Online Program

Checking the Usefulness and Initial Quality of Administrative Data

Keywords: Administrative Data, Quality

Work Package 2 (WP2) of the ESSnet on the use of administrative and accounts data for business statistics aims to provide guidelines for NSIs examining the quality of administrative data as input for the statistical production process.

These guidelines touch different aspects of the process of acquiring data and preparing them for further use. A checklist to assist NSIs when investigating the potential usefulness of administrative data, recommendations on what to discuss with the administrative data holder and how to organize the handling of these usually large sets of data, are part of the work package.

Efforts are also needed to ensure the quality of the data, because very often the administrative data are not available in the form needed for statistics. This WP looks closer into methods of detecting and resolving quality issues at the initial stage of receiving the data. After testing these methods in different settings, a systematic data-centric approach will be presented. Guidelines on using domain knowledge to complement the more generic checks will be provided for VAT and social security data on employment.

The paper will present the provisional results achieved.