The Cnis is composed of representatives of national and local elected officials, employers' organisations, labour unions, non-profit groups, academics and qualified individuals. Its proposals can therefore be considered as an expression of social needs.

The Official Statistical Service is in charge of producing information meeting these needs, through statistical surveys and through the use of data collected by public bodies. Thus, it has to set priorities among all the needs and determine which part of it (Insee or MSS) will be in charge of the work.

Until now, the setting of priorities and sharing out of the work was done in a rather informal way. Each member of the Official Statistical Service decided by himself the surveys and the statistical work that he was “naturally” in charge of.

As a consequence, it appeared that high priorities in the needs were not taken into account. It was also clear that some parts of the work were done twice by different bodies of the Official Statistical Service.

For that reason, it was decided to create, since the year 2011, a “Committee for statistical programmes”, to set the priorities and share the work inside the Official Statistical Service. This committee is chaired by the Director General of Insee, who is by law in charge of coordinating the Official Statistical Service.

He presents an annual report at the Official Statistics Authority, describing how the annual statistical programme was implemented and how it met the needs expressed through the opinions of the Cnis.

Keywords: Priorities; Cnis; Official; Social

Biography: Jean-Pierre is the Head of Department for Statistical Coordination at INSEE in France.

The governance of Official statistics in France relies upon three bodies: the Official Statistics Authority, which is in charge of ensuring compliance with the principle of professional independence during the design, production and dissemination of public statistics, as well as with the principles of objectivity, impartiality, relevance and quality of the data produced, the Official Statistical Service whose responsibility is to produce and disseminate official statistics; it is composed of the National Statistical Institute (Insee) and of Ministerial Statistical Services (MSS), the Cnis (National Council for Statistical Information) which is responsible for organising consultation between producers and users of public statistics; it makes proposals to draw up a programme of statistical work and to coordinate the statistical surveys carried out by persons mandated with a public service mission.