In fulfilling its mandate the CSO applies the best statistical standards and methodology, and adheres to the highest professional standards of impartiality, integrity and independence. The Office fully subscribes to the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.
The CSO operates under a strict legal regime, supported by a robust quality framework, the backbone of which is the European Statistics Code of Practice (ESCOP). This Code of Practice is made up of 16 principles covering the institutional environment, the statistical production process and the output of statistics. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) as a member of the European Statistical system is duty-bound and committed to following the Code. Each of the 16 principles has a number of specific indicator measures which are enacted through the policies, standards and practices of the CSO.
In accordance with the ESCOP quality standards, the quality requirements of CSO’s statistical outputs are:
• to be relevant with regard to meeting users information needs
• to be accurate so that estimates or indicators accurately and reliably portray reality
• to be timely so that statistics are made available to users in a timely and punctual manner
• to be accessible so that statistics are presented to users in a clear, understandable form, released in a suitable and convenient manner, available and accessible on an impartial basis with supporting metadata
• to be comparable and coherent to enable comparison internally, over time or among related sources
The Quality Policy for the Office is set out in “Quality in Statistics - A Handbook of Quality Standards and Guidelines” . This provides information and recommendations on best practice and contains clear guidelines and standards to ensure that the quality of our processes and outputs are of the highest standard.
The CSO’s commitment to the quality of the statistics produced and disseminated is set out in its quality statement (see Central Statistics Office Quality Statement (PDF 101KB) ). This is further supported by the Government of Ireland adopted “Commitment on Confidence in Statistics” which declares support for the existing laws and for those policies and practices instigated by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) to meet its obligations under the European Statistics Code of Practice.
Standard reports on methods and quality for each statistical output are available on the Methods page of the CSO website. These reports provide information to users on the methodology in place in the particular survey area together with an assessment of the quality of the resulting survey output in terms of the quality dimensions set out in the European Statistics Code of Practice.