## BPM7 Chapter 20/2025 SNA Chapter 21. Communicating and Disseminating Economic Statistics: Annotated Outline

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### I. Introduction
- Purpose: provide principles, guidelines, and innovative approaches for producers of macroeconomic statistics to improve communication, increasing comparability, understanding, and user experience.
- Emphasis:
  - Communication significantly affects users’ understanding and utilization of macroeconomic statistics.
  - Dissemination should be a key component of the production chain of official statistics.
  - Need to establish a clear communication policy and data dissemination strategy.
- Chapter structure: nine sections — I (Introduction), II (Communication policy and dissemination strategy), III (Communication with users – principles and standards), IV (Communication with suppliers), V (Statistical confidentiality), VI (Taxonomies and metadata), VII (Framework for measuring alignment with the economic accounting statistical standards), VIII (Prominence of net measures compared to gross measures), IX (Examples of the use of easier to understand terminology for users).

### II. Communication Policy and Dissemination Strategy
- Core principle: production, analysis, and dissemination must be transparent and accessible.
- Channels: websites, regular press releases, statistical reports, emails.
- Topics to be covered:
  - links to media and users;
  - objectives of a dissemination strategy to meet users’ needs and provide maximum access to official statistics.
- Additional aspects and guidance to be reflected concisely (with references to existing guidance where available):
  - communication with policy and media relations;
  - publication policy, including a release calendar to promote transparency;
  - revision policy—to explain why revisions are necessary and when revisions are expected;
  - regular analysis of press coverage and feedback;
  - user satisfaction surveys for continuous improvement;
  - different digital formats, use of XML and/or other machine-readable formats;
  - communication narratives/terminology to target different user groups;
  - sharing more metadata linked to and via the alignment frameworks (see Section VII);
  - reference to National Summary Data Pages (NSDPs) used to disseminate economic statistics;
  - links to the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) and guidance on integrated economic statistics (such as the UN Guidelines on Integrated Economic Statistics) to clarify links and roles between statistical producers, communication/media teams, and users.
- Publication responsibility: ensure clear, understandable headline messages extractable from sound data, methods, and analyses; producers must describe messages in non-technical terms with technical/methodological material in accompanying documents.
- This section will reflect results of testing of the Communications Task Team (CMTT) Guidance Notes.

### III. Communication with Users – Principles and Standards
- Fundamental position: official statistics should be reliable, objective, and relevant for decision making; UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics (2013), especially Principle 1, are key for communication.
- Existing information, good practices, and dissemination standards will be referenced to establish good dissemination practices.
- User-awareness: identify who users are and their needs to steer messaging, using language understood by non-technical users; balance local-language publication with a more widely used international language to reach international audiences.
- Coverage:
  - types of users, including the media and indirect users;
  - equal treatment of users regarding pre-publication access to macroeconomic statistics;
  - guidance on treatment of sensitive data (not for public use);
  - distinction between “freely available via regular releases and publications” and “bespoke analyses” (which may be paid for).

### IV. Communication with Suppliers
- Producers must communicate effectively with data suppliers, using language suppliers understand to collect data aligned with economic accounting statistical standards (or adjusted appropriately).
- Coverage:
  - types of suppliers and links to suppliers;
  - usefulness of providing statistics that are the direct result of suppliers’ data.

### V. Statistical Confidentiality
- Legal context: most official statistics producers collect data from businesses and households for statistical purposes, often under legislation; such statistics cannot be disseminated in a way that permits identification of particular businesses or households.
- Requirements:
  - ensure appropriate data confidentiality policies, anonymization techniques, and disclosure checking procedures before publication.
- Balance objective: confidentiality should not be used as a reason to withhold information; aim to maximize dissemination as a public good while meeting confidentiality obligations.
- Approaches to greater access: data labs, data access agreements for statistical or research purposes to allow researcher access to micro data.

### VI. Taxonomies and Metadata
- Producers must communicate information on data quality, timeliness, frequency, and reference period of the product (GN CM.3).
- Releases should include documentation on quality and methodology and explain sources of revisions (method changes, coverage adjustments, source data changes, presentational changes) (GN CM.3).
- Drawing from outcomes of GN CM.3 and related testing, provide guidelines for a coherent taxonomy to communicate:
  - releases and vintages of data;
  - release calendars;
  - revision policies;
  - quality and types of statistical products.
- This section will include references to Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX) standards.

### VII. A Framework for Measuring Alignment with the Economic Accounting Statistical Standards
- Rationale: alignment to statistical standards varies across countries due to choices in implementation, resource constraints, data availability, and policy needs.
- Content:
  - present an alignment framework (from GN CM.1) for countries to assess alignment of national macroeconomic statistics to economic accounting statistical standards.
  - framework is a relatively simple self-evaluation tool producers can share with users in digestible format.
  - structure: built around key building blocks — concepts, accounting rules, methods, classifications, and the resulting accounts and/or tables produced and published.
- Additional elements:
  - benefits of an alignment framework;
  - dashboard approach;
  - reflection of results from testing of GN CM.1;
  - broader ways to assess compliance and data quality;
  - links to where alignment frameworks for respective accounts will be available online.
- Limitations: framework is voluntary and based on self-assessment.
- Cross-reference: acknowledge existing frameworks/tools for assessing coverage, accessibility, and quality, including the IMF Data Quality Assessment Framework.

### VIII. Prominence of Net Measures Compared to Gross Measures
- Pending: section is pending final conclusions on the forthcoming GN CM.4.
- Intent:
  - describe the need to increase prominence and use of net measures;
  - reduce use of the term “gross” to those areas laid out in the SNA;
  - prefer explicit phrasing (e.g., acquisitions less disposals, lending less borrowing) rather than using the phrase “net”.
- Conceptual justification:
  - growing interest in "net" aggregates; conceptually more appropriate and reflective of actual costs borne in production.
  - measurement challenges make comparable net aggregates across countries difficult.
  - SNA update clarifies differences between consumption of fixed capital (produced assets) and depletion of natural resources (non-produced assets), highlighting conceptual advantage of net measures such as net domestic product and net national income.
- Recommendation: encourage net measures to become headline-based indicators while acknowledging continued user interest in gross counterparts for particular purposes.
- Cross-references to avoid duplication with other parts of the SNA.

### IX. Examples of the Use of Easier to Understand Terminology for Users
- Rationale: technical terminology in economic accounting standards includes specific inclusions and exclusions that are often not user friendly.
- Approach:
  - propose limited examples of user-friendly terms that producers could consider when engaging non-technical users, without changing technical definitions.
  - examples will be based on testing with a range of users as part of GN CM.2 and are proposals producers could consider (allowing for translation differences).
- This section will reference the technical glossary.
- Note: chapter does not address other GN CM.2 proposals relating to changes in standard terminology (e.g., aligning domains on “revenues” and “expenses” versus “resource” and “use” or “credit” and “debit”); such proposals are being tested and, if adopted, would be reflected throughout the manuals.

### Schematic Overview (chapter layout)
- I Introduction
- II Communications Policy and Dissemination Strategy
- III Communication with Users - Principles and Standards
- IV Communication with Suppliers
- V Statistical Confidentiality
- VI Taxonomies and Metadata
- VII A Framework for Measuring Alignment with the Economic Accounting Statistical Standards
- VIII Prominence of Net Measures Compared to Gross Measures
- IX Examples of the Use of Easier to Understand Terminology for Users
- Box: Examples of User-Friendly Terminology
- References: GNs CM.1, CM.2, CM.3 and CM.4; SNA; BPM; GFS; UK Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence, “Public Understanding of Economics and Economic Statistics,” ESCoE Occasional Paper No. 03, November 2020; UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics (2013)
- Key stakeholders consulted: SNA and BPM editors; IMF Statistics Department GO and FI; Members of CMTT

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/data/statistics/bmp7/final-annotated-outlines/bpm7-chapter-202025-sna-chapter-21-communicating-the-accounts-annotated-outline.pdf_