1. The past few years have seen several notable developments in Australia's official statistics as the national statistical agency - the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) - continues to respond to new user requirements, improve the quality of its statistics and implement new international statistical standards.

2. In the national accounts, two significant initiatives are currently underway: the implementation of the System of National Accounts 1993 and the integration of the national income, expenditure and product accounts with annual input-output tables. The ABS has embarked upon an extensive program of new work in the areas of prices and productivity. A comprehensive strategy for services statistics has been developed. In the area of international investment statistics, work is proceeding on implementing the fifth edition of the Balance of Payments Manual.

3. The ABS has commenced the development of a labour costs index, which will measure change in the average hourly cost of employing labour. A longitudinal study of employment and unemployment patterns has commenced, and a survey on literacy has been conducted.

4. The five-yearly Census of Population and Housing was successfully conducted in August 1996, with first results expected in July 1997.

5. In 1994, the ABS conducted its first comprehensive survey of Indigenous people. In the same year, a continuous survey of income and housing costs was introduced. In 1995, a nutrition survey was conducted in conjunction with the five-yearly comprehensive health survey. In 1996, a survey of womens' safety was conducted.

6. The ABS has expanded its delivery mechanisms for official statistics. CD-ROM products are now produced, and the on-line time series system has been enhanced. A World Wide Web site has been established on the Internet. A generalised system for publication production has been developed, and an organization-wide data warehouse is now operational.

Australian Bureau of Statistics
November 1996

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN AUSTRALIA'S OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Paper prepared by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the ESCAP Committee on Statistics, Tenth Session, November 1996

1. INTRODUCTION

1. This paper reviews the recent activities of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), highlights issues encountered and innovations employed, and discusses future plans.

2. The ABS is Australia's central statistical agency and it provides statistical services to both the Commonwealth and State/Territory governments. Its mission is to assist and encourage informed decision making, research and discussion within governments and the community, by providing a high quality, objective and responsive national statistical service.

3. At 30 June 1996, the ABS had about 3,500 staff, spread over a Central Office in Canberra and eight regional offices. Most statistical collections are conducted on a centralised basis -that is, a single office is responsible for the Australia-wide operations of a particular statistical collection. In addition to conducting its own statistical collections, the ABS produces an extensive range of statistics using administrative by-product data from other government agencies.

2. STATISTICAL ISSUES

National accounts

4. For a number of reasons, significant steps are currently being taken both to improve the quality of the Australian National Accounts and to develop and extend them in various important respects. These reasons include:

• The national accounts have a central role in assessing the state of the economy and in this connection are being subjected to increasingly exacting public scrutiny. Present development work is aimed at improving the quality of the quarterly and annual accounts.
• The changing nature of the Australian economy (such as the growing importance of services industries) requires continuous reassessment of the relevance of statistical outputs to ensure that important user requirements are being met.
• New international standards - in particular, the System of National Accounts 1993 (SNA93) - have been promulgated and Australia, in common with other countries, has commenced the considerable program of work required to implement them.

5. The most visible change in the Australian national accounts arising from the application of SNA93 will be tables that are more comprehensive (eg balance sheets will be included as an integral part of the annual accounts along with the present 'flow' accounts such as those of income and expenditure, and the flow accounts will be presented in greater detail than previously). The ABS released a publication in December 1994 titled Discussion Paper: Introduction of Revised International Statistical Standards in ABS Macro-economic Statistics (Cat. No. 5245.0) which sets out in detail the changes likely to arise from the introduction of SNA93.

6. The introduction of the new international standards has offered a valuable opportunity for the ABS to review the whole of its national accounts program. In particular, two detailed reviews (one in 1993 and the other in 1994) investigated how compilation techniques could be improved. As a result of these reviews, the ABS is currently working on a major development which will ultimately see the national income, expenditure and product (NIEP) accounts integrated with the input-output tables. The three alternative GDP estimates (ie, based on income, expenditure and production respectively) and their average, all of which are currently shown in the accounts, will be reconciled annually using an input-output framework. The result will be that a single estimate of GDP (and therefore a single growth rate) will be published for each year with the possible exception of the most recent complete year. While this will be a major step forward, it will not eliminate all problems of reconciliation. Because of the variety of data sources and methodologies used within the Australian national accounts there will remain other statistical discrepancies between estimates of items that are conceptually equivalent. For example, sectoral net lending in the NIEP accounts typically does not agree with the equivalent net change in financial position in the financial accounts. A major goal of the ABS is to reduce these discrepancies as well as those between the alternative approaches to GDP.

7. Until the present initiative was implemented, input-output tables were produced only triennially and up to three and a half years after the end of the reference period. This infrequency, and lack of timeliness, were the principal reasons for the tables not being used as benchmarks for the NIEP accounts.

8. The aim is to achieve full integration of the input-output and annual national accounts statistics in 1998 in parallel with implementing SNA93.

9. Integrating the input-output tables and the NIEP accounts has three main advantages:

• The accounts will be more consistent, both for any particular year and over time.
• The data confrontation and balancing process at detailed levels can lead to better estimates by identifying data deficiencies, thus prompting remedial action before the annual accounts are released.
• Input-output tables can provide a focus for data collection activities and also a 'quality filter' on the economic statistics collected.

10. In addition, annual current and constant price input-output tables will provide a rich data source for sophisticated analyses such as the detailed and coherent measurement of multifactor productivity.

11. A major requirement of the so-called 'input-output approach' is more detailed source data, particularly those collected in the annual economy-wide Economic Activity Survey and the annual manufacturing collection. In addition, the quarterly survey of employment and earnings and the quarterly survey of new capital expenditure are especially important. A thorough review of the survey of employment and earnings has recently been completed. It aimed to improve the data quality which had been deteriorating in recent times; a revamped survey will commence in September quarter 1996 as a result of this review. In the case of the survey of new capital expenditure, a dissection of total new capital expenditure on equipment into six broad commodity groups (eg, computers, road vehicles, etc) is being collected. As well as assisting in implementing the input-output approach, the additional data will enable a more accurate assessment to be made of the factors impacting on growth in private investment, which is a critical element in assessing economic conditions.

12. Data from the Australian Tax Office (ATO), supplied in respect of companies, individuals, and partnerships and trusts, have formed a major source for the national accounts for many years, albeit with a time delay. In developing the economic activity survey, the ABS strategy is to ultimately combine the data directly collected in the survey in respect of medium and large sized businesses with ATO data for business units not covered by the ABS survey, in order to produce the annual benchmarks used in the national accounts. (All the work on identifying the businesses for which ATO data will be used is being undertaken within the ABS. Under ATO legislation, the ABS has access to unit record data in respect of identified businesses for statistical purposes. On the other hand, the ATO cannot be provided by the ABS with details relating to identifiable individual businesses.)

13. Services industries have become an increasingly important part of the overall economy and, since the late 1980s, the ABS has implemented a rolling program of collecting detailed data on such industries periodically. The need for more current, broad indicators of activity for these industries has led to the planned introduction of a quarterly survey of turnover of services industries and to the development of price indexes for a range of services industries. Further details on the ABS's services statistics program are provided below.

Measuring economic growth

14. Many ABS statistics, including the national accounts, are expressed at prices in a base period so that underlying changes in quantities, or 'real' growth rates can be assessed. Over many years, the established practice in the ABS and most other national statistical agencies has been to rebase (ie, change the base year for weighting and reference purposes) every five years. The current base year used by the ABS is 1989-90 and the next base year for constant price estimates produced by the ABS is scheduled to be 1994-95. However, significant changes in measured growth rates have occurred in some components of the accounts following the last two rebases and it has become apparent that rebasing every five years may not be sufficiently frequent. A problem arises when both price and volume relativities between major commodities are changing rapidly and significantly. A solution to this problem, which is recommended by SNA93, is more frequent rebasing, using chain linking, to calculate chain volume indexes.

15. There are several alternative formulas which can be used to calculate chain volume indexes. At the present time, the ABS is calculating some experimental quarterly chain volume indexes using weights which change annually. The results are expected to be released in a Discussion Paper later in 1996. The aim will be to inform users about the issues associated with chain volume indexes and to provide an indication of the likely impact of their introduction. The growth rate recorded by chain volume indexes is generally considered to be a more realistic indicator of actual growth. However, 'constant price' value series calculated using chain volume indexes lose additivity, ie, the components of an aggregate such as GDP do not sum to the total. The Discussion Paper will set out the various issues in detail prior to a round of meetings which the ABS intends conducting with interested users.

Measuring productivity

16. There has been a heightened interest in recent years in productivity measurement generally and particularly for services industries, including in the context of measuring the efficiency of government service provision. Governments in Australia have been under increasing pressure to implement fiscal strategies to deal with adverse trends in revenue, outlays and debt. A quest for increased efficiency in government service provision, including the progressive adoption of 'best practice' techniques, has been an important feature of government initiatives and is also consistent with the national micro-economic reform agenda. However, existing data and techniques for monitoring the quantum of output and productivity of services industries, particularly for government services, are inadequate.

17. There are a number of streams to the work on productivity currently being undertaken in the ABS:

(a) For the market sector of the economy:

• Improving the range of price indexes available, especially for service industries, so that improved measures of real output - the numerator in the productivity calculation - can be compiled.
• Improving estimates of inputs to production (labour, capital stock estimates, intermediate consumption) -the denominators in the productivity calculation.

(b) For non-marketed outputs (eg government services) better real output measures (the numerator) are required in circumstances where conventional price deflation of current price outputs, imputed on the basis of input costs, is inappropriate. (The work on improved price indexes will be relevant for output measures derived using price deflation).

18. The productivity work will benefit from the availability of annual input-output tables (in both current and constant price terms) and the work on chain-linking described above. This work is conceptually difficult and the ABS is seeking collaborative arrangements with other national statistical agencies in undertaking the work.

Environment

Energy accounts

19. The ABS has compiled draft energy accounts, published in Energy Accounts for Australia (ABS Cat. No. 4604.0). These focus on the physical measurement of energy, describing sources, uses and residual emissions (where data are available). The next step is to place the energy flow data into an input-output framework in order to estimate, in total and for industry groups, the energy use and associated wastes and emissions which occur in the process of meeting intermediate and final demand for goods and services.

Balance sheets

20. In March 1995, the ABS published experimental estimates of non-produced natural assets within the economic boundaries of the national accounts in National Balance Sheets for Australia: Issues and Experimental Estimates (ABS Cat. No. 5241.0). Monetary and some physical estimates were compiled for subsoil assets, forests, land and livestock, covering the years 1989 to 1992.

21. Although some non-produced assets (such as fish stocks and water) are not included, the inclusion in the balance sheets of the other natural resources represents a significant development in the Australian national accounts. Prior to the release of these data, the ABS published separate estimates for produced assets and financial assets and liabilities (by sector) but they were not presented in an integrated manner. The balance sheet accounts provide this framework. Work is continuing in this area to extend the time series back to the mid-1980s and to provide estimates up to 1995. It is intended to provide detailed accounts for all sectors' assets (natural resources, produced non-financial assets, and financial assets) and liabilities, and hence sectoral estimates of net worth.

Environmental satellite accounts

22. It is unlikely that it will be possible to produce environmental satellite accounts (expressed in monetary terms) in Australia for many years, because of the major conceptual and data problems which have to be overcome. For example, while it is possible to identify the values of Australian oil reserves used up in the course of production, it is much more difficult to assign a value to the remaining reserves in the ground and more difficult again to value the effects of environmental degradation arising from the generation of wastes and emissions.

23. An environmentally-adjusted GDP estimate, if produced, could be expected to be volatile, contentious and subject to misinterpretation. In Australia this is of particular concern given the imprecise knowledge of our natural resources across a huge and varied land mass (reassessments are occurring constantly) and the major role that trade in resource commodities has in the economy. Adjustments to GDP growth would be sensitive to valuation errors and judgements and could lead to false debate about sustainability and the measure of 'true' income.

Australians and the Environment

24. In June 1996 a comprehensive publication, Australians and the Environment (ABS Cat. No. 4601.0), was released. This 400 page publication examines the relationships between the natural environment, Australia's population and the economy. It brings together information and statistics from a range of data sources (both from within and outside the ABS) to provide a large and credible set of information that can be used to understand environmental issues.

Services statistics

25. A major aspect of the ABS's work on services statistics in recent years has been the development of a comprehensive strategy for the provision of services statistics over the next 5-6 years. The strategy has been developed with the aim of satisfying the key user requirements in respect of services statistics - both for industries defined in terms of major activity and for services indicators cutting across industries (a growing area of interest). The requirements can be summarised as follows:

• More comprehensive current information concerning service sector economic activity/output (in both current and constant prices).
• More detailed annual information concerning broad service industry economic activity including measures of performance.
• I-depth studies of individual service industries and/or activities for use in micro-economic analysis. More information on technology related activities on an economy wide basis, but particularly in respect of service industries.
• Relevant, relatable services price indexes, both for use in their own right as signals of upstream price pressures and in deflation of current price services output measures. Comprehensive and timely information concerning international trade in services.

26. In response to these requirements the enhanced program of services statistics focuses on seven key streams:

1. Introduction of comprehensive sub-annual measures of services industry output (using turnover as the best available indicator across industries), to provide a broad indicator of performance in the service industries sector, and input (along with appropriate producer price indexes) to a constant price index of service industry production.
2. An enhanced annual overview of the structure and operation of the service industries sector, in the context of the overall 'market' economy, to identify the contribution of the service industries sector to the performance of the Australian economy.
3. A revamped program of periodic statistics on the nature, structure and operation of detailed service industries, and of significant across-industries services activities.
4. Accelerated development of producer price indexes for service industries.
5. Development of quarterly and annual constant price service industries production indexes based on Streams A, B and D above.
6. Development of productivity measures for service industries, based on constant price outputs from Stream E above as the numerator and appropriate measures of labour and capital inputs as the denominators.
7. Implementation of an enhanced quarterly program of trade in services statistics, targeted at the main user needs in terms of range, frequency, quality and detail.

27 In recent years, some of the more significant achievements in the area of services statistics have included:

• Release of a range of publications from the 1991-92 hospitality industries collection and the 1992-93 business and professional services collections. Completion of a survey of the motion picture, radio and television industries in respect of 1993-94. Conduct of surveys of sport, recreation, gambling, and medical industries in respect of 1994-95.
• Development of community services and business services surveys, which are currently being conducted in respect of 1995-96.
• Review of the methodology for the retail and wholesale industry censuses (to be next conducted in respect of 1998-99), which has resulted in decision to survey all multi-location enterprises and a sample of single-location enterprises. Information for the non-sampled single-location enterprises will be obtained from taxation records.

Trade and investment statistics

APEC Involvement

28. The ABS has played an active part in statistical issues affecting APEC, especially through the Trade and Investment Data Working Group (TIDWG) of the Committee on Trade and Investment. The ABS has been the Lead Shepherd (convenor) of the TIDWG. Within the TIDWG, it has been primarily responsible for the establishment of the Trade and Investment Data Database (TIDDB) which now contains two years of annual "standardised" trade in goods statistics for all, but one, member countries. The ABS has also taken on the task of getting all member countries to provide statistical data and descriptions of data sources and methods in respect of international investment data. Similar work is being undertaken by New Zealand in respect of international trade in services. The ABS recently passed over the Lead Shepherd role to Japan, but will continue to be actively involved in progressing the work on the TIDDB and international investment statistics.

Merchandise Trade

29. Work has commenced on bilateral reconciliation studies of merchandise trade flows with the United States of America, New Zealand, Japan, Korea and Indonesia (these countries represent some of Australia's more significant trading partners). The purpose of these studies is to quantify the causes of data discrepancies and to identify any major coverage or quality deficiencies in the statistics produced by each agency, after adjusting for conceptual and methodological differences.

International Trade in Services

30. Since 1994, a range of surveys covering transportation, insurance, travel, financial and other services, which had each evolved quite separately, were integrated into one overall Survey of International Trade in Services (SITS) framework. In the process of integration, the separate collections were also redeveloped to improve collection arrangements, provide a more comprehensive coverage of the target population and simplify form design. This has led to improvements in timeliness of results, response rates and the quality of reported data; removed gaps and overlaps in coverage across the different collections; and reduced provider load.

31. From the September quarter 1996, Australia has implemented in its SITS the recommendations of the fifth edition of the International Monetary Fund's Balance of Payments Manual (BPM5), as they relate to services trade, and the OECD/EUROSTAT International Trade in Services Classification. While much of the annual services trade statistics are already available on the basis of these standards, dissemination of all available details on that basis will be implemented from the September quarter 1997. The quarterly SITS sample has been increased to support the increased commodity and partner country information to be made available for trade in services. These initiatives will improve the quality and international comparability of Australia's international trade in services data.

32. Another recent innovation was the development and conduct of the second Survey of Returned Australian Travellers in 1995-96. This mail out household survey, which is conducted every four years, provides benchmark estimates of travel expenditure abroad by Australian residents.

International Investment Statistics

33. There have been a number of recent innovations in the collection of international investment statistics. These have included:

• From the September quarter 1996, implementation of BPM5 in International Investment Survey (IIS) collections.
• Quarterly collection of reinvestment of earnings data, which commenced in September quarter 1993 and replaced annual collection of that data. Quarterly data were first published in early 1996.
• Conduct of a new quarterly collection, commencing in respect of 1993-94, on international transactions and positions in financial derivatives (options, swaps, futures, etc).
• A review of quarterly collection methodologies for measuring foreign investment in Australian securities through nominees. As a result of the review it is proposed that the current quarterly aggregate collection of levels data from nominees could be extended to include transactions data and information for each individual line of stock held by the nominee on behalf of non-residents.
• Investigation into the feasibility of replacing the current annual IIS collections with a quarterly sample collection.

Labour statistics

Wage costs index

34. The ABS is in the process of developing a new quarterly index of labour costs. The index will measure change in the average hourly cost of employing labour, encompassing wage costs and major non-wage costs. Unlike the current average weekly earnings series, the labour costs index will be unaffected by changes in the composition of the work force or by changes in employees' remuneration arrangements.

35.The index will be implemented in two stages. In the first stage, to be implemented in 1996-97, a wage cost index will be produced. In the second stage, to be implemented in 1997-98, the full labour costs index will be compiled including major non-wage costs such as paid leave, superannuation, workers' compensation and payroll tax. Information for the compilation of the index will be provided quarterly from a sample of 3,000 employers, who will provide information on a sample of their jobs. In total, about 18,000 different job descriptions will be used in the compilation of the index.

36. Employee remuneration arrangements, especially in enterprise/workplace agreements, can be complicated and therefore difficult to measure statistically. For example, the area of bonuses, commissions and other incentive payments is complex and poses some difficulties. Considerable effort has been put into developing and testing a methodology for collecting reliable longitudinal price data for selected job descriptions.

Literacy

37. In 1996 the ABS conducted its first Survey of Aspects of Literacy, covering persons aged 15 years and over. The survey methodology was adapted from an overseas study, with the advice of a panel of Australian experts in literacy measurement. The survey involved the collection of a set of background variables in a standard questionnaire format, and the direct, objective assessment of literacy levels using examples of commonplace tasks of varying difficulty drawn from a range of topic and knowledge areas. Fieldwork took place in the period May to July 1996 and a response rate of 87% was achieved.

38. Results from the survey will provide the first ever large scale national picture of adults' literacy skills. They will be used by Government agencies to help evaluate literacy and language assistance programs and for planning and decision making, primarily in the areas of language and literacy policy.

Other

39. Other recent achievements in the field of labour statistics have included:

• Development and conduct of the first 'wave' of the longitudinal Survey of Employment and Unemployment Patterns. This survey will follow a panel of respondents over a three year period and is designed to provide information about the dynamics of the labour market, in particular to assist in the evaluation of labour market assistance programs.
• Development of the 1997 Survey of Education and Training, the third such household survey conducted by ABS. This survey will collect detailed information on participation in, and outcomes from education and training in Australia.
• Publication of an information paper Measuring Employment and Unemployment (Cat. No. 6279.0).
• Publication of two statistical reports containing multivariate analysis of training incidence and changes, based on the 1989 Survey How Workers Get Their Training, and the 1993 Training and Education Survey.

Census of Population and Housing

40. The five-yearly Census of Population and Housing was conducted on 6 August 1996. The collection phase proceeded smoothly and the processing of census forms is progressing well. A dissemination strategy has been developed in close consultation with users. The range of output products to be produced has been finalised, and the first results from the Census are expected to be available in July 1997.

41. Activities and achievements leading up to the conduct of the Census included:

• Successful conduct and processing of the Dress Rehearsal for the Census. The Dress Rehearsal involved 20,000 households and fully tested all the various collection and processing systems and procedures.
• Publication of 1996 Census of Population and Housing: ABS Views on Census Products and Services (Cat. No. 2011.0). The publication was used to report the outcomes of earlier consultations with users of census data and to consult further regarding the proposed products and services from the 1996 Census.
• Publication of 1996 Census of Population and Housing: ABS Views on Census Classifications (Cat. No. 2012.0). The publication was used for consultation with users on the classifications to be used in Census output.
• Publication of 1996 Census of Population and Housing: How Australia takes a Census (Cat. No. 2903.0). This publication describes the different phases in conducting the Census and the uses of Census data.
• Publication of 1996 Census of Population and Housing: Nature and Content of the Census (Cat. No. 2008.0). The publication outlined the procedures to be adopted in the Census and the reasons for the inclusion or exclusion of certain topics in the Census.
• Release of a Schools Resource Kit to all primary schools and a 25-minute video on uses of Census data to all secondary schools to promote awareness of the Census.

Indigenous statistics

42. In 1994, the ABS conducted a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey (NATSIS). The survey was in response to a recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which had highlighted the inadequacy of existing statistical information to monitor the wider social and economic experience of Indigenous peoples. The purpose of the survey was to provide the most needed statistics in a range of social, demographic, health and economic areas in order to provide a stronger information base for planning the empowerment of Australia's Indigenous peoples and for measuring progress in meeting their objectives, aspirations and needs.

43. The survey was characterised by the extensive involvement of Indigenous people (both from within and outside the ABS) in both the development and conduct phases. Their input greatly contributed to the culturally appropriate methods used in the survey and thus, to a large extent, to the success of the survey.

44. The NATSIS required a sample design for a population group that represents less than 1.5% of the total population, and data collection from a population with life styles ranging from traditional, to fringe dweller, to urban. A sample of approximately 5,000 dwellings (17,500 persons) throughout Australia was used and a response rate of 90% was achieved.

45. Other significant activities in the past few years with regard to statistics on Indigenous people include:

• establishment of a National Centre for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Statistics to advance the quality and effective use of statistics about Australia's Indigenous peoples and to service the need for statistics about this population group; and
• development and promotion of standards for determining and recording Aboriginal heritage in statistical and administrative collections and a classification and coding system for Aboriginal languages.

Incidence, patterns and in tensity of poverty

46. In 1994 a continuous Survey of Income and Housing Costs was introduced to monitor changes in household, family and income unit income distribution over time. This replaced a periodic (3-4 yearly) survey that had previously been conducted. The continuous survey provides measures of change in the income and characteristics of income earners, particularly low income earners, over time. It will also provide information to assist analyses of the effects of changes in economic and social policy as well as economic conditions over the economic cycles.

47. Inter-country comparisons can lead to a better understanding of how changes in employment, industry and other structures affect different population groups, including those on low incomes. International comparability of household income statistics relies on common standards and guidelines. The ABS has organised the first meeting of a group of international experts who will work towards achieving such standards and guidelines. This meeting will be held in Canberra in early December 1996.

Women's statistics

48. The need for a focus on the production of statistics, statistical indicators and social reports relating to the well-being of women has been acknowledged for some time within the ABS framework of population statistics. This has recognised the different status of women on a range of issues of social concern (such as access to life opportunities and means of independence in areas such as education, work, income support) and has recognised that there are issues of particular concern to women (such as health, safety and child care) that need to be addressed in social development processes.

49. In addressing these needs a Women's Statistics Unit was established in 1994. A key output from the unit is an annual publication, the Australian Women's Year Book (Cat. No. 4124.0), which provides socio-economic data on Australian women and reports on their progress over time across a wide range of areas of social concern.

50. Women are separately identified in all the social surveys undertaken by the ABS. The Women's Statistics Unit coordinates the production of gender-specific output from these collections and undertakes research into methodological issues associated with the collection of statistics about women.

51. In 1996 the ABS undertook a Womens' Safety Survey designed to provide comprehensive national data on the prevalence of threats against women's personal safety, women's experience of sexual and physical assault, action taken after experiencing violence and effects of incidents of violence on women. Despite the sensitive subject matter, a response rate of 79 percent was achieved. Results from this survey will be released in December 1996.

Other social statistics

52. Some other activities and achievements in the social statistics field over the past two years include:

• a survey on children's immunisation and health screening;
• a comprehensive National Health Survey conducted in 1995;
• a National Nutrition Survey, conducted in conjunction with the National Health Survey;
• development of a survey to measure the prevalence of specific mental disorders, the disablement associated with these disorders, the use made of health and human services, and consequently, the level of met and unmet need. It is expected that the survey will be conducted during 1997;
• establishment of a National Centre for Crime and Justice Statistics within the ABS with overall responsibility for criminal justice statistical activities, including analyses of crime trends; and
• establishment of a National Culture and Recreation Statistics Unit within the ABS.

Trends and seasonal adjustment of time series

53. Research indicates that for many purposes trend data is more informative than unsmoothed seasonally adjusted data and, consequently, in recent years the ABS has focused on trend estimates in the main features of its publications. By and large, users accept this focus, though there is occasionally some feedback favouring seasonally adjusted data. Some national accounts users are a significant example.

54. The ABS has developed a PC-based seasonally adjusted expert system called SEASABS. The system conducts routine seasonal adjustment automatically, applies seasonal factors, and calculates trends, in a simple user friendly way. SEASABS is designed to be used by non-specialists, and it is expected that by using SEASABS subject matter areas within the ABS may gain better insights into the behaviour of their data, providing benefits in output editing, and commentary preparation, with very little effort. The roll-out of SEASABS to internal client areas began in May 1996, and is now well advanced.

55. Externally, SEASABS is being used by a number of Federal and State government agencies. Several overseas statistical agencies are also evaluating SEASABS.

Analysis and interpretation

56. In early 1996, the ABS established an Analytical Services Section . Its roles include:

• undertaking statistical (as distinct from policy) analyses of ABS statistics, especially economic statistics, and developing "analytical products" that extract the latent value from data or add value to them;
• helping ensure that the data compilation and analysis methods underlying ABS products are rigorous and defensible; and
• building ties with the community of economic analysts, to spread information about the variety and quality of ABS products and about the statistical analysis methods that can validly be applied to ABS data.

57. During 1996, the work program of the section was dominated by four projects:

• developing measures of productivity for government health services;
• analysing and devising methods to reduce the biases in price indexes;
• developing data management and techniques for analysing the impact of revisions on economic statistics; and
• supporting and enhancing the TRYM model of the Australian economy.

58. ABS publications regularly feature analyses of results, which are welcomed by users. In its thematic publications, such as Australian Social Trends and Australian Economic Indicators, the ABS provides analyses of related data that are derived from a number of different sources.

IMF Data Standards

59. Australia has subscribed to the IMF's Special Data Dissemination Standard and has almost completed the relevant files. Australia meets most of the standards. However:

• Australia produces its consumer price index quarterly and in the absence of strong domestic user demand for monthly data, has no plans to increase its frequency.
• ABS Producer Price Indexes are currently produced 6-7 weeks after the reference period. Release within one month is not currently possible nor is sought from users in Australia.
• Balance of payments and international investment position data do not currently meet the coverage standard, however this will be met with the implementation of BPM5 in late 1997.

3. DISSEMINATION AND USER SERVICES

60. Traditionally, the ABS has disseminated its information via paper publications and today these publications retain an important role in providing access to official statistics. In recent times, the ABS has rationalised its range of publications (reducing the number of titles over the past two years from 443 to 304), but has expanded its range of analytical publications. As well as improvements to content, increasing importance is being placed on the way the information is presented on the basis of extensive communications research in order to make the publications easier to follow and more readable.

61. As opportunities have become available over the years, the ABS has broadened the range of media used for dissemination of its statistics. Advances in information and communication technologies are providing more opportunities for access to be provided in new ways and in some cases more widely. CD-ROMs are becoming, after a slow start, an important delivery mechanism for official statistics. For example:

• data from the 1986 and 1991 Population Censuses were made available on a CD-ROM product called CDATA, which provides software for retrieving, manipulating, tabulating and mapping the data using a personal computer;
• more recently, a comprehensive regional database has been established on CD-ROM, the Integrated Regional Data Base (IRDB) which also provides software for retrieving, manipulating, tabulating and mapping data on a wide range of topics using a personal computer;
• CD-ROM versions of the last two editions of the Australian Year Book have been released which give clients powerful searching and indexing capabilities in the Windows environment; and
• the Statistical Concepts Library on CD ROM released in July 1996 provides a comprehensive reference source describing the concepts sources and methods used to compile Australia's major economic and social statistics.

62. The ABS also has some services for on-line delivery of statistical data. PC-AUSSTATS, a PC based service, offers on-line, 24 hours per day, seven days per week, access to a wide range of ABS monthly, quarterly and annual time series data and selected data from the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. A Windows version of PC-AUSSTATS was released in 1995, and has been received very well, indicating the widespread use of this environment by users.

63. A homepage has been established on the World Wide Web (ABS StatSite http://www.abs.gov.au) offering, via the Internet, general information about the ABS and its services, publication release advices, media releases and basic statistics. Hypertext links are provided to Internet services of other national statistical agencies. It is estimated, on the basis of current usage, that there will be over 1 million accesses made to the ABS Internet site during 1996. Another Internet service the ABS provides is a Gopher/FTP service allowing the staff and students, serviced by subscribing to the Australian Universities Libraries, cost-effective access to on-line ABS time series data.

64. Through its Library Extension Program the ABS makes its publications and some electronic services available on a complimentary basis to the National Library, State libraries, Parliamentary libraries, and to public and tertiary-education libraries across Australia. Some 520 libraries are part of this service, which has been enhanced over the past two years through the provision of the Gopher/FTP Internet time series service mentioned above for tertiary libraries, and through the provision of detailed Census data via a free CD ROM product, CLIB, which provides free access to detailed results from the Census to the public through libraries located throughout Australia.

65. The infrastructure used to support dissemination and user services is undergoing a significant overhaul to improve the quality of services provided to clients and to improve business practices. The ABS subscription service system, aspects of the design of the Oracle Financials system which handles revenue transactions and information, job tracking facilities for consultancy services, client contact systems, and marketing information systems are all being developed and/or upgraded to support the increasingly complex business activities of the organisation. This is considered to be an essential element in the quest to operate ABS client service activities more along business lines, with a view to maximising dissemination of information in accordance with public good and user pays policies and practices, and cost minimisation.

4. DATA MANAGEMENT

66. Some years ago, the ABS commenced an ambitious data management project, the aims of which are to ensure that ABS statistics are visible, readily accessible and relatable. The project is broadly divided into two phases: the development of an output database (the ABSDB) and associated facilities, and statistical integration.

67. The first phase of the project is now almost complete. The ABSDB has been established, facilities have been developed for loading data and metadata, and systems for producing output products from the ABSDB have been developed. Data from the most important ABS collections have generally been loaded onto the ABSDB, along with their related metadata, and work is proceeding in loading data from the remaining collections. The data loading process has proceeded more slowly than originally envisaged, partly because of system teething problems and partly because of the need, in many cases, to enhance previously inadequate metadata documentation.

68. Of particular note is the Publications Assembly System (PAS) for producing publications by drawing down the statistics to be published from the database. The PAS is a metadata driven automated publishing system, which is designed to allow authors to concentrate on the data and commentary, rather than the style and the process of publication production. The necessity to have data in the output database allows other products to draw their data from the same source as publications.

69. Publications produced by the PAS have been designed to meet standards of publication drawn up by the Communications Research Institute of Australia (CRIA). The ABS commissioned CRIA, an Australian company specialising in research and development in written communications, to conduct research focusing on client perceptions of, and use of, ABS published output. Clients expressed the need for more approachable documents and the ABS wished to standardise the format and production process for its publications. CRIA, through analysis and testing, has developed standards and a design which meets these needs. The standards accord with best practice standards in the publishing industry for effective communication of information.

70. The delivery of customised reports to users is also via a system based on the output database and PAS to achieve efficient data extraction and delivery, and a standard look and feel to ensure standards for presentation of data and associated metadata are followed.

71. Once the database and associated facilities are in place and loaded with output data, all dissemination of data will come from one electronic source, with output varying according to format -paper, disc, CD-ROM, telecommunications based systems, or specially tailored customised services.

72. The second phase of the project, statistical integration, is planned for completion by the end of 1997. It will involve the use of standardised concepts and procedures for managing data and metadata through all stages of the collection life cycle. In fact, the ultimate success of the first phase will depend upon the success of the statistical integration phase. A number of facilities are being developed to support statistical integration, of which the principal ones are the Collection Management System, the Forms Management System, the Data Items Management System, the Classification Tool, the Classification Management System and the dataset Metadata Specifier.

5. INNOVATIONS IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

73. Most ABS statistical processing is carried out on the Bureau's Fujitsu GS8400/30 mainframe, which runs ADABAS databases. In addition, the ABS has 10 Sun Microsystems UNIX servers and workstations. These computers run the Oracle database management systems and support finance, personnel, library, management information, and a growing number of statistical systems.

74. Access to the mainframe and seven of the UNIX machines is through the ABS network, which comprises about 3,000 personal computers (PCs) using the Banyan Vines network operating system. The PCs run Microsoft Windows. There is an increasing trend towards distributed processing for both statistical and administrative processing. Three UNIX machines are used to provide services to clients outside the ABS. These machines are not connected to the ABS Network.

75. All ABS staff have access to Lotus NOTES, which provides work flow applications, document management and work group databases, as well as providing electronic mail and word processing capabilities.

Further Standardisation of the IT Environment

76. The ABS is currently undertaking two major initiatives to standardise the desk top and mainframe/server environments:

• development of a new desk top environment, which will essentially be an "all Windows" environment using Windows 95; and
• a planned migration from legacy mainframe systems to a client-server platform using a defined set of software products.

77. Windows 95 provides improved facilities for administration and configuration maintenance and part of the work over the next several months will be the development of a new ABS standard environment using these facilities. One of the aims is to achieve an environment that is significantly easier to manage and maintain than the current environment and part of this process will be to bring ABS applications into the standard maintenance procedures.

78. The movement from legacy systems to client-server architecture will require the redevelopment of many of the statistical processing systems. These redevelopments will use the standard infrastructure products that have been developed over the last few years, including:

• Input Processing System (IPS), which provides a generalised facility for input processing;
• Standard Processing Environment for Economic Data (SPEED), which provides the overall framework for processing and development of reusable processing facilities;
• ABSDB, which provides publication assembly facilities, a central repository for corporate metadata, and the platform for all data dissemination to external users;
• FAME (a commercial product), which provides time series manipulation facilities; and
• Lotus NOTES, which, although not being used for statistical "number crunching", is being increasingly used to provide a common interface to processing systems and to provide workflow facilities and links to processing data stores.

Year 2000 problem

79. The approach of the year 2000 brings the possibility of severe disruption to the ABS (and, in fact, to all organisations directly or indirectly dependent on information technology) due to the fact that various components of applications, system software and hardware have not been designed and implemented to operate correctly with all relevant dates in data, and on all required calendar dates. The ABS has assigned a senior IT staff member on a full time basis to address this important issue. The costs of resolving the issues are not fully known at this stage, but could be quite significant.

Imaging, OCR and Fax Gateways

80. Imaging is of interest in ABS in at least two areas. First, in the office environment there is a need to move incoming correspondence and other documentation into the Lotus NOTES environment where internally generated correspondence and documentation already exists. There are also productivity benefits to be gained by being able to send faxes directly from PCs rather than printing them on paper and feeding them through facsimile machines.

81. Second, in statistical operations, there is an opportunity to reduce keying load by imaging forms and using Intelligent Character Recognition to convert hand printed data to ASCII format that can be fed into statistical processing systems.

82. The ABS is making progress in both these areas. For office operations, low volume document scanners have been evaluated and distributed and a production trial of a fax gateway is in progress.

83. For processing collections, a high speed scanner and recognition software have been acquired, and the technology has been used (as a trial) to process a few, small collections. The technology will be tested on some of the Agriculture supplementary collections to determine its feasibility for use in the next Agricultural Census. The aim is to provide a system which is sufficiently robust to allow collection areas to operate using images of forms only, with the paper forms going from mailroom to scanner to storage and finally destruction.

External connction issues

84. Current ABS policy is to allow staff only limited access to the Internet and its facilities through standalone PCs under strict conditions. Broader connection to the Internet, via a "fire wall", has been agreed in principle, subject to stringent security conditions being met. A detailed proposal for meeting those conditions is being developed, and mail access has been assessed as the top priority service to be implemented. Providing access to additional Internet services for authorised ABS staff via the ABS network requires additional resources and will take longer to implement.

85. The proposed access method will be via Lotus NOTES - new features will allow NOTES users to access Web servers displaying the contents of Web sites as NOTES documents. ABS staff will access the Internet through a Notes database which will "point" to approved Web sites. Also, Notes databases will be accessible from Web browsers (and viewed as if they were held on Web servers).

6. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

86. The ABS places considerable importance on its international relations, and it participates extensively in international statistical activities. It contributes in a wide variety of international forums. Its staff keep abreast of the latest techniques and developments in other leading national statistical agencies through visits and other contacts. The ABS is committed to sharing its knowledge and welcomes overseas visitors. Great importance is placed on ensuring that Australia's statistics are internationally comparable through compliance with standards set by such bodies as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

87. An important part of the ABS's international relations activities is the technical assistance that it provides to statistical agencies in developing countries. The provision of such assistance is consistent with ABS objectives to achieve international comparability of statistics, the career development of ABS staff and a heightened profile for the ABS. Also, the ABS has a responsibility to be part of the Australian government's efforts to assist developing countries. In line with Australian government policy, the ABS focuses its technical assistance efforts on Papua New Guinea and the small island States of the Pacific and Indian Oceans; South East Asia and South Africa.

88. During 1995-96, the more significant of the ABS's international activities (not mentioned elsewhere in this paper) included:

• Participation in the eighteenth session of the United Nations Statistical Commission's Working Group on International Statistical Programmes and Coordination. As Chairman of the Statistical Commission, the Australian Statistician chaired the Working Group Session. The ABS chaired the UN Expert Groups on Critical problems in Economic Statistics and the 2000 Censuses, and was a member of the UN Expert Group on Social Statistics.
• Signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the ABS and the Central Bureau of Statistics of Indonesia concerning cooperation in a number of fields of statistics. The objective of the cooperation is to contribute to the provision of high quality, relevant and timely information to assist decision making in both countries, by governments, business and the wider community. Activities under the MOU commenced during 1995-96.
• Hosting an International Monetary Fund Regional Seminar on Money and Banking Statistics.
• Election of Australia, represented by a senior executive of the ABS, as a member of the Governing Board of the Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific, which provides practical training in the region.
• Provision of technical assistance to statistical agencies in other countries, through visits by ABS staff, and visits to Australia for study tours and training. Assistance was provided to China, Fiji, India, Indonesia (including assistance under the MOU mentioned above), Kiribati, Macau, Malaysia, Mauritius, the Federated States of Micronesia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Western Samoa and Zimbabwe. Of particular note is the assistance to South Africa, which is being provided under AusAID's South African Public Sector Support Program and relates to the population census, economic statistics and social statistics.

Australian Bureau of Statistics
November 1996