Due to the large number of existing normative documents about the development, production, and dissemination of official statistics, the ESSC has agreed on a process for the review of candidate standards by the Standards Working Group (SWG) as well as the European Statistical System Committee (ESSC). The workflow supporting the standardisation process, which accounts for the adoption, maintenance, and review of normative documents in the standardisation process, is depicted in the attached file.
In this process, a proposed standard must fit several criteria in order to be considered for the Catalogue of ESS Standards. First and foremost, candidates must fit the definition of a standard, which means that they must be normative documents that are not part of EU legislation.
Furthermore, the proposed documents need to meet the priority threshold set by the ESSC, which is defined in relation to two criteria of generality.
Generality of the normative document with regard to process phases
For the definition of generality in regard to different phases of the statistical process, the ESS refers to the phases of the Generic Statistic Business Process Model (GSBPM) as defined by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The GSBPM defines eight phases of the statistical process: specifying needs, designing, building, collecting, processing, analysing, disseminating, and evaluating. Based on how many of these phases a proposed document refers to, it is assigned a score:
- The score is 1 if the normative document contributes to one GSBPM phase
- The score is 2 if the normative document contributes to two GSBPM phases
- The score is 3 if the normative document contributes to more than two GSBPM phases
Note: GSBPM "Overarching" category counts for 3
Generality of the normative document with regard to statistical domains
In addition to process generality, candidate standards for the ESS Catalogue are given a score based on their relevance for different statistical domains as defined by the Classification of Statistical Activities (CSA) of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). The CSA differentiates seven statistical domains: demographic and social statistics, economic statistics, environment statistics, governance statistics, cross-cutting statistics, statistical infrastructure and methodology, and strategic and managerial activities.
- The score is 1 if the normative document contributes to one level 2 category of the CSA
- The score is 2 if the normative document contributes to more than one level 2 category but to only one level 1 category of the CSA
- The score is 3 if the normative document contributes to more than one level 1 category of the CSA
Based on the document’s scores for process generality and domain generality, a candidate is assigned a priority rank which is calculated by multiplying both generality scores. If the candidate standard’s priority rank exceeds the threshold of 3 points, it can be further considered for inclusion in the Catalogue of ESS Standards.
The only exceptions to this ranking process are statistical classifications, which may be further considered for inclusion regardless of their priority rank.
All documents who pass this threshold are assigned a working group to act as ESS maintainer of the document in question, which means this party is responsible for driving this document's inclusion into the ESS Catalogue going forward.
Candidate standards are then presented to the ESSC which decides whether a document is included in the Catalogue of ESS Standards.
