Online Program

Redesign of the Chain of Economic Statistics in the Netherlands

Keywords: architecture, efficiency, administrative burden, quality, economic growth

In 2006, Statistics Netherlands started the ambitious HEcS+ redesign program for the chain of statistics relating to economic growth. It has three main goals: increasing efficiency, reducing administrative burden and improving quality.

Major innovations in the HEcS+ program include an integrated approach for large enterprise groups, use of VAT data for turnover estimates, sophisticated new tools for analysis of intermediate results and automated balancing methods for National accounts. Important parts of the HEcS+ program have been implemented in 2010 and 2011, the remainder will follow in 2012.

The HEcS+ program has benefited greatly from a comprehensive program architecture. Thus, integral management of the development program and scoping of individual projects were simplified. Moreover, a new and efficient organisational structure for economic statistics has been created along the lines of the HEcS+ architecture.

This contribution aims at giving a broad overview of the HEcS+ program, covering both the ideas and their implementation. Not only the successes, but also the false steps that were -almost inevitably- taken will be presented.