Quality Assurance Framework in the Hungarian Central Statistical Office
Kornélia Mag¹, Erika Földesi², Katalin Szép², Judit Vigh²
¹Census and Population Statistics Department, Hungarian Central Statistical Office, Budapest, Hungary; ²Satistical Research and Methodology Department, Hungarian Central Statistical Office, Budapest, Hungary

In 2005 – based on the practice of developed NSIs (especially Statistics Canada and Eurostat exercises) and on its own tradition – HCSO (Hungarian Central Statistical Office) started a systematic approach to set up an office-wide quality framework. However the environment, the priorities and the timetable of the development of the different elements has been modified several times, by now the system is almost ready.

HCSO has published the Quality policy on HCSO website (http://www.ksh.hu), which includes quality definition, components, and declaration of quality commitment. As general requirement, Quality guidelines for the process phases of the statistical value chain have been developed. The set of Standard quality indicators and the template for Standard quality report with complementary self-assessment blocks support the transparency in monitoring the quality within the statistical office. Standard process variables for the process phases and Self assessment questionnaire for survey managers as standard tools are available.

The tools were developed in team-work, tested in several subject matter areas and widely discussed before the official acceptance by the President of the HCSO.

The internal Training courses on Quality (1-3 per year since 2006) promote quality concept and adequate use of standard tools.

The developments mentioned above were encouraged by Eurostat within Quality in Statistics project (2004/2005), quality coaching exercise and grant projects. European statistics Code of Practice and monitoring its implementation stimulated HCSO's quality program too.

Beyond HCSO quality framework, the synergies and drawbacks, and some new initiatives on the improvements will be presented.

Biography: She is applied mathematicians and works for the Hungarian Central Statistical Office since 2004. She has been the Head of Census Processing Section, Census and Population Statistics Department since 2010.

She is the member of HCSO quality team, participated in Eurostat and HCSO quality related development projects, such as development of the Handbook for Data Quality Assessment Methods and Tools (DATQAM). She was responsible for the process quality development in HCSO.