS working groups on specific topics, are used by the French Official Statistical Service to identify needs to be met in future work.

Moreover, needs are directly determined by the French Official Statistical Service. Requests from public stakeholders, whether regional or national, can thus lead to survey or study projects.

Furthermore, Official Statistics regularly demonstrate their capacity to react and adapt, as was the case during the Covid-19 crisis of spring 2020 with the urgent launch of exceptional surveys.

User satisfaction is monitored on a regular basis and is systematically followed up.

INSEE carries out surveys of its users in order to measure their satisfaction as well as their possible needs. They are carried out according to different methods: electronic questionnaire on the site, email, focus group, etc. These surveys may relate to the image of INSEE, its website, specific statistical operations, publications, etc. They can be addressed to specific audiences. The results of these surveys are disseminated on insee.fr.

The Image among INSEE website users survey (“Image inseenautes”) is carried out annually among insee.fr website users. The electronic questionnaire, which can be accessed on all pages of the insee.fr website, covers the respondents’ opinion of INSEE, the image they have of the Institute in relation to around ten items (usefulness and reliability of the data, their reflection of reality, its independence from political power, etc.), the credibility they assign to eight indicators and their confidence in the economic and social figures for France.

Periodically, the Image among the general public survey (“Image grand public”) is conducted on similar themes, but this time by questioning a representative sample of the adult French population and not only users of the insee.fr website.