Quality Issues at Statistics Norway

Abstract

Statistics Norway has like other National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) worked with quality for many years, but we have now started a systematic approach, inspired by the TQM principles and the work on this in several NSIs. The article considers some quality issues that have been given special attention a Statistics Norway during the last few years, in addition to summing up the status so far and plans for our systematic quality work. Areas where we do things differently from most other NSIs are focused on. The following issues are discussed: our user orientation, aspects of documentation, the significance of having a relatively large research department inside Statistics Norway and our work on overall performance indicators for reporting and follow-up. So far we have not worked much on progress quality, which is an important aspect of the systematic approach. The area of Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a exception, and the quality work on the CPI is presented at the end of the article.