Courrier des statistiques N11 - 2024

If you enjoyed learning about the history of Official Statistics in issue N9 of the Courrier on the theme of “Official Statistics and Democratic Debate (1946–1987)”, do not hesitate and dive into the second instalment. In a gradual and incremental manner, European construction molded the production of official statistics, a new era of openness and free access started up and new themes emerged.
Faced with an ocean of data available on INSEE’s website, how can it be made easier to navigate through it? This is the topic of the next paper, which highlights the essential metadata, the relevance of a catalogue and the possibilities of accessing “hypercubes”.
The operations lying beneath quantification in the energy sector are then unveiled, at a time of an ever‑increasing focus on the ecological transition.
The other four papers in this issue are parts of a dossier which revolves around the Répertoire statistique des individus et des logements (Statistical Register of Individuals and Dwellings, RÉSIL).
It starts out with an overall presentation of the RÉSIL project, describing its guiding principles. The second paper reveals the consultation process undertaken by INSEE, to ensure the legitimacy of this register and to respond to legal and ethical issues. Two steps of the RÉSIL process required special attention. Thus, the third paper of the dossier deals with record linkage: purposes, methodology, implementation and quality assessment. Finally, the last paper delves into an explanation of the ARC (accueil‑réception‑contrôle (Receipt, Acceptance, Control)) tool: initially applied to the déclaration sociale nominative (Nominative Social Declaration, DSN), it has been applied more broadly for the RÉSIL project.

Courrier des statistiques
Paru le :Paru le06/01/2026
Olivier Lefebvre, Manuel Soulier and Thomas Tortosa
Courrier des statistiques- January 2026
Consulter

The Receipt of Administrative Data: a Structural Process

Olivier Lefebvre, Manuel Soulier and Thomas Tortosa

Given the growing importance of administrative data in the statistical production process, rationalising the way it is processed is becoming a major challenge.

The work starts as soon as the data arrive! They are received as configured according to their administrative uses, thus requiring to transform them into statistical data, i.e. data organised according to the statistical units of interest (individuals, households, establishments, employers, etc.) and statistical concepts. This phase can be pooled and "decoupled" from downstream statistical processes, which provides greater scope for adaptation, but also for sharing information. The challenge is to set up a system that combines adaptability, performance, security and traceability.

INSEE has adopted this approach with the ARC (Accueil-Réception-Contrôle – receipt, acceptance, control) tool, based on a demanding use case: the monthly processing of around 2.5 million nominative social declarations. By gradually extending its functions and performance to adapt to new data and new constraints, ARC is now an essential part of INSEE's statistical production system.