Reducing Respondent Burden

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Experience

Integrated Economic Statistics / Joint FSO-UNSD work session, 6-8 June 2007, Bern, Switzerland

Presentation by Rob Edwards (IMF) on behalf of the Australian Bureau of Statistics

Introduction

• ABS has had considerable success in reducing respondent burden in recent years

• These have been achieved through– Increased use of administrative data–Smarter methodologies

• Most focus has been on business surveys

• Provider load is now about 33% lower than 10 years ago

96/ 97 97/ 98 98/ 99 99/ 00 00/ 01 01/ 02 02/ 03 03/ 04 04/ 05 05/ 06

Year

100

200

300

400

500

600

700'0

00 H

ours

Small businesses Medium and Large businesses All businesses

Unajusted Business Provider Load

Legal and political mandates

• Under the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act 1975 the ABS has a mandate to coordinate statistical activities across government

• 1996 Small Business Deregulation Taskforce–Target of 20% reduction in ABS respondent burden

–Established Statistical Clearing House

–Creation of Business Surveys Charter

• Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) established in 1998

Legal and political mandates (cont)

• Introduction of A New Tax System in 2000– Australian Business Register (ABR)

– Australian Business Number (ABN)

– Business Activity Statement (BAS)

• Income Tax Act amended in 2005 to allow for expanded ABS use of business income tax data

• 2006 Report of Reducing Regulation TF– Standard Business Reporting Initiative (SBR)

• Income Tax Act likely to be amended to allow for expanded ABS use of personal income tax data

Strategic initiatives

• Business Statistics Innovation Program (2002 to 2005)–A significant organisational, technological

and methodological change program

–Several objectives, including “improving provider relations, improved reporting mechanisms and reduced provider load”

–Economic Statistics Data Centre (ESDC) created to give a particular focus to ABS’s business provider issues

Providers

Users

Business Statistics Centres

Responsible for production of regular ABS

outputs

Economic Statistics

Data Centre

Responsible for pre-input editing functions for all

business collections

National Statistical Centres

Responsible for statistical leadership

Regular outputs

Despatch, collection and intensive follow-up Input editing

Strategic relationships

Strategic initiatives (cont)

• Total approach management of relationships with providers

• Provider Integration Management System

• Better targeting of non-response follow-up

• State-of-art call centre for provider contact

• Input Data Warehouse

• New (smarter) estimation systems

• Multi-modal data capture– (use of e-census for 2006 Census)

Examples of the use of administrative data

• Business income tax data

• Business activity statement data

• Australian Business Register data

• Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) data

• Personal income tax data

Issues associated with use of administrative data

• Need for strong relationships

• Risk assessment and mitigation strategies

• Ensuring proper processes in collecting agencies

• Understanding and ensuring data quality–Frameworks to assess quality of admin data

• Metadata, including quality metadata

• National Data Network initiative

Questions