REPORT ON THE EUROSTAT 2019 USER SATISFACTION SURVEY€¦ · The present survey covered four main...

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EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROSTAT Directorate A: Resources Legal affairs; Document management

REPORT ON THE EUROSTAT 2019 USER SATISFACTION SURVEY

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Index

1. Background – about the survey .......................................................................................................... 5

2. Main outcomes ................................................................................................................................... 8

3. Results of the USS 2019 .................................................................................................................... 14

3.1 General information.................................................................................................................... 14

3.1.1 Who uses Eurostat's European statistics? ........................................................................... 14

3.1.2 To do what? ......................................................................................................................... 15

3.2 Information on quality aspects ................................................................................................... 20

3.2.1 What are the perceived quality and user friendliness of Eurostat products? ..................... 20

3.2.2 Overall quality ...................................................................................................................... 22

3.2.3 Timeliness ............................................................................................................................ 25

3.2.4 Completeness ....................................................................................................................... 27

3.2.5 Comparability ....................................................................................................................... 29

3.3 Trust in European statistics ......................................................................................................... 31

3.4 Information on dissemination aspects ....................................................................................... 34

3.4.1 Access to and understanding of European statistics on Eurostat Website ......................... 35

3.4.2 Release calendar .................................................................................................................. 43

3.4.3 Metadata and methodological information ........................................................................ 45

3.4.5 User support ........................................................................................................................ 49

3.5 Overall quality of data and services ............................................................................................ 50

3.6 Comparison with previous survey............................................................................................... 51

4. Messages from the users .................................................................................................................. 52

Annex 1 - Statistical areas ................................................................................................................. 53

Annex 2 - Breakdown of respondents by country of work place...................................................... 54

Annex 3 - Example of calculations for the question on overall quality ............................................ 55

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Index of Charts

Chart 1. Number of survey respondents, 2011 - 2019 ........................................................................... 5

Chart 2. Distribution of respondents by user group, in % ...................................................................... 6

Chart 3. Assessment of overall data quality in 2017 and 2019 .............................................................. 9

Chart 4. Assessment of overall timeliness in 2017 and 2019, in % ....................................................... 10

Chart 5. Assessment of overall completeness in 2017 and 2019, in % ................................................. 10

Chart 6. Assessment of overall comparability in 2017 and 2019 ......................................................... 11

Chart 7. User types, in % ....................................................................................................................... 14

Chart 8. Use of European statistics by statistical domains and user types, in % .................................. 15

Chart 9. Uses of European statistics by user types, in % ...................................................................... 16

Chart 10. Importance of statistics by user types, in % .......................................................................... 16

Chart 11. Importance of statistics for different uses, in % ................................................................... 17

Chart 12. Importance of statistics 2011-2019, in % .............................................................................. 18

Chart 13. Frequency of use by user types, in % .................................................................................... 18

Chart 14. Frequency of use by statistical area, in % ............................................................................. 19

Chart 15. Frequency of use 2011-2019, in % ........................................................................................ 20

Chart 16. Assessment of quality of Eurostat products, in % ................................................................. 21

Chart 17. Assessment of quality of products, 2011-2019, in % ............................................................ 21

Chart 18. Assessment of friendliness of Eurostat products, in % ......................................................... 22

Chart 19. Assessment of overall quality per statistical area, in % ........................................................ 23

Chart 20. Overall data quality 2011-2019, in % .................................................................................... 24

Chart 21. Comparison with other statistical data producers by user types, in % ................................. 24

Chart 22. Assessment of timeliness per statistical area, in % ............................................................... 26

Chart 23. Assessment of overall timeliness in 2011-2019, in % ........................................................... 27

Chart 24. Assessment of completeness of European statistics per statistical area, in % ..................... 28

Chart 25. Assessment of overall completeness in 2011-2019, in % ..................................................... 29

Chart 26. Assessment of comparability of European statistics per statistical area, in % ..................... 30

Chart 27. Assessment of overall comparability in 2011-2019, in % ..................................................... 31

Chart 28. Trust in European statistics by user types, in % .................................................................... 32

Chart 29. Trust in European statistics in 2012-2019, in % .................................................................... 33

Chart 30. Trust in European statistics by importance, in % .................................................................. 33

Chart 31. Assessment of overall quality of European statistics by trust, in % ...................................... 34

Chart 32. User satisfaction with the Eurostat website, in % ................................................................. 35

Chart 33. Assessment of the access to and understanding of European statistics, in % (Is it easy to

access and to understand European statistics?) ................................................................................... 35

Chart 34. Assessment of the Eurostat website content by user types, in % ........................................ 36

Chart 35. Eurostat’s website content 2011-2019, in % ........................................................................ 36

Chart 36. Assessment of technical characteristics of the Eurostat website, in % ................................ 37

Chart 37. Assessment of technical characteristics of Eurostat’s website 2011-2019, in % .................. 38

Chart 38. Assessment of Eurostat’s digital publications and visualisation tools, in % ......................... 39

Chart 39. Users of Eurostat’s digital publications and visualisation tools, in % ................................... 40

Chart 40. Users of Eurostat’s experimental statistics, in % .................................................................. 41

Chart 41. Usefulness of Eurostat’s experimental statistics, in % .......................................................... 42

Chart 42. Assessment of the information on microdata access services on the Eurostat website, in %43

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Chart 43. Assessment of the information on microdata access services on the Eurostat website in

2016 and 2019, in % .............................................................................................................................. 43

Chart 44. Awareness of the release calendar among user types, in % ................................................. 44

Chart 45. Awareness of release calendar 2011-2019, in % .................................................................. 44

Chart 46. Assessment of sufficiency and relevance of information in the release calendar by user

types, in % ............................................................................................................................................. 45

Chart 47. Sufficiency and relevance of information in the release calendar 2011-2019 ..................... 45

Chart 48. Use of metadata by user types, in % ..................................................................................... 46

Chart 49. Usage of metadata 2011-2019 .............................................................................................. 46

Chart 50. Metadata accessibility, in % .................................................................................................. 47

Chart 51. Easiness of access to metadata 2011-2019, in % .................................................................. 47

Chart 52. Assessment of sufficiency of metadata for the different types of users, in % ..................... 48

Chart 53. Sufficiency of metadata 2011-2019, in % .............................................................................. 48

Chart 54. Satisfaction with user support, in % ...................................................................................... 49

Chart 55. Satisfaction with user support 2011-2019 ............................................................................ 49

Chart 56. Overall satisfaction with the quality of the data and services, in % ..................................... 50

Chart 57. Overall quality of data and services 2012-2019, in % ........................................................... 50

Chart 58. Changes in perception of Eurostat's data and services quality, in % .................................... 51

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1. Background – about the survey

Eurostat’s mission is to provide high quality statistics on Europe. In order to measure the

degree to which it meets its obligations towards its users, Eurostat carried out a general User

Satisfaction Survey (USS) over the period of April – July 2019. It was based on the agreed

model questionnaire for the European Statistical System and was designed to obtain a better

knowledge about users, their needs and satisfaction with the services provided by Eurostat.

The first survey of this kind was held in 2007 and then repeated in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013,

2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. The USS 2019 is, therefore, the 10th of a general nature.

The present survey covered four main aspects:

information on types of users and uses of European statistics,

quality aspects,

trust in European statistics,

dissemination of statistics.

The survey was carried out online, with a link on Eurostat website. It was launched on 29

April and was open until 9 July. To guarantee a high participation Eurostat used to send an

invitation to all users registered on the Eurostat website. However, due to the entry into force

of the new Regulation 2018/1725 on personal data protection in the EU institutions1, Eurostat

had to clean the list of users that were registered on the Eurostat website and to revise the

way they were contacted. The list of users of Eurostat website now includes only about 24

000 users which could be contacted instead of 172 000 in 2017 and this had a big influence

on the number of responses. More channels to advertise the survey were also used (Facebook,

Collaboration in Research and Methodology for Official Statistics (CROS) portal) but this

could not compensate for the huge reduction of the number of users who could be contacted

directly. Moreover, the invitation was sent to 600 researchers, who are using Eurostat’s

microdata. In the end Eurostat received 1009 replies, compared to the 3000 – 4800 of the

previous editions of the survey.

Chart 1. Number of survey respondents, 2011 - 2019

Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys

1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32018R1725

4247

3101 3279

48394447

3038

4558

1009

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

5000

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32018R1725

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The questionnaire was similar to the one used until 2016, allowing for a comparative analysis

over time. The questionnaire used in 2017 was a shorter one, focusing only on the quality of

the data and services provided by Eurostat. Changes were made in the sections where the

situation has evolved since 2016, as in the questions concerning the dissemination products.

However, on top of having far less replies, the distribution of the respondents among different

categories of users was also different from the past, due to the changes in the procedures to

inform them about the survey. The most notable change was a larger share of respondents

working in the European Commission or in other European and international institutions.

This makes the results somewhat less comparable.

Chart 2. Distribution of respondents by user group, in %

Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction

surveys

When analysing the results, users were grouped differently than in the past, so results cannot

be compared by user groups but only on an overall level. Such change was implemented to

follow the outcome of the Digital communication, User analytics and Innovative products

(DIGICOM) project2. Users were classified as “light”, “intermediate” or “advanced”. A

similar classification of users was tried in 2017, by distributing the traditional groups of users

in the three categories, but the results were not conclusive. This time users were asked to put

themselves in each category by using the following definitions:

2 The project aims to modernize the communication and dissemination of European statistics, by developing

innovative products and services, based on new technological opportunities, experiences in the European

Statistical System and the concrete needs of users. An in-depth analysis of European statistics users was

conducted in DIGICOM, concluding that it is meaningful to group users based on two predefined criteria –

frequency and complexity of use – resulting in a new proposed grouping of European statistics users.

46

24

18

6 6

46

23

17

86

43

25

19

85

44

25

19

6 6

44

25

19

6 6

45

24

19

7 6

52

18

21

7

2

38

13

24 23

1

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Students, academic andprivate users

Business Government EU and internationalorganisations

Others

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019

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Light user: e.g. use data visualisations, graphs and statistical articles which are easy

to read to get interpreted data; use data to support opinions in discussions, share

data on social media, use data in class or want to explore what is available out of

curiosity; visit the Eurostat website on a weekly to less than monthly basis; medium to

low statistical literacy and computer proficiency.

Intermediate user: e.g. look for raw data / predefined tables or work with existing data

visualisations and ready-to-use interpretations in publications/reports to support

work, for personal interest (e.g. to verify data in news articles) or to get a basic

understanding of what is available for future reference; use Eurostat data on a weekly

to monthly basis; have a medium statistical literacy and computer proficiency.

Advanced user: e.g. use the database to mainly obtain raw data and adjust table and

data to their needs; draw their own conclusions based on specific data for their job;

download data very frequently (even daily); have a high statistical literacy and

computer proficiency.

This new system worked as differences could be consistently noted among the three classes

of users.

A separate specific survey was carried out for press and media users. However, some media

users might have nonetheless responded to the general user satisfaction survey. They might

have identified themselves as belonging to “other users”.

The results presented in this report constitute a summary of the most interesting and

compelling findings, supported by graphs. The report also shows the main differences

compared to the previous survey (2016 or 2017 depending on the question) and an evolution

of the users' opinion since 2011, date of the first comparable survey. Even if comparisons of

the results have to be taken with caution, for the reasons explained above, the majority of the

results show a stability in the opinion of the respondents with small variations in the degree

of satisfaction.

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2. Main outcomes

General aspects

In 2019 the survey was open on line for about two months getting 1009 replies,

compared to the 3000 – 4800 of the previous editions of the survey.

Looking at the distribution of responses by user groups, a larger share of respondents

was working in the European Commission or in other European and international

institutions, 23.1% compared to 6-8% of the previous surveys. All other groups were

less represented than in the past. Looking at user types, most of the respondents

identified themselves as advanced users (44.2%), followed by intermediate users

(35.6%) and light users (20.2%).

Like in the past, respondents indicated that “Population and social conditions” and

“Economy and finance” were the two areas they used most frequently. The former

received from 16.3% to 18.4% of responses whereas the latter ranged from 15.1% to

17.2% across all user types.

Differently from the past, “monitoring or formulating policy” (31.9%) and “general

background information” (23.5%) were the most common purposes for all users

combined. However, the purposes of statistical data use varied by types of

respondents reflecting different needs of each type.

More than three quarters of participants (77.3%) indicated European statistics to be

either “essential” or “important” for their work, the highest share ever registered.

Accounting for a breakdown by purposes, statistical data was most significant for

“Econometric model building and forecasting”, where it was indicated to be

“essential” by 56.6% of respondents and “important” by 35.1%. "Preparing

legislation", “Monitoring or formulating policy”, “Research” and "Re-dissemination

of statistical data" also got combined shares of "essential" and "important" exceeding

80%.

Around one third of respondents (33.6%) stated they used European statistics in their

daily or weekly activities, 32.8% did so on a monthly basis and the remaining 33.6%

at other intervals.

User assessment of the quality and user friendliness of Eurostat’s products was

generally positive, approaching or exceeding the 60% of "very good/good"

judgements for most products, with Eurostat press releases (65.9%), Digital

publications (65.5%), and the Eurostat database (63.5%) receiving the best scores.

Eurostat was interested to check if users continue to trust European statistics in a

period when European citizens sometimes persist to be sceptic about the role and

functioning of the EU institutions. As in previous years and even more this time,

responses were overwhelmingly positive, with 96.0% of users stating they trusted

European statistics greatly or tended to trust them. Only 3.1% said they did not trust

statistics and 0.9% had no opinion.

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Trust seems related to the importance and the perceived quality of statistics. Those

respondents, for which the statistics are of value, trust more the statistics than those

for whom statistics are not so important. The respondents who trust more European

statistics are also more convinced of their overall good quality.

Quality aspects

Overall quality

The level of satisfaction with the overall quality of European statistics remained high,

with 58.2% of all users considering the quality to be “very good” or “good” (1.4

percentage points less than in 2017) and 19.9% considering it as “adequate”.

Chart 3. Assessment of overall data quality in 2017 and 2019

Source: Eurostat 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys

At a more disaggregated level, “Population and social conditions” received the

highest positive evaluation this time (59.9% of “very good/good” answers).

“Economy and finance” and “Policy indicators” were also close to 60%, with shares

of 59.7% and 59.5%, respectively.

On the other side of the spectrum, "Science, technology and innovation",

“Environment statistics” and “Industry, trade and services" were among the ones with

lowest share of positive views on overall quality, with 53.0%, 53.2% and 54.2%,

respectively. Nevertheless, the differences between all statistical domains (excluding

“other statistics”) were the smallest registered since the survey started.

When analysed by user types, intermediate and advanced users were more satisfied

(60.4% and 58.0% of “very good” and “good” answers) compared to light users

(53.7%).

The quality of Eurostat’s data fares very well compared with other statistical data

producers. The majority of participants perceived the quality as better or same,

resulting in a combined share of 66.8%. Among other positive sides of Eurostat, users

highlighted better quality and reliability of the data provided; more complete, more

timely and harmonised data; better coverage and comparability; better metadata;

friendly and easier to use interface; and the independence from national politics.

59.6

58.2

20.7

19.9

15.2

16.2

4.6

5.7

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2017

2019Very good/Good

Adequate

Poor/Very poor

No opinion

10

Timeliness

On average 52.5% of users saw timeliness of European statistics as “very good” or

“good”, 24.1% as “adequate” and 18.4% as “poor” or “very poor”, shares very close

to those of 2017.

Chart 4. Assessment of overall timeliness in 2017 and 2019, in %


From a statistical domain perspective, “Economy and finance” was again rated as

having the best timeliness across all areas, followed this time by “Policy indicators”

and “Fishery statistics”, accounting for 57.4%, 56.1% and 55.6% of “very good/good”

responses, respectively.

Looking at the user types, as for all quality dimensions intermediate and advanced

users are quite more satisfied than light users. The share of “very good” and “good”

responses from intermediate users was 54.8%, from advanced users a similar 54.1%

and from light users only 42.6 %.

Completeness

On average for all areas, 50.1% of users saw data completeness as “very good” or

“good”, 24.1% thought it was “adequate” and 18.9% perceived it as “poor” or “very

poor”, values that are again close to those of 2017.

Chart 5. Assessment of overall completeness in 2017 and 2019, in %


“Economy and finance” once again stood out as the best rated domain, followed by

“Policy indicators” and "Population and social conditions" (54.5%, 54.1% and 51.3%

of “very good/good” replies, respectively). The least performing area is this time

“Transport statistics” with 39.8% of “very good” or “good”.

52.4

52.5

24.4

24.1

16.7

18.4

6.6

5.1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2017

2019 Very good/Good

Adequate

Poor/Very poor

No opinion

51.0

50.1

25.4

24.1

17.0

18.9

6.5

6.9

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2017

2019 Very good/Good

Adequate

Poor/Very poor

No opinion

11

From the user type perspective, there is again a notable difference when comparing

advanced and intermediate users with light users (51.5%, 51.0% and 44.1% of “very

good/good” ratings, respectively).

Comparability

Comparability was the single quality dimension with the best score this time. The

average of “very good/good” responses across all areas was 53.1%, 18.9% saw

comparability as “adequate” and 15.7% did not feel positive about it. Comparability

was the quality dimension that saw the most notable variation compared to 2017, with

an increase of 4.2 percentage points in the shares of “very good” and “good”

responses. That makes the satisfaction share for 2019 the highest ever registered

Chart 6. Assessment of overall comparability in 2017 and 2019


“Economy and finance”, “Fishery statistics” and "Policy indicators" were the three

domains with more than 55% of the respondents being satisfied, getting shares of

55.8%, 55.6% and 55.2% of “very good” and “good”, respectively. For this quality

dimension, the differences among the domains were smaller than for other

dimensions, "Regional statistics" having still 47.2% of satisfied respondents.

Once more intermediate and advanced users were more positive than light users.

54.1% and 54.0% of respondents from the first two types judged comparability as

“very good” or “good”, versus 48.4% of those identifying themselves as light users.

Dissemination aspects

The overall satisfaction with the Eurostat website, not counting the respondents not

giving an opinion, is 58.1% with another 34.9% being partly satisfied. The values are

similar to those of 2016 but with 2.2 percentage points less of satisfied users. The

share of those not giving an opinion is now of 5.5%.

On the Eurostat website, the respondents identifying themselves as advanced users are

the least satisfied (57.0%) even if the shares are almost equal for the three groups,

with 58.5% for the light users and 59.2% for the intermediate users.

More than half of the respondents (53.0%) found it easy to access and to understand

the statistics on the Eurostat website and more than another third (35.4%) partly easy.

8.0% were not satisfied while the remaining 3.6% did not express an opinion. The

results are practically identical to the ones of 2016.

48.9

53.1

24.0

18.9

15.8

15.7

11.4

12.3

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2017

2019 Very good/Good

Adequate

Poor/Very poor

No opinion

12

As in previous years, respondents were very positive about the content of Eurostat

website. On average 67.7% of all respondents were satisfied with the content, which

is 2.9 percentage points more than in 2016 and almost the highest value ever

registered.

Intermediate and advanced users were more satisfied that light users when accessing

and understanding the statistics and advanced users were quite more satisfied with the

content of the website (71.5%) than those from the other two types (65.2% for the

intermediate users and 63.7% for the light users).

Respondents were less positive on the website’s technical characteristics; results are

slightly worse than in 2016 and uneven. Some technical characteristics, like clarity of

information and performance and speed, get more than half of "very good/good"

judgements (53.3% and 53.0% respectively) while for others like the help texts and

facilities or the search facilities, the share of satisfied users does not reach 40% and

even without taking into account those not giving an opinion, it would not reach 50%.

User assessment of Eurostat's digital publications and visualisation tools was rather

positive, with well more than 60% of respondents, who expressed an opinion, judging

the tools as “very good/good”, up to the 71.1% of the digital publication on “Air

traffic in the European Union”. 30.1% to 58.9% of the survey respondents used the

different publications and tools but the percentage of those who actually gave their

opinion was about 9 - 12% points smaller.

On an overall level, once again respondents from advanced users giving an opinion

are more satisfied with the publications and tools (71.6%), compared to intermediate

users (65.2%) and light users (63.0%).

A new question was added this year, on the usefulness of Eurostat’s experimental

statistics, a domain that Eurostat has recently started to develop and that did not exist

in 2016. The shares of those who gave an opinion was around 10% - 20% of the

respondents, from 11.6% (117 respondents) for “World heritage sites statistics” to

21.8% (220 respondents) for “Statistics on the joint distribution of income,

consumption and wealth” and “Income and consumption: comparing social surveys

and national accounts”. The majority of those who gave an opinion found

experimental statistics useful. The shares of “very good/good” answers went from

55.8% for the Quality Adjusted Labour Input (QALI) to 66.4% for the Labour market

transitions statistics.

On an overall level, also for this question respondents from advanced users giving an

opinion are more satisfied (65.1% of “very good/good”), compared to intermediate

users (56.9%) and light users (63.2%).

Users were asked for the second time this year to rate the information on microdata

access services on the Eurostat website. Almost half of the respondents (47.0%) gave

an opinion, so showing that they use the microdata. The share was higher, as it could

be expected, for the respondents from advanced users (52.7%) than for intermediate

users (44.8%) and light users (38.2%). However, advanced users seem to be also more

13

exigent for this kind of services, as their satisfaction (54.9% of “very good/good”)

was in this case lower than for intermediate users (60.9%) and light users (59.0%).

Compared to 2016, the share of those considering the information on microdata access

services as least good registered an increase of 2.8 percentage points. In their

comments respondents seemed to consider not only the information on microdata

access but also the access procedure and the set of microdata available.

Users’ awareness of Eurostat’s release calendar, which provides information on the

dates and times of Euro indicators’ releases and other news releases and publications,

increased by 3.3 percentage points compared to 2016 to reach 34.6% of the

respondents. Among user types, advanced and intermediate users, with respective

shares of 38.8% and 36.2% were much more aware than light users (22.5%), which

could be expected.

A large part of the users who are aware of the release calendar, are satisfied with its

content (67.3%), and another 18.6% said the calendar satisfied their needs partly.

Metadata was used by more than half of the respondents (57.6%), well more than in

2016 (48.5%), with a big difference among the three types of users. Only 30.4% of

light users declared to use metadata, versus 56.0% of intermediate users and 71.3% of

advanced users.

The share of metadata users who find it easily accessible went slightly down to less

than a half (48.4%) this year and 45.2% found metadata sufficient for their purposes.

This is 8.9 percentage points less than in 2016 and the largest registered decrease of

all questions. Another 40.8% of users found metadata partly sufficient and 7.2%

stated that metadata was not sufficient.

Looking at user types, intermediate users were surprisingly a bit more satisfied with

the metadata accessibility and sufficiency (51.2% and 45.7%) than advanced users

(48.4% and 45.6%), while light users were the least happy (38.7% and 41.7%).

Leaving out those with no opinion or not aware of the user support function, the

degree of satisfaction with it remains the highest of all services, with 75.0% of the

respondents saying that they were either “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the

support service provided by Eurostat, the highest value ever reached. All types of

users were very satisfied, advanced users (76.5%) a bit more than light users (74.0%)

and intermediate users (73.5%).

The level of overall satisfaction with Eurostat’s data and services was very high with

70.1% of all respondents evaluating data and services as “very good” or “good”,

19.5% as “adequate” and only 3.3% as “poor” or “very poor”. The small difference

with the highest value ever reached in 2017 is only due to a larger number of

respondents not giving an opinion. Advanced users were again more satisfied (72.9%)

than intermediate (68.5%) and light users (66.7%).

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/news/release-calendar

14

3. Results of the USS 2019

3.1 General information

3.1.1 Who uses Eurostat's European statistics?

Looking at the distribution of responses by user types (Chart 7), a bit less than half of the

respondents identified themselves as advanced users, a bit more than one third as

intermediate users and only a fifth as light users.

Chart 7. User types, in %

Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey

As in previous years, geographical distribution of European statistics’ users remained

strongly tilted towards the EU countries with 87.0% of respondents coming from the 28

Member States and remaining 13.0% from non-EU countries. On a country level, the biggest

proportion came from Belgium (17.7%), which was followed by Italy (9.7%), Germany

(8.1%) and Spain (7.1%). It is worth noting that the high percentage of users coming from

Belgium can be explained by their relationship to the European institutions based in Brussels.

Participants were also asked to specify which statistics they used most frequently and given

an option to pick more than one answer. As seen from Chart 8, “Population and social

conditions” and “Economy and finance” remained the two dominating areas across all user

types. The former domain received from 16.3% to 18.4% of responses whereas the latter

ranged from 15.1% to 17.2% across user types.

The least utilised statistics were “Digital economy and society”, “Transport statistics” and

“Fishery statistics”, with approximate average shares below 4%. When compared to the

results of previous years, the order remained roughly the same.

20.2

35.6

44.2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Light users Intermediate users Advanced users

15

Chart 8. Use of European statistics by statistical domains and user types, in %


3.1.2 To do what?

The users of European statistics were also asked to indicate the purpose of their interest in it.

Multiple responses were available. As shown in Chart 9, “monitoring or formulating policy”

(31.9%) and “general background information” (23.5%) were the most common purposes for

all users combined. A bigger share than in the past of institutional users can justify the high

share of use for monitoring or formulating policy. However, a closer look at the purposes

reveals a different nature of statistical data use by types of respondents.

For advanced users the second purpose is “econometric model building and forecasting”

(22.0%) and “research” is also more mentioned (14.8%) while “general background

information” less (16.4%) than for the other types of users. On the contrary, for light users

“general background information” is the most common use (35.3%), which is normal.

17.1

16.3

16.0

18.4

15.7

17.2

15.1

15.6

10.3

11.5

10.0

10.2

9.3

10.2

8.8

9.5

8.5

9.4

8.9

7.8

6.8

4.6

7.5

7.1

5.9

4.1

7.0

5.8

5.6

5.7

6.1

5.2

5.1

5.9

4.5

5.4

5.0

4.3

5.0

5.3

3.9

4.3

3.9

3.8

3.8

3.9

3.9

3.8

1.4

1.1

1.5

1.4

1.3

1.7

1.8

0.8

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediate users

Advanced users

Population and social conditions Economy and finance

Policy indicators Industry, trade andservices

International trade statistics Regional statistics

Environment statistics Energy statistics

Science, technology and innovation Agriculture statistics

Digital economy and society Transport statistics

Fishery statistics Other

16

Chart 9. Uses of European statistics by user types, in %


3.1.2.1 How important are the statistics?

Looking at the importance of European statistics, more than three quarters of participants

(77.3%) indicated them to be either “essential” or “important” for their work (Chart 10).

As it could be expected, statistics are more important for advanced users, 91% of their

respondents declaring them as essential or important, compared to the intermediate users

(76.8%) and to the light users (47.5%).

Chart 10. Importance of statistics by user types, in %


Accounting for a breakdown by purposes, statistical data was most significant for

“Econometric model building and forecasting”, where it was indicated to be “essential” by

24.0

33.1

34.5

31.9

35.3

25.6

16.4

23.5

5.4

10.9

22.0

14.7

7.4

12.0

14.8

12.3

7.4

5.0

2.7

4.5

3.4

4.2

3.6

3.8

6.4

3.9

2.5

3.8

2.9

1.1

1.6

1.7

2.5

1.1

1.1

1.4

3.4

1.7

0.2

1.4

2.0

1.4

0.7

1.2

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Light users

Intermediateusers

Advancedusers

All users

Monitoring or formulating policy General background informationEconometric model building and forecasting ResearchMarket analysis Re-dissemination of statistical dataOther NegotiationsPreparing legislation Decision-making in businessMedia use

13.7

33.1

54.5

38.7

33.8

43.7

36.5

38.6

52.5

23.1

9.0

22.8

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Light users

Intermediateusers

Advancedusers

All users

Essential

Important

less important

17

56.6% of respondents and “important” by 35.1%. "Preparing legislation", “Monitoring or

formulating policy”, “Research” and "Re-dissemination of statistical data" also got combined

shares of "essential" and "important" exceeding 80%.

European statistics were considered least essential for “market analysis” and “general

background information” (34.6% and 33.4% share of responses, respectively).

Chart 11. Importance of statistics for different uses, in %


Chart 12 below shows the importance of statistics over time, throughout the period between

2011 and 2019. The importance of statistics has increased this year, with more than three

quarters of participants (77.3%) reporting them to be either “essential” or “important” for

their work, reaching its highest value ever.

43.1

56.6

52.6

52.3

44.9

44.1

39.7

36.9

35.4

34.6

33.6

31.7

37.0

35.1

34.6

35.0

37.7

41.7

34.9

33.3

38.5

41.7

35.0

38.1

19.9

8.4

12.8

12.7

17.4

14.2

25.4

29.8

26.2

23.7

31.4

30.2

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

All purposes

Econometric model building and forecasting

Preparing legislation

Monitoring or formulating policy

Research

Re-dissemination of statistical data

Decision-making in business

Negotiations

Media use

Market analysis

General background information

Other

Essential

Important

Less important

18

Chart 12. Importance of statistics 2011-2019, in %

Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys

3.1.2.2 How often are European statistics used?

Knowing the purpose of use and importance of statistical information, it is interesting to see

how frequently statistics were used. As Chart 13 shows, almost one third of users (33.6%)

stated they used European statistics in their daily or weekly activities, 32.8% did so on a

monthly basis and the remaining 33.6% at other intervals. When compared to the results of

the survey carried out for media users, statistical information was used more frequently by

press and media representatives, with a percentage of daily and weekly usage exceeding 70%.

Advanced users are the most frequent users of European statistics with 48.6% using them

daily or weekly.

Chart 13. Frequency of use by user types, in %


The frequency also differed by statistical domains (Chart 14). Highest daily use was found in

the areas of “Policy indicators” (16.8%), “Economy and finance” (16.2%) and “Regional

statistics” (15.6%). On the opposite, least frequently utilised domains contained “Fishery

62.9%67.3% 67.5% 66.4% 66.5%

69.5%

77.3%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019

1.5

5.0

17.0

9.6

11.3

21.7

31.6

24.0

32.4

42.3

25.3

32.8

54.9

30.9

26.0

33.6

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Light users

Intermediateusers

Advancedusers

All users

Daily

Weekly

Monthly

At other intervals

19

statistics”, “Agriculture statistics” and “Environment statistics”. The differences, however,

were rather small.

Chart 14. Frequency of use by statistical area, in %


Chart 15 illustrates the trend of the frequency of use between 2011 and 2019. More

specifically, it shows the percentage of respondents who use Eurostat's statistics on daily,

weekly or monthly basis. Overall, the use of the statistics has increased (66.4%), reaching

almost the peak of 2012 and 2013 when two thirds of respondents (66.6% - 66.9%) used

statistics at least on a monthly basis.

14.3

16.8

16.2

15.6

15.4

15.2

12.5

11.8

11.4

10.4

10.0

9.5

9.5

9.4

8.9

27.3

27.1

27.7

26.1

28.9

24.8

25.9

26.1

26.8

25.6

26.1

23.8

24.7

30.0

26.7

30.1

30.7

29.6

26.1

28.4

36.0

33.3

30.9

31.7

26.2

32.2

28.6

33.2

31.9

33.3

16.5

15.9

15.1

20.2

16.1

14.4

18.6

18.4

18.7

20.1

17.2

11.9

18.4

13.8

6.7

5.7

3.6

5.8

6.9

6.2

2.4

2.9

6.3

4.9

8.5

6.7

14.3

6.8

7.5

11.1

6.1

5.9

5.6

5.0

5.0

7.2

6.8

6.6

6.5

9.1

7.8

11.9

7.4

7.5

13.3

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Average for all areas

Policy indicators

Economy and finance

Regional statistics

Population and social conditions

Digital economy and society

Industry, trade and services

International trade statistics

Transport statistics

Science, technology andinnovation

Energy statistics

Other

Environment statistics

Agriculture statistics

Fishery statistics

Daily

Weekly

Monthly

Quarterly

Annually

Otherintervals

20

Chart 15. Frequency of use 2011-2019, in %


3.2 Information on quality aspects

In accordance with Eurostat’s mission statement, quality considerations play a central role in

both its corporate management and day-to-day statistical operations. It is thus important to

find out how users assess the quality of the European statistics produced and disseminated by

Eurostat and of the products released by Eurostat. In addition to the overall data quality, the

survey looked at three different aspects of data quality that are considered as the most

important for Eurostat - timeliness, completeness and comparability.

3.2.1 What are the perceived quality and user friendliness of Eurostat products?

Respondents were asked to assess the quality and friendliness of Eurostat products.

As for quality, the highest evaluations were received by Eurostat press releases (65.9%) and

Digital publications (65.5%), followed this year by the Eurostat database (63.5%). For all the

other tools the rate of "very good/good" replies were also at around 55% or above.

65.0% 66.6% 66.9%63.9% 62.9% 62.9%

66.4%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019

21

Chart 16. Assessment of quality of Eurostat products, in %


Looking at the evolution over time of the assessment of the quality of products in Chart 17, a

substantial stability can be observed with small variations each year for the two products

released during the overall period of observation.

Chart 17. Assessment of quality of products, 2011-2019, in %


The perceived quality of Press releases in 2019 for the respondents in the USS 2019 has

increased by 6.1 percentage points since 2016, up to 65.9%, which is now in line with the

opinion reported in the survey for media users (68.1%), whereas in the past this difference

was much wider.

53.6

55.2

56.4

58.4

62.2

63.1

63.5

65.5

65.9

67.0

33.0

23.5

23.4

21.9

16.5

19.0

16.3

16.0

15.5

18.6

13.4

21.3

20.2

19.7

21.4

17.9

20.2

18.6

18.7

14.5

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Other products

Eurostat social media channels

Eurostat visualisation tools

Eurostat micro data

Statistics Explained

"What's New" articles

Eurostat database

Digital publications

Eurostat press releases

Other Eurostat publications

Very good/Good

Adequate

Very poor/Poor

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019


Press releases

22

As for the user friendliness of products, the highest evaluations were received by Digital

publications (63.2%), followed by Eurostat press releases (63.1%) and “What’s New” articles

(61.4%). For all the other products the rate of "very good/good" replies were also above

50%.

Chart 18. Assessment of friendliness of Eurostat products, in %


Respondents could also give comments on the quality of the products. Only few did so. A

couple pointed to the difficulty to find the the data used for the statistics explained. It was

also suggested to publish more info on social media.

3.2.2 Overall data quality

As in the past, this year evaluations were generally positive with close to six out of 10

respondents viewing the overall quality of statistics as “very good” or “good”. As can be seen

from Chart 19, the level of satisfaction with the overall quality of European statistics

remained high, with 58.2% of all respondents considering the quality to be “very good” or

“good” and 19.9% considering it as “adequate".

51.0

51.1

53.8

56.3

57.9

58.7

59.7

61.4

63.1

63.2

26.6

25.4

31.1

23.4

22.0

19.7

24.6

19.5

18.7

18.8

22.3

23.4

15.1

20.3

20.1

21.6

15.7

19.2

18.1

18.0

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Eurostat micro data

Eurostat database

Other products

Eurostat visualisation tools

Eurostat social media channels


Other Eurostat publications

"What's New" articles

Eurostat press releases

Digital publications

Very good/Good

Adequate

Very poor/Poor

23

Chart 19. Assessment of overall quality per statistical area, in %


At a more disaggregated level, “Population and social conditions” received the highest

positive evaluation (59.9% of “very good/good” answers). “Economy and finance” and

“Policy indicators” were also close to 60%, with shares of 59.7% and 59.5%, respectively.

“Population and social conditions” was for once the highest rated area by overtaking

“Economy and finance”, which continues to get the best scores for the other quality

dimensions. Given the interest in economic, financial and social developments in Europe

during the recent years and the fact that these domains are used most frequently, high

evaluations represent positive views of European statistics users. A more detailed analysis of

the two domains revealed that “Government finance statistics”, “Living conditions and social

protection” and “Population” came to the top of the list receiving 65.9%, 62.8% and 62.0%,

respectively, of “very good/good” assessments.

On the other side of the spectrum, "Science, technology and innovation", “Environment

statistics” and “Industry, trade and services" were among the ones with lowest share of

positive views on overall quality, with 53.0%, 53.2% and 54.2%, respectively. Nevertheless,

53.0

53.2

54.2

55.6

56.1

56.3

57.4

57.8

57.8

58.4

59.5

59.7

59.9

61.9

58.2

27.4

24.2

19.7

22.8

26.0

20.6

21.3

17.8

21.6

24.0

19.8

16.0

19.8

11.9

19.9

14.0

18.9

18.4

16.1

12.2

20.0

18.4

13.3

16.1

12.0

14.6

17.9

15.0

7.1

16.2

5.5

3.7

7.7

5.6

5.7

3.1

2.9

11.1

4.6

5.6

6.1

6.3

5.3

19.0

5.7

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Science and technology andinnovation



Energy statistics




Fishery statistics

Regional statistics


Policy indicators

Economy and finances

Population and social conditions

Other


Very good/Good

Adequate

Poor/Very poor

No opinion

24

the differences between all statistical domains (excluding “other statistics”) were the smallest

registered since the survey started.

When analysed by user types, intermediate and advanced users were more satisfied (60.4%

and 58.0% of “very good” and “good” answers) compared to light users (53.7%).

Compared to 2017, the share of those considering the overall quality at least good registered a

small decrease of 1.4 percentage points. Chart 20 shows that there has not been a lot of

difference with the overall data assessment in the period from 2011 to 2019, with similar

values for all years.

Chart 20. Overall data quality 2011-2019, in %


surveys

Given that there are several producers of European statistics, respondents were also asked to

compare the quality of Eurostat’s data with that of national statistical institutes (NSIs) and

other international organisations. The results are presented in Chart 21.

Chart 21. Comparison with other statistical data producers by user types, in %


57.3 58 57.6 59.656.6 59.2 59.6 58.2

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Better Same Worse No opinion

All users

Light users

Intermediateusers

Advancedusers

25

As can be seen, the majority of participants consider the quality to be better or the same,

resulting in a combined share of 66.8%. Among other positive sides of Eurostat, users

highlighted better quality and reliability of the data provided, more complete, more timely

and harmonised data, better coverage and comparability, better metadata, friendly and easier

to use interface, and the independence from national politics.

Only few respondents (6.1%) considered Eurostat’s data of a worse quality when compared

to other sources. Respondents mentioned shorter time series, data changes not signalled,

limited coverage of non-EU sources, data timeliness, missing data and a worse website as

major drawbacks due to which they may prefer other data sources. It is interesting to note that

on topics like data timeliness and the quality of the website, users may have contradictory

opinions.

It is also worth noting that more than a quarter (27.1%) of the respondents did not have an

opinion on the issue, suggesting that a relatively large share of Eurostat statistics' users either

do not use other data sources or find it hard to formulate such comparisons.

3.2.3 Timeliness

The aspect of information timeliness reflects the length of time between its availability and

the event or phenomenon it describes. According to the results, which are presented in Chart

22, on average 52.5% of users saw timeliness of European statistics as “very good” or

“good”, 24.1% as “adequate” and 18.4% as “poor” or “very poor. Timeliness this time is not

the quality dimension, of the three investigated, with the best performance as in the past,

because respondents judged comparability slightly better.

From a statistical domain perspective, “Economy and finance” was again rated as having the

best timeliness across all areas, followed this time by “Policy indicators” and “Fishery

statistics”, accounting for 57.4%, 56.1% and 55.6% of “very good/good” responses,

respectively.

26

Chart 22. Assessment of timeliness per statistical area, in %


Looking at the user types, as for all quality dimensions intermediate and advanced users are

quite more satisfied than light users. The share of “very good” and “good” responses from

intermediate users was 54.8%, from advanced users a similar 54.1% and from light users only

42.6%.

The assessment of the overall timeliness this year is almost the same as in the previous survey

in 2017. In fact, as Chart 23 demonstrates, there have been very limited variations during the

entire period of observations.

44.9

45.2

45.5

47.2

48.9

50.5

50.6

51.7

53.1

53.6

54.0

55.6

56.1

57.4

52.5

28.1

19.0

33.3

27.8

26.3

26.6

25.0

23.0

26.3

25.6

23.2

26.7

24.3

20.5

24.1

20.9

9.5

16.3

18.9

21.1

19.7

20.1

20.5

18.8

16.0

18.4

8.9

13.9

17.1

18.4

6.1

26.2

4.9

6.1

3.7

3.2

4.3

4.8

1.9

4.8

4.4

8.9

5.7

5.0

5.1

0 20 40 60 80 100


Other


Energy statistics


Regional statistics

Science and technology and…

Population and social…




Fishery statistics

Policy indicators



Very good/Good

Adequate

Poor/Very poor

No opinion

27

Chart 23. Assessment of overall timeliness in 2011-2019, in %


surveys

3.2.4 Completeness

Completeness is the extent to which all statistics that are needed are available. It is usually

described as a measure of the amount of available data from a statistical system compared to

the amount that was expected to be obtained. Chart 24 presents the results of user views on

data completeness in 2019.

On average for all areas, 50.1% of users saw data completeness as “very good” or “good”,

24.1% thought it was “adequate” and 18.9% perceived it as “poor” or “very poor”. “Economy

and finance” once again stood out as the best rated domain, followed by “Policy indicators”

and "Population and social conditions" (54.5%, 54.1% and 51.3% of “very good/good”

replies, respectively). The least performing area is this time “Transport statistics” with 39.8%

of “very good” or “good”.

53.2 51.3 50.953.7

51.4 53.2 52.4 52.5

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019

28

Chart 24. Assessment of completeness of European statistics per statistical area, in %


From the user type perspective, there is again a notable difference when comparing advanced

and intermediate users with light users (51.5%, 51.0% and 44.1% of “very good/good”

ratings, respectively).

As Chart 25 shows, compared to 2017 there was a very small decrease (0.9 percentage

points) in the “very good” and “good” assessments of data completeness this year, which

makes completeness the quality dimension with the lowest overall score. Again, as can be

seen in Chart 25, the differences in the user satisfaction with this indicator in the last nine

years were quite small.

38.1

39.8

43.9

44.5

44.8

45.6

45.8

47.0

47.5

48.9

50.7

51.3

54.1

54.5

50.1

28.6

30.9

23.3

28.9

31.2

25.9

24.7

24.4

25.6

22.2

24.6

25.3

20.9

20.2

24.1

16.7

23.6

21.7

21.6

17.6

20.9

23.7

22.6

21.3

15.6

18.0

17.0

18.0

18.3

18.9

16.7

5.7

11.1

5.0

6.4

7.7

5.8

6.1

5.6

13.3

6.6

6.4

7.0

7.0

6.9

0 20 40 60 80 100

Other


Energy statistics

Regional statistics






Fishery statistics



Policy indicators



Very good/Good

Adequate

Poor/Very poor

No opinion

29

Chart 25. Assessment of overall completeness in 2011-2019, in %


surveys

3.2.5 Comparability

Comparability is the extent to which differences between statistics from different

geographical areas, non-geographic domains or over time can be attributed to differences

between the true values of statistics.

As seen from Chart 26, comparability was the single quality dimension with the best score

this time. The average of “very good/good” responses across all areas was 53.1%, 18.9% saw

comparability as “adequate” and 15.7% did not feel positive about it. In this case “Economy

and finance”, “Fishery statistics” and "Policy indicators" were the three domains with more

than 55% of the respondents being satisfied, getting shares of 55.8%, 55.6% and 55.2% of

“very good” and “good”, respectively. For this quality dimension, the differences among the

domains were smaller than for other dimensions, "Regional statistics" having still 47.2% of

satisfied respondents.

For comparability, once more intermediate and advanced users were more positive than light

users. 54.1% and 54.0% of respondents from the first two types judged comparability as

“very good” or “good”, versus 48.4% of those identifying themselves as light users.

51.4 49.6 49.9 50.9 49.352.2 51 50.1

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019

30

Chart 26. Assessment of comparability of European statistics per statistical area, in %


Comparability was the quality dimension that saw the most notable variation compared to

2017, with an increase of 4.2 percentage points in the shares of “very good” and “good”

responses. That makes the satisfaction share for 2019 the highest ever registered.

42.9

47.2

47.6

48.0

50.6

51.2

51.2

51.7

52.1

52.2

54.1

55.2

55.6

55.8

53.1

21.4

22.9

22.0

24.4

24.4

22.4

19.5

18.3

18.9

18.4

19.6

17.5

20.0

15.2

18.9

9.5

18.3

17.1

13.0

15.0

12.8

16.6

13.3

16.8

17.3

15.1

14.6

6.7

17.1

15.7

26.2

11.5

13.4

14.6

10.0

13.6

12.7

16.7

12.1

12.1

11.3

12.7

17.8

11.9

12.3

0 20 40 60 80 100

Other

Regional statistics






Energy statistics




Policy indicators

Fishery statistics



Very good/Good

Adequate

Poor/Very poor

No opinion

31

Chart 27. Assessment of overall comparability in 2011-2019, in %

Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys

Some respondents gave also some general comments on the quality of European statistics,

even if a specific request for such comments was not in the questionnaire, mostly adding

them in the general comments. The majority of the comments referred to the necessity to

improve the data timeliness, especially for those data which a have a delay of one year or

more. However, some users recognised that timeliness had improved for some data compared

to 2017. Eurostat should also try to minimise the number of missing data, due to lack of

figures for some countries and to confidentiality. Data inconsistencies were also mentioned,

over time, among regions and in mirror statistics. When the methodology changes users

would like to have this reflected also in past data for comparability reasons.

3.3 Trust in European statistics

In a period when European citizens sometimes persist to be sceptic about the role and

functioning of the EU institutions, it was interesting to check if users continue to trust the

statistics produced by Eurostat. Results are presented in Chart 28.

As in previous years, responses were overwhelmingly positive, with 96.0% of users stating

they trusted European statistics greatly or tended to trust them. Only 3.1% said they did not

trust statistics and 0.9% had no opinion. When looking at the distribution of responses by

user types, the share of respondents trusting European statistics is very similar for all types,

none going below 93.6% and with a peak at 98.0% for advanced users.

48.1 47.5 48.9 50.3 49.5 50.5 48.953.1

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019

32

Chart 28. Trust in European statistics by user types, in %


Despite the potential bias that comes from the fact that Eurostat's data users should generally

trust the data they use, the constantly high rate of positive answers over time demonstrates a

very good and encouraging sign on the confidence of users in the statistics disseminated by

Eurostat.

Looking at the responses, some of the reasons while people trust the statistics are that they

are based on harmonised methodology and subject to quality standards and thorough

validations. The fact that Eurostat is professional and is not politically influenced also helped

to gain user trust.

As in past years, the most recurrent comment of those few who tend not to trust European

statistics is because they depend on national statistics. Some then pointed out discrepancies

with national data and reported implausible data and errors. Few also felt the lack of a clear

source for the original data.

Users were also explicitly asked to suggest ways to improve trust. Common suggestions

included more checks on the data provided by the countries and more transparency in the

methodology used, including a better harmonisation of the methodology used by the

countries. Few also suggested giving information on changes and updates in the data and

explaining abnormal data and outliers. In one case, the peer reviews were mentioned as an

important instrument to improve the quality and trust in European statistics.

Between 2012 and 2016 there had been a continuous but very small decrease in trust in

European statistics, whereas the survey 2019 shows an increase in this indicator, up to an

overall 96.0%, the highest result ever (Chart 29).

96.0

93.6

95.0

98.0

3.1

4.9

3.9

1.6

0.9

1.5

1.1

0.4

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediate users

Advanced users

Trust them greatly/ Tend to trustthem

Tend not to trustthem / Distrustthem greatly

No opinion

33

Chart 29. Trust in European statistics in 2012-2019, in %

Source: Eurostat 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys

To deepen our analysis on the trust in statistics, we have checked whether there is some

relation between importance, trust and perceived quality of statistics. As can be seen in Chart

30 the degree of trust in European statistics depends on the importance that the statistics have

for the users. Those respondents, for which the statistics are of greater value, trust more the

statistics than those for whom statistics are not so important, who tend more often not to

express an opinion.

Chart 30. Trust in European statistics by importance, in %


The respondents who trust more European statistics are also more convinced of their overall

good quality, as it appears in Chart 31. In particular, those respondents who trust European

statistics greatly are 11.4% points more satisfied with the data quality than the average of all

users, while the few respondents who tend not to trust or distrust greatly the statistics, are also

much more critical towards their quality.

95.3% 94.9% 94.4% 94.2% 93.8% 96.0%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019

97.7

95.1

96.2

90.5

66.7

96.0

2.1

3.9

2.7

7.1

0.0

3.1

0.3

1.0

1.1

2.4

33.3

0.9

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

They are essential

They are important

They are of value asbackground information

They are of minor importance

They are of no use

Average

Trust them greatly/ tend to trustthem

Tend not to trustthem / distrustthem greatly

No opinion

34

Chart 31. Assessment of overall quality of European statistics by trust, in %


3.4 Information on dissemination aspects

This section covers a number of aspects concerning dissemination of European statistics

(content and characteristics of the Eurostat website; access to the European statistics; release

calendar; metadata; visualisation tools; experimental statistics; access to microdata and user

support provided by Eurostat).

Various aspect of the Eurostat website are investigated, starting with a general question on

the satisfaction with the "Eurostat website" which is targeted to assess the more global level

of satisfaction of the overall Eurostat dissemination offer. Indeed, for consumers of European

statistics the term "Eurostat website" groups the various dissemination products and tools

Eurostat publishes via the website. The degree of satisfaction expressed by those who gave an

opinion is 58.1% satisfied and 34.9% partly satisfied, as presented in Chart 32. The rate of the

respondents who declared to be satisfied went slightly down by 2.2 percentage points

compared to 2016. This might indicate that the users would wish to get a more modern

version of the website, which is, even with some improvements, still the one introduced in

2014, and indeed Eurostat is preparing a new website to be released soon. Furthermore, it is

interesting to note that in the question on the "changes in perception of the overall quality of

data and services provided by Eurostat", the website was the single item with the highest

share of respondents (20.7%) perceiving that it had improved compared to the time of the

previous survey. This could confirm that although users admit that the website has improved

they would like to get a new one.

In this case, the respondents identifying themselves as advanced users are the least satisfied

(57.0%) even if the shares are almost equal for the three groups, with 58.5% for the light

58.2

69.6

47.8

19.8

14.3

0.0

19.9

10.8

29.6

29.7

14.3

33.3

16.2

14.9

16.1

46.5

71.4

16.7

5.7

4.7

6.5

4.0

0.0

50.0

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Average all users

Trust them greatly

Tend to trust them

Tend not to trust them

Distrust them greatly

No opinion

Very Good/Good

Adequate

Poor/Very poor

No opinion

35

users and 59.2% for the intermediate users. It might be that advanced users are also more

exigent with the website.

Chart 32. User satisfaction with the Eurostat website, in %


3.4.1 Access to and understanding of European statistics on the Eurostat Website

More than half of the respondents (53.0%) found it easy to access and to understand the

statistics on the Eurostat website and more than another third (35.4%) partly easy. 8.0% were

not satisfied while the remaining 3.6% did not express an opinion. The results are practically

identical to the ones of 2016.

Here again intermediate and advanced users are more satisfied that light users. This is

normal, as they should know better how to navigate the website and extract the statistics they

need.

Chart 33. Assessment of the access to and understanding of European statistics, in % (Is

it easy to access and to understand European statistics?)


58.1

58.5

59.2

57.0

34.9

35.0

33.5

36.0

7.0

6.6

7.3

7.0

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediate users

Advanced users

YesPartlyNo

53.0

49.5

53.5

54.3

35.4

33.8

36.2

35.4

8.0

9.3

7.8

7.6

3.6

7.4

2.5

2.7

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediate users

Advanced users

Yes

Partly

No

36

Users were also asked to evaluate the content of the Eurostat database. As in previous years,

responses were very positive (Chart 34). On average 67.7% of all respondents were satisfied

with the content, which is 2.9 percentage points more than in 2016 and almost the highest

value ever registered (Chart 35).

Advanced users were quite more satisfied with the content of the website (71.5% of “Very

Good/Good”) than those from the other two types (65.2% for the intermediate users and

63.7% for the light users).

Chart 34. Assessment of the Eurostat website content by user types, in %


Chart 35. Eurostat’s website content 2011-2019, in %


In another question, users were requested to judge its technical characteristics (Chart 36).

Results are slightly worse than in 2016 and uneven. Some technical characteristics, like

clarity of information and performance and speed get more than half of "very good/good"

67.7

63.7

65.2

71.5

24.1

25.5

27.0

21.1

5.6

3.9

6.7

5.6

2.6

6.9

1.1

1.8

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediate users

Advanced users

Very good / Good Adequate Poor / Very poor No opinion

63.8% 68.0%63.8% 63.0%

65.3% 64.8%67.7%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019

37

judgements (53.3% and 53.0% respectively) while for others like the help texts and facilities

or the search facilities, the share of satisfied users does not reach 40% and even without

taking into account those not giving an opinion, it would not reach 50%. It can be deduced

that these attributes still require further attention and improvements. In the case of the alert

and notification mechanisms almost half (49.8%) of the respondents did not give an opinion

as many do not use or do not need this service.

Chart 36. Assessment of technical characteristics of the Eurostat website, in %


Chart 37 shows that the results have not changed much over time but going down this time,

another sign of the necessity to renovate the website.

53.3

53.0

48.6

46.6

38.8

36.7

26.1

24.3

24.1

22.8

26.5

27.8

27.2

14.7

18.0

17.9

20.6

22.5

18.2

24.4

9.5

4.4

5.0

8.0

4.5

15.3

11.8

49.8

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Clarity of information

Performance / Speed

Database extraction tools

Navigation to required info

Help texts / Help facilities

Search facilities

Alert and notification

Very good / Good

Adequate

Poor / Very poor

No opinion

38

Chart 37. Assessment of technical characteristics of Eurostat’s website 2011-2019, in %


The following questions were to rate Eurostat's digital publications and visualisation tools.

The satisfaction is presented in the Chart 38, and is generally very positive, with well more

than 60% of respondents, who expressed an opinion, judging the tools as “very good/good”,

up to the 71.1% of the digital publication on “Air traffic in the European Union”.

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019

Performance/speed

Database extraction tools

Navigation

Search facilities

Help

Alert and notification

39

Chart 38. Assessment of Eurostat’s digital publications and visualisation tools, in %


It is worth noting that there is a considerable difference between all the survey respondents,

the respondents who used Eurostat's digital publications and visualisation tools, and the

respondents who used them and chose to express an opinion. As demonstrated in Chart 39,

30.1% to 58.9% of the survey respondents used the different publications and tools, “Key

figures on Europe” being the most widely used, followed at distance by “Digital economy &

society in the EU” (41.1%). However, as it can be seen in the same chart, the percentage of

users who actually gave their opinion in the question concerned was about 9 - 12% points

smaller than the number of users for each of the publications and tools. This means that in the

case of “Air traffic in the European Union” the assessment was given by only 20% of users

who filled in the survey, but which represents still a significant absolute number of 204

respondents.

On an overall level, respondents from advanced users giving an opinion are again more

satisfied with the publications and tools (71.6% of “very good/good”), compared to

intermediate users (65.2%) and light users (63.0%).

A comparison with the past surveys is not possible for this question as the tools and

publications are almost all different from 3 years ago, a sign that Eurostat varies them

according to the importance of the topics and to the interest of the users over time.

71.1

69.4

68.8

68.1

67.6

65.2

63.8

63.1

18.1

18.6

14.3

20.0

17.8

18.8

24.9

24.3

10.8

12.0

16.9

11.9

14.6

16.0

11.3

12.5

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Air traffic in the EuropeanUnion

Women and men inEurope

Key figures on Europe

The EU economy since thestart of the millennium

Shedding light on energyin Europe

Digital economy & societyin the EU

SDGs & me

Themes in the spotlight

Very good/ Good

Adequate

Poor / Very poor

40

Chart 39. Users of Eurostat’s digital publications and visualisation tools, in %


The Eurostat website was, as usual, the section of the questionnaire that received the largest

amount of comments, confirming the need to revise the website. Many respondents still

found it rather difficult to find data, especially for new users or those who do not use the

webpage frequently. Some felt that a clear overview was missing and that titles, definitions

and units were not always clear. The size of the database and the high level of detail of data

were also seen as a drawback by some users who found it hard to find the specific data they

needed. The navigation tree was also criticised by some users who would like to have it

organised differently. An index of all statistics was felt useful. This time several users also

referred to the website and its interface as old-fashioned, with a too heavy front page, and not

intuitive.

Regarding data search, there were users dissatisfied with the search engine, some of whom

would have preferred to a search targeted exclusively to databases rather than the whole

website. Others complained about the downloading facilities, especially for big amount of

data, which sometimes fail in the middle of the process. Several respondents suggested

adding the possibility to customise the data extraction, using parameters, and allowing saving

them.

Other recurrent comments referred to the difficulty to find old data. Several users reported

then problems with the changes in the database, which are not always clearly explained and

on which users are not informed. Some asked if it was possible to add an alert mechanism on

a set of data. Finally, some similar comments were made also on the specific database for

49.9%

31.0% 29.8% 29.0%26.1% 25.8% 25.1%

20.2%

58.9%

41.1%39.1% 38.7% 38.0%

35.7% 34.7%30.1%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Key

fig

ure

s o

nEu

rop

e

Dig

ital

eco

no

my

&so

ciet

y in

th

e E

U

Wo

me

n a

nd

men

in E

uro

pe

SDG

s &

me

Them

es

in t

he

spo

tlig

ht

The

EU e

con

om

ysi

nce

de

sta

rt o

fth

e m

ille

nn

ium

Shed

din

g lig

ht

on

ener

gy in

Eu

rop

e

Air

tra

ffic

in t

he

Euro

pe

an U

nio

n

Users expressing anopinion

Users expressing anopinion + Users withno opinion

41

international trade statistics, COMEXT. One user also questioned why it was different from

the rest of the database.

It must considered that although the website attracted many negative comments, there were

also users who described it in very positive terms, some considering it very user friendly and

efficient and better than those of other similar organisations.

A new question was added this year to the section of the survey on the website, on the

usefulness of Eurostat’s experimental statistics, a domain that Eurostat has recently started to

develop and that did not exist in 2016. As it was expected that only a minority of respondents

had used at least some of the experimental statistics, in this case respondents could skip the

question, declare that they had never used some experimental statistics or also that they had

no opinion on their usefulness. In the end the shares of those who gave an opinion was

around 10% - 20% of the respondents, from 11.6% (117 respondents) for “World heritage

sites statistics” to 21.8% (220 respondents) for “Statistics on the joint distribution of income,

consumption and wealth” and “Income and consumption: comparing social surveys and

national accounts” (Chart 40).

Chart 40. Users of Eurostat’s experimental statistics, in %


The majority of those who gave an opinion on experimental statistics found them useful. The

shares of “very good/good” answers went from 55.8% for the Quality Adjusted Labour Input

(QALI) to 66.4% for the Labour market transitions statistics (Chart 41).

21.8% 21.8% 21.2% 20.0%16.6% 16.1% 13.7% 13.5% 12.1% 11.9% 11.6%

28.8% 28.1% 29.0% 27.5%24.4% 23.1% 21.0% 20.6% 19.7% 19.2% 18.9%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Stat

isti

cs o

n t

he

join

td

istr

ibu

tio

n o

f in

com

e,…

Inco

me

and

co

nsu

mp

tio

n:

com

par

ing

soci

al s

urv

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an

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Lab

ou

r m

arke

t tr

ansi

tio

ns

stat

isti

cs

Flas

h e

stim

ate

s o

f in

com

ein

equ

alit

y an

d p

ove

rty

ind

icat

ors

Skill

s m

ism

atch

es s

tati

stic

s

Foo

d p

rice

mo

nit

ori

ng:

Pri

cetr

ansm

issi

on

alo

ng

the

foo

d…

Qu

alit

y A

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sted

Lab

ou

r In

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ALI

)

Mu

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gro

up

san

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he

ir s

tru

ctu

re

Serv

ice

Trad

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terp

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Ch

arac

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TEC

)

Full

Inte

rnat

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Glo

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Acc

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fo

r R

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rch

In…

Wo

rld

he

rita

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ite

s st

atis

tics

Users expressing anopinion

Users expressing anopinion + Users withno opinion

42

Chart 41. Usefulness of Eurostat’s experimental statistics, in %


On an overall level, also for this question respondents from advanced users giving an opinion

are more satisfied (65.1% of “very good/good”), compared to intermediate users (56.9%) and

light users (63.2%).

In their comments, users confirmed that they found experimental statistics quite interesting

and useful and would like to get more of them in future. Some pointed out that they were not

very visible and a few respondents said that they had discovered them thanks to the survey.

To complete the section of the survey on the website, users were asked for the second time

this year to rate the information on microdata access services on the Eurostat website. Almost

half of the respondents (47.0%) gave an opinion, so showing that they use the microdata. The

share was higher, as it could be expected, for the respondents from advanced users (52.7%)

than for intermediate users (44.8%) and light users (38.2%). However, advanced users seem

to be also more exigent for this kind of services, as their satisfaction (54.9% of “very

good/good”) was in this case lower than for intermediate users (60.9%) and light users

(59.0%) (Chart 42).

66.4

65.3

63.5

63.2

63.2

60.5

59.5

59.2

58.2

56.2

55.8

19.2

20.3

24.0

20.5

25.7

22.3

24.5

23.3

28.7

30.2

29.7

14.5

14.4

12.6

16.2

11.0

17.3

15.9

17.5

13.1

13.6

14.5

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Labour market transitions statistics

Flash estimates of income inequalityand poverty indicators

Skills mismatches statistics

World heritage sites statistics

Multinational enterprise groups andtheir structure

Statistics on the joint distribution ofincome, consumption and wealth

Income and consumption: comparingsocial surveys and national accounts

Full International and GlobalAccounts for Research In Input-…

Service Trade by EnterpriseCharacteristics (STEC)

Food price monitoring: Pricetransmission along the food supply…

Quality Adjusted Labour Input (QALI)

Very good/Good

Adequate

Poor / Verypoor

43

Chart 42. Assessment of the information on microdata access services on the Eurostat

website, in %


Compared to 2016, the share of those considering the information on microdata access

services as least good registered an increase of 2.8 percentage points (Chart 43).

Chart 43. Assessment of the information on microdata access services on the Eurostat

website in 2016 and 2019, in %


In their comments respondents considered not only the information on microdata access but

also the access procedure and the set of microdata available. They declared to appreciate the

service and the availability of microdata. However, several pointed out that it is difficult to

receive an answer when asking for microdata and the procedure for getting access is too

complicate and long. On this, it can be noted that when getting a request Eurostat has to

verify the criteria laid down in the applicable Regulation, which usually takes about one

week. A few respondents said that they would like to get microdata also for other topics than

those available and that they would appreciate more options to access the microdata.

3.4.2 Release calendar

When asked about their awareness of Eurostat’s release calendar (Chart 44), which provides

information on the dates and times of Euro indicators’ releases and other news releases and

publications, a bit more than a third of the respondents seemed to be aware of it (34.6%), with

a share increasing by 3.3 percentage points compared to 2016. Among user types, advanced

and intermediate users, with respective shares of 38.8% and 36.2% were much more aware

than light users (22.5%), which could be expected.

57.6

59.0

60.9

54.9

32.3

35.9

31.7

31.5

10.1

5.1

7.5

13.6

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediate users

Advanced users

Very good/ Good

Adequate

Poor /Very poor

54.8

57.6

35.3

32.3

9.9

10.1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

2016

2019 Very good / Good

Adequate

Poor / Very poor

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/news/release-calendar

44

Chart 44. Awareness of the release calendar among user types, in %


Within the entire surveying period, 2019 is the year with the highest degree of awareness.

Chart 45. Awareness of release calendar 2011-2019, in %


Those who were aware of the calendar were also asked to assess whether the release calendar

had sufficient and relevant information to fulfil their needs (Chart 46). About two thirds of

the respondents (67.3%), a share close to 2016, gave positive opinions, indicating that

Eurostat release calendar continues to be of great value for those who are aware of it and use

it for their needs. 18.6% of respondents said the calendar satisfied their needs partly.

34.6

22.5

36.2

38.8

65.4

77.5

63.8

61.2

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediate users

Advanced users

Aware

Not aware

26.6% 30.9% 29.7% 29.2% 28.3%31.3%

34.6%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019

45

Chart 46. Assessment of sufficiency and relevance of information in the release calendar

by user types, in %


For once, there were limited differences among the three user types, with the light users this

time more satisfied (69.6%) than intermediate (67.7%) and advanced users (66.5%).

In their comments, users expressed the wish to have more topics covered by the release

calendar (social and environment statistics were mentioned), to include in the calendar the list

of all data for which updates or releases are expected, and to respect the publications dates.

After growing steadily until 2015, user satisfaction with the sufficiency and relevance of

information in the release calendar seem to have stabilised (Chart 47).

Chart 47. Sufficiency and relevance of information in the release calendar 2011-2019


3.4.3 Metadata and methodological information

Eurostat publishes metadata in order to provide better background information about the data

(definitions, methodology, classifications, nomenclature, etc.) and to explain their limitations.

67.3

69.6

67.7

66.5

18.6

21.7

16.2

19.7

2.6

0.0

0.8

4.6

11.5

8.7

15.4

9.2

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediate users

Advanced users

Yes

Partly

No

56.5% 58.4%62.8% 64.2%

67.6% 66.4% 67.3%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019

46

Users were asked to indicate whether they used metadata provided by Eurostat. As seen from

Chart 48, metadata was used by more than half of the respondents (57.6%), well more than in

2016 (48.5%). When asking about metadata usage there is a big difference among the three

types of users. Only 30.4% of light users declared to use metadata, versus 56.0% of

intermediate users and 71.3% of advanced users.

Chart 48. Use of metadata by user types, in %


With the biggest increase since 2011, in 2019 the share of the respondents using metadata is

the highest ever registered.

Chart 49. Usage of metadata 2011-2019

Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys

Metadata users were also asked about their accessibility. Results of Chart 50 reveal that this

year the share of respondents who find it easily accessible is slightly less than a half (48.4%).

A share of 40.1% thought it was partly easy to find and 11.5% experienced difficulties.

57.6

30.4

56.0

71.3

42.4

69.6

44.0

28.7

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediate users

Advanced users

Yes

No

43.5%

50.9%48.9% 48.0% 47.4% 48.5%

57.6%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019

47

Chart 50. Metadata accessibility, in %


Intermediate users were surprisingly a bit more satisfied with the metadata accessibility

(51.2%) than advanced users (48.4%), while light users were the least happy (38.7%).

As can be seen from Chart 51, after the peak registered in 2015, which could have been due

to the new website, user satisfaction with this aspect of the metadata has been slightly

decreasing.

Chart 51. Easiness of access to metadata 2011-2019, in %


A bit less than half of the metadata users (45.2%) were also satisfied with its sufficiency

(Chart 52). On average 45.2% found metadata sufficient for their purposes. This is 8.9

percentage points less than in 2016 and the largest registered decrease of all questions.

Another 40.8% of users found metadata partly sufficient and 7.2% stated that metadata was

not sufficient. In this case, the shares of intermediate and advanced users who were satisfied

were almost identical (45.7% and 45.6%), while the one of light users was lower (41.7%).

48.4

38.7

51.2

48.4

40.1

48.4

41.3

37.7

11.5

12.9

7.5

13.8

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediate users

Advanced users

Yes

Partly

No

45.3% 49.6% 50.9%47.4%

52.8% 51.7%48.4%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019

48

Chart 52. Assessment of sufficiency of metadata for the different types of users, in %


While some users reaffirmed in their comments that metadata are clear, complete and better

than those of other data providers, have improved, others still found them not easy to access,

not clear enough, too long or too technical. The main suggested further improvements

included to provide some more basic metadata, easy to understand and in plain language for

non-specialists, to provide metadata at more detailed level and for all indicators, and to give

clearer and more complete definitions of all codes. Other respondents wished to get more

information on the production of statistics and the used methodology, also to understand

more easily the differences among countries. Finally, metadata should be consistent over time

and among different statistics and always updated in case of changes in the methodology.

As Chart 53 shows, 2019 proved to be the year when users were the least satisfied with this

criterion after a period of stability.

Chart 53. Sufficiency of metadata 2011-2019, in %


45.2

41.7

45.7

45.6

47.6

51.7

50.3

45.3

7.2

6.7

4.1

9.2

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediate users

Advanced users

Yes

Partly

No

55.2%54.9%

57.2% 55.4% 55.3% 54.1%

45.2%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019

49

3.4.5 User support

In the survey, users also had the opportunity to express their opinion on the support services

offered by Eurostat. Results are presented in Chart 54.

Leaving out those with no opinion or not aware of the user support function, the degree of

satisfaction remains the highest of all services with 75.0% of the respondents saying that they

were either “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the support service provided by Eurostat. The

share of unsatisfied users was 5.5% this year. All types of users were very satisfied. –

Advanced users were the most satisfied (76.5%), a bit more than light users (74.0%) and

intermediate users (73.5%).

Chart 54. Satisfaction with user support, in %


Between 2011 and 2019, overall satisfaction with user support has always been very high,

reaching its highest value this year, as shown in Chart 55.

Chart 55. Satisfaction with user support 2011-2019


75.0

74.0

73.5

76.5

19.5

21.1

21.7

17.2

5.5

4.9

4.8

6.3

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediateusers

Advanced users

Very satisfied /Satisfied

Neithersatisfied notunsatisfiedUnsatisfied /Veryunsatisfied

72.4%70.4%

72.7% 71.9%74.4% 72.5%

75.0%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019

50

Users’ comments confirmed that they judge the service very good and the people really

helpful. However, a few pointed out that the procedure to get the support can be problematic

with the necessity to create an account.

3.5 Overall quality of data and services

Users were also asked to express their views on the overall quality of the data and services

provided by Eurostat. As can be seen from Chart 56, the level of overall satisfaction remained

quite high with 70.1% of all respondents evaluating data and services as “very good” or

“good”, 19.5% as “adequate” and only 3.3% as “poor” or “very poor”. This share of “very

good/good” was once again the highest for the advanced users (72.9%) compared to

intermediate users (68.5%) and light users (66.7%).

Chart 56. Overall satisfaction with the quality of the data and services, in %


As Chart 57 demonstrates, the assessment of the overall quality of data and services was the

second highest since 2012 and the difference with 2017 was only due to the largest share of

respondents not giving an opinion (7.1% in 2019 versus 2.5% in 2017).

Chart 57. Overall quality of data and services 2012-2019, in %


70.1

66.7

68.5

72.9

19.5

19.1

22.0

17.7

3.3

2.5

3.9

3.1

7.1

11.8

5.6

6.3

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

All users

Light users

Intermediate users

Advanced users

Very good /GoodAdequate

Poor / VerypoorNo opinion

66.966.1 66.5 67 65.3

7370.1

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019

51

3.6 Comparison with previous survey

It is interesting to note that more positive feedback came again, as in the past, from the

comparison of overall evaluation of Eurostat’s data, products or services with those at the

time of the previous survey (Chart 58).

Contrary to what was expressed in response to some other questions, a number of

respondents stated that they saw data quality components and services as “better” than in

2017 when looking at the bigger picture. The most striking evaluation is for the website,

which was considered better than in 2017 by 20.7% of respondents, even if the judgement on

its quality went slightly down when asked directly about it. This phenomenon might also be

explained by a potential continuous increase in quality standards that users expect from

Eurostat. Users may see improved data or service quality from previous years, but are not

necessarily more satisfied with it.

A high percentage of “no opinion” responses remained, even more than in the past, which can

be partly explained by the fact that some users did not take part in the previous survey, did

not recall their responses or simply did not have experience with the services.

Chart 58. Changes in perception of Eurostat's data and services quality, in %


At the end users could add more comments of a general nature. Many of them just repeated

what already said in responding to the previous questions. What several users added is their

wish to get more statistics, in particular more regional statistics, at different levels, and more

disaggregated data. In particular, of all themes, transport statistics, waste statistics and

statistics on migration were mentioned more than once for an increased coverage. Another

recurrent wish is to have Eurostat’s website and publications in more languages.

20.9

20.7

20.4

19.4

16.9

13.8

12.0

30.8

28.9

30.0

31.6

33.6

28.7

27.4

0.7

1.7

1.1

1.3

0.6

0.6

0.8

47.6

48.7

48.5

47.7

48.9

56.9

59.9

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Overall

Website

Timeliness of data

Completeness of data

Comparability of data

Metadata

Support services

Better

Same

Worse

No opinion

52

4. Messages from the users

A list of suggestions for improvement was drawn taking into account both the quantitative

analysis of the answers to different questions and the recurrent comments that respondents

could give as a free text. Most of them have already been mentioned in the previous reports.

To further improve the quality of statistical data especially by improving timeliness

and reducing data gaps due to confidentiality and late sending of data for some

countries.

To provide data at a more disaggregated level and at a more detailed regional level.

To correct data inconsistencies and provide explanations for abnormal data and

outliers.

To provide more microdata and to make microdata more easy to access for the users.

To revise the Eurostat website, making it more modern, performant and user friendly,

easier to navigate also for non-expert users.

To improve the search engine, data extraction and download facilities.

To provide an alert system when data are modified.

To expand the geographical coverage of provided data on non-EU countries.

To improve metadata by: (i) giving clear, easy to understand and less technical

explanations, trying to avoid specialist language, (ii) providing metadata at a more

detailed level, (iii) providing always definitions for all codes and explanations of

methodology, (iv) regularly updating metadata (e.g. when the methodology changes).

To have more topics covered by the release calendar and to include all expected

updates.

To lighten the procedure to get user support.

To have Eurostat’s website and publications in more languages.

53

Annex 1 - Statistical areas

1. Economy and finance, composed of:

1.1. National accounts (including GDP, main aggregates, input-output tables and

European sector accounts)

1.2. Price statistics

1.3. Government finance statistics

1.4. Balance of payments

1.5. Financial accounts and monetary indicators

2. Population and social conditions, composed of:

2.1. Labour market (including labour force survey)

2.2. Population

2.3. Health

2.4. Education and training

2.5. Living conditions and social protection

3. Industry, trade and services, composed of

3.1. Structural business statistics

3.2. Short-term business statistics

3.3. Tourism

4. International trade statistics

5. Environment statistics

6. Agriculture statistics

7. Fishery statistics

8. Energy statistics

9. Transport statistics

10. Digital economy and society

11. Regional statistics

12. Policy indicators, composed of

12.1. Europe 2020 indicators

12.2. Sustainable Development indicators

12.3. Euro indicators / PEEIs (Principal European Economic Indicators)

12.4. Globalisation indicators

12.5. MIP (Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure) indicators

13. Other

54

Annex 2 - Breakdown of respondents by country of work place

17.7

9.7

8.1

7.1

4.7

3.3

3.2

3.1

3.0

2.9

2.9

2.8

2.5

2.4

1.8

1.5

1.5

1.5

1.3

1.3

1.0

0.8

0.8

0.7

0.7

0.6

0.3

0.1

13.0

0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 14.0 16.0 18.0

Belgium

Italy

Germany

Spain

France

Portugal

Netherlands

United Kingdom

Poland

Greece

Luxembourg

Austria

Romania

Denmark

Czechia

Bulgaria

Ireland

Croatia

Hungary

Sweden

Lithuania

Slovenia

Finland

Latvia

Slovakia

Cyprus

Estonia

Malta

Other (non-EU)

55

Annex 3 - Example of calculations for the question on overall quality

Step 1. Detailed results for all statistical areas

Q_10: How do you rate the overall quality of European statistics?

Overall Quality Very

good

Good Adeq. Poor Very

poor

No

opin.

Total

National accounts (including GDP,

main aggregates, input-output

tables and European sector

accounts)

103 150 63 55 27 27 425

Price statistics 48 75 41 30 13 19 226

Government finance statistics 46 64 26 13 10 8 167

Balance of payments 30 50 21 19 6 6 132

Financial accounts and monetary

indicators 22 38 17 11 4 6 98

Structural business statistics 36 79 43 32 9 17 216

Short-term business statistics 26 52 23 18 5 8 132

Tourism 20 26 21 12 5 9 93

Labour market (including labour

force survey) 78 137 68 35 16 21 355

Population 86 118 55 33 20 17 329

Health 38 57 42 14 9 9 169

Education and training 44 79 47 24 15 13 222

Living conditions and social

protection 62 100 52 22 12 10 258

International trade statistics 55 101 58 32 18 8 272

Environment statistics 33 68 46 29 7 7 190

Agriculture statistics 24 66 33 24 8 5 160

Fishery statistics 9 17 8 4 2 5 45

Energy statistics 37 63 41 21 8 10 180

Transport statistics 22 47 32 11 4 7 123

Science and technology and

innovation 38 49 45 17 6 9 164

Digital economy and society 29 44 30 8 7 7 125

Regional statistics 46 80 47 26 9 10 218

Europe 2020 indicators 43 64 29 19 9 12 176

Sustainable development indicators 42 55 40 14 7 7 165

Euro indicators / PEEIs (Principal

European Economic Indicators) 22 27 20 5 4 8 86

Globalisation indicators 18 29 11 9 7 4 78

MIP (Macroeconomic Imbalances

Procedure) indicators 17 16 11 5 3 3 55

Your other European statistics as

specified under Question 1 10 16 5 2 1 8 42

Step 2. Results are aggregated under bigger areas

56


good Good Adequate Poor

Very

poor

No

opinion Total

Economy and finances 249 377 168 128 60 66 1048

Industry, trade and services 82 157 87 62 19 34 441

Population and social

conditions 308 491 264 128 72 70 1333

International trade statistics 55 101 58 32 18 8 272

Environment statistics 33 68 46 29 7 7 190

Agriculture statistics 24 66 33 24 8 5 160

Fishery statistics 9 17 8 4 2 5 45

Energy statistics 37 63 41 21 8 10 180

Transport statistics 22 47 32 11 4 7 123


innovation 38 49 45 17 6 9 164

Digital economy and society 29 44 30 8 7 7 125

Regional statistics 46 80 47 26 9 10 218

Policy indicators 142 191 111 52 30 34 560

Other 10 16 5 2 1 8 42

Total 1084 1767 975 544 251 280 4901

Step 3. "Very good" and "Good" and "Very poor" and "Poor" are merged

Overall Quality

Very

good /

Good

Adequate Poor /

Very poor No opinion Total

Economy and finances 626 168 188 66 1048

Industry, trade and services 239 87 81 34 441


conditions 799 264 200 70 1333

International trade statistics 156 58 50 8 272

Environment statistics 101 46 36 7 190

Agriculture statistics 90 33 32 5 160

Fishery statistics 26 8 6 5 45

Energy statistics 100 41 29 10 180

Transport statistics 69 32 15 7 123


innovation 87 45 23 9 164

Digital economy and society 73 30 15 7 125

Regional statistics 126 47 35 10 218

Policy indicators 333 111 82 34 560

Other 26 5 3 8 42

Average for all areas 2851 975 795 280 4901

Step 4. Final table with calculated percentages

57


good/Good Adequate

Poor/Very

poor No opinion

Economy and finances 59,7% 16,0% 17,9% 6,3%

Industry, trade and services 54,2% 19,7% 18,4% 7,7%


conditions 59,9% 19,8% 15,0% 5,3%

International trade statistics 57,4% 21,3% 18,4% 2,9%

Environment statistics 53,2% 24,2% 18,9% 3,7%

Agriculture statistics 56,3% 20,6% 20,0% 3,1%

Fishery statistics 57,8% 17,8% 13,3% 11,1%

Energy statistics 55,6% 22,8% 16,1% 5,6%

Transport statistics 56,1% 26,0% 12,2% 5,7%


innovation 53,0% 27,4% 14,0% 5,5%

Digital economy and society 58,4% 24,0% 12,0% 5,6%

Regional statistics 57,8% 21,6% 16,1% 4,6%

Policy indicators 59,5% 19,8% 14,6% 6,1%

Other 61,9% 11,9% 7,1% 19,0%

Average for all areas 58,2% 19,9% 16,2% 5,7%

REPORT ON THE EUROSTAT 2019 USER SATISFACTION SURVEY€¦ · The present survey covered four main...

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