Management Board- Role, Responsibility and Reporting
The Management Board acts as the primary decision making committee within the Central Statistics Office and provides the leadership and management required at a corporate level. The Management Board sets the vision and strategic direction for the organisation, taking into account, as far as possible, customer, staff and all other relevant stakeholder views. The Management Board comprises of the Director General (Chair), and the Assistant Directors General. Detailed Terms of Reference for the Management Board of the Central Statistics Office are at Appendix 2.
Other Governance and Management Structures
CSO updated its corporate governance arrangements in 2023. The CSO’s Management Board has devolved responsibility to various governance boards within the Office to administer the oversight role in a more structured and focussed manner.
• Risk Board
The Risk Board is accountable to the Management Board and is responsible for the overall governance of risk management within the CSO. The Board will be led by the Chief Risk Officer.
MB has delegated responsibility for the oversight of risk management to the Risk Board, which remains answerable to MB. It is the responsibility of the Risk Board to keep MB informed of progress and to make MB aware of any issues of significance in a timely fashion. The Risk Board will provide reports to MB on a semi annual basis and may decide to escalate issues to MB more often if necessary. The Risk Board will be held accountable for the decisions made regarding managing risk escalation and events in the Office.
The Risk Board is also responsible for reviewing the risks attached to new projects and programmes of work and based on the risk level, assign them to a governance structure or if the risks identified are low, decide that the programme/project can be managed locally.
• Project Oversight Board
The Board is responsible for determining the appropriate level of governance for new projects in the Office. The MB has delegated responsibility for governance of the designated projects to the Project Oversight Board, which remains answerable to the MB. The Project Oversight Board shall keep MB informed of progress and make MB aware of any issues of significance in a timely fashion. The Project Oversight Board will provide timely semi annual reports to the MB and shall escalate issues/projects to Risk Committee when risks are high or are increasing in a manner which raises concern.
Decisions on significant resourcing issues, e.g. hiring new permanent staff, remain under the remit of the Management Board.
• Census
The Census board is responsible for the organisation of the Census. The Census is the largest statistical operation undertaken by the CSO. It is also the most exacting, since the fieldwork must be completed over a relatively short period and a thorough account of everybody in the country on Census night must be obtained. The main role of the Board is to govern and oversee the Census 2021, subsequently Census 2022 project which includes a parallel administrative census in 2021.
It is the responsibility of the Board to escalate issues that the Board deems to be of high impact/medium risk, medium impact/high risk and high impact/high risk to MB.
• Editorial Board
The Editorial Board was established in June 2015 to provide advice and support on standards for CSO published content. The Board meets monthly to review publications and provide advice and support editorial standards across all CSO outputs.
• Confidentiality and Data Security Committee
The role of the Confidentiality and Data Security Committee (CDSC) co-ordinates the implementation by the CSO of its obligations relating to statistical confidentiality and data security, in line with the requirements of Part V of the Statistics Act (1993), the Data Protection Acts (1988 to 2018) and the General Data Protection Regulation.
• Business Respondent & SMS Project Board
The CSO has recently embarked on a new project to provide a Portal for Business Statistics Respondents. The project will include review and change of processes to make the return of our many business surveys more cohesive for the respondent. This is an ambitious project and the CSO has formed a governance board to oversee all aspects of this project. This board can report to the Project Oversight Board and the Risk Board.
Co-Ordination of all European Official Statistics
The Director General of the CSO now has responsibility for the coordination of the statistical activities of all national authorities that are responsible for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics following a change in EU law which legally broadens the role of the CSO and that of its Director General - Regulation (EU) 2015/759 amending Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European Statistics. The new EU legislation has fundamentally changed the role of the CSO, and that of its Director General. Following this legislation, the Director General of the CSO now has responsibility for coordinating and overseeing the quality of all European Official Statistics in Ireland. At present there are fifteen public sector bodies which produce European statistics. It is now the responsibility of the CSO to ensure that these bodies are adhering to the quality and methodological standards set out by the EU and detailed in the European Statistics Code of Practice. The CSO is currently developing a work programme to implement the changes. Appropriate governance structures will have to be developed in response to this legislative change.
Irish Statistical System
The CSO has a formal coordination role to play across the public service in relation to official statistics compiled by other public authorities. This coordination role is set in a legal context in both national (Statistics Act, 1993) and EU legislation ( Amended Regulation EC No. 223/2009). Under Sections 30 and 31 of the Statistics Act, 1993 the CSO also has powers of access to the records of public authorities, for statistical purposes, and to obtain the co-operation of public authorities in developing the statistical potential of administrative records.
In November 2011, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform recognised that good quality data and information was essential to deliver on their actions of improving customer services and public sector efficiency. As part of this plan, the CSO was assigned the task of developing ‘a code of practice and standards for the gathering and use of data for statistical purposes in the Public Service’. The CSO developed the Irish Statistical Code of Practice (ISSCoP), which sets out the standard for statistical production and dissemination of Official Statistics for other Public Sector Bodies. The ISSCoP was launched in November 2013 (see www.isscop.ie) and this was the first step in formalisation of the coordinating role of the CSO within the ISS. The National Statistics Board, in its Strategic Priorities for Official Statistics 2021-2026, re-emphasised the importance of the ISSCoP and recommended that Public Sector Bodies producing Official Statistics should aspire to reaching a stage of compliance which would see their outputs branded with the ISSCoP quality assurance mark.
Additional appropriate governance and support structures have also been put in place. These include increasing the number of appointments of CSO statistical staff to seconded posts in the Irish Statistical System (ISS) as part of the Irish Government Statistical Service; conducting pathfinder projects with ISS organisations; providing assistance to the ISS with statistical issues and the creation of the Formal Statistician Liaison Group to help further develop the ISS.
Memorandums of Understanding
Memorandums of Understanding are formal agreements between the CSO and other Government Departments or bodies which enhance data cooperation between the two parties to the agreement and helps to fulfill statistical requirements of European legislation, reduce administrative burden on business and meet national needs for statistics.
Memoranda of Understanding have been signed between the CSO and Revenue, Companies Registration Office, Central Bank, Department of Finance, Department of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, Higher Education Authority, the Department of Employment Affairs & Social Protection, Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration & Youth, Health Research Board, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine, Department of Justice & Equality, Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage, An Garda Siochana, the Irish Prison Service, and Quality and Qualifications Ireland. The details are available on the CSO website.
Liaison Groups
The CSO is involved with a number of Liaison Groups with the broad aim of improving communications with the Office’s key stakeholders, both users and data respondents.