## _cr0787 — Data Quality Assessment Framework July 2003 — Summary Results (ROSC data module update) ## Source details **Canonical URL:** [_cr0787 — Data Quality Assessment Framework July 2003 — Summary Results (ROSC data module update)](https://www.imf.org/-/media/websites/imf/imported-full-text-pdf/external/pubs/ft/scr/2007/_cr0787.pdf) ## Other formats - [Markdown version](/-/media/websites/imf/imported-full-text-pdf/external/pubs/ft/scr/2007/_cr0787.pdf.md) - [Structured JSON version](/-/media/websites/imf/imported-full-text-pdf/external/pubs/ft/scr/2007/_cr0787.pdf.json) --- ### I. Overall assessment — key findings - Italy subscribed to the SDDS on August 13, 1996 and started posting metadata on the DSBB on September 19, 1996. - Italy is in observance of the SDDS, meeting specifications for coverage, periodicity, timeliness, and dissemination of advance release calendars, while using two flexibility options for: - the timeliness of data on central government operations, and - production indices. - ROSC data module scope: national accounts, consumer price index (CPI), producer price index (PPI), and government finance statistics (GFS). This Report updates the 2002 data module ROSC. - Notable developments since 2002: - Istat now has primary responsibility for dissemination of general government statistics and chairs a formal inter-agency working group (Istat, MEF, BI) to enhance GFS consistency and transmit general government statistics to Eurostat. - Responsibility for compiling and disseminating a comprehensive and integrated set of general government statistics remains to be specified; preserving interagency cross-checking while assigning overall responsibility is recommended. - Benchmark revision of national accounts implemented (benchmark year moved from 1992 to 2000 in the 2005 revision) despite staff resource strains. - CPI sampling and price collection adjusted: random sampling techniques advanced; pricing period shifted to fully reflect reference month (from October 2006 pricing period change noted). ### II. DQAF-based conclusions (July 2003 DQAF) — high-level - Prerequisites of quality: - Legal and institutional frameworks support dataset quality except for GFS where responsibility for integrated general government statistics remains to be specified. - Resources broadly commensurate with statistical programs except National Accounts Directorate of Istat where staff numbers are insufficient. - Assurance of integrity: - Agencies demonstrate professionalism, transparency, and provide ethical conduct guidelines to staff. - Methodological soundness: - All four datasets follow internationally accepted guidelines for concepts, definitions, classification/sectorization, and valuation basis. - CPI scope could be improved by including services of owner-occupied dwellings as per the Consumer Price Index Manual. - GFS are not yet presented as the integrated and comprehensive set of statements for general government required by GFSM 2001. - Accuracy and reliability: - 2005 national accounts revision: benchmark year changed from 1992 to 2000; revised FISIM calculation/allocation; many compilation methods improved; chained volume and price measures introduced (work ongoing on a few series). - Remaining national accounts weaknesses relate to source data (low response rates, postponed cost structure survey, short-term inventory indicators lacking). - CPI uses sound data sources and techniques; PPI rebased from 1995 to 2000 with scope to improve imputation, quality adjustments, and weighting sources. - GFS consistency improved via interagency coordination; Istat validation constrained by time lags assessing economic nature of transactions and limited revision practices. - Serviceability: - Conformity to SDDS periodicity and timeliness except monthly central government operations and production indices where flexibility options used. - Italy exceeds SDDS in key areas: - CPI timeliness: 15 days versus SDDS requirement of 30 days. - GFS: publishes quarterly estimates on both accrual and cash bases versus SDDS annual periodicity requirement. - BI publishes monthly government debt data in addition to MEF’s SDDS-required quarterly central government debt. - Revision policies sound but practices could be improved in identifying revised data and detailing GFS revisions. - Accessibility: - All four datasets publicly available with comprehensive documentation on concepts, scope, classification, basis of recording, data sources, and techniques. - Istat releases clearly identify contact persons. ### III. DQAF summary ratings — selected elements (symbols per source) - Dimension 0. Prerequisites of quality (selected elements) - 0.1 Legal and institutional environment: National Accounts O; CPI O; PPI O; GFS LO - 0.2 Resources: National Accounts LO; CPI O; PPI O; GFS LO - 0.3 Relevance and 0.4 Other quality management: all datasets O - Dimension 1. Assurances of integrity - 1.1 Professionalism: all datasets O - 1.2 Transparency: all datasets O - 1.3 Ethical standards: all datasets O - Dimension 2. Methodological soundness - 2.1 Concepts and definitions: National Accounts O; CPI O; PPI O; GFS LO - 2.2 Scope: National Accounts O; CPI LO; PPI O; GFS O - 2.3 Classification/sectorization and 2.4 Basis for recording: all datasets O - Dimension 3. Accuracy and reliability - 3.1 Source data: National Accounts LO; CPI O; PPI LO; GFS O - 3.2 Assessment of source data: all datasets O - 3.3 Statistical techniques: National Accounts O; CPI O; PPI LO; GFS O - 3.4 Assessment and validation of intermediate data and outputs: National Accounts O; CPI O; PPI O; GFS LO - 3.5 Revision studies: all datasets O - Dimension 4. Serviceability - 4.1 Periodicity and timeliness: National Accounts O; CPI O; PPI O; GFS LO - 4.2 Consistency: all datasets O - 4.3 Revision policy and practice: National Accounts O; CPI O; PPI O; GFS LO - Dimension 5. Accessibility - 5.1 Data accessibility: all datasets O - 5.2 Metadata accessibility: all datasets O - 5.3 Assistance to users: all datasets O ### IV. Agency-specific observations (Istat; Istat/MEF/BI for GFS) - Istat - Legal/institutional: Istat central to SISTAN under Legislative Decree No. 322/1989; responsible for national accounts, CPI, and PPI. 2003 legislation strengthened protection of personal data. - Resources: National Accounts Directorate staff under pressure; CPI unit staffing: 32 staff; PPI unit staffing: 13 staff. Hand-held computer introduction for consumer price collection scheduled for completion in 2007; October 2006: 48 out of 86 participating municipalities use hand-held computers. - Quality management: National Statistical Program, Quality Circles, user surveys, formal quality bodies. - Professionalism/transparency/ethics: high professionalism; impartial compilation; transparency in policies and methodologies. - Government Finance Statistics — Istat, MEF, BI components - Legal/institutional: Istat chairs the formal working group coordinating GFS compilation (Istat, MEF, BI) and transmission to Eurostat; responsibility for compiling and disseminating a comprehensive integrated set of GFS remains to be determined. - Resources: Istat GFS staff insufficient for EU data demands; MEF developing capacity and undergoing reorganization; BI resources commensurate with functions. - Dissemination practices: - Istat publishes annual ESA 95 data and quarterly nonfinancial general government accounts; plans to publish annual deficit and debt data for EDP twice a year in user-friendly format starting in 2007. - MEF disseminates quarterly and annual cash data; publishes monthly central government operations but with a 45-day lag (flexibility option). - BI disseminates monthly and annual financing and debt data, quarterly and annual financial accounts, and financial net worth of general government and subsectors. - Professionalism/transparency/ethics: MEF and BI staff demonstrate professionalism; guidance on ethical standards published. ### V. Notable numeric and dated points (preserved exactly) - SDDS subscription date: August 13, 1996 - DSBB metadata posting date: September 19, 1996 - Benchmark year change in national accounts: from 1992 to 2000 (2005 revision) - CPI timeliness: 15 days versus SDDS requirement of 30 days - Hand-held computer rollout for consumer price collection scheduled for completion in 2007 - Istat overall budget for 2005: 177.6 million Euros (166.4 million Euros government appropriations; 8.8 million Euros grants; 1.3 million Euros revenues) - Istat employment evolution: End-2001: Total 2,613; Permanent 2,240; Temporary 373 — May 2006: Total 2,420; Permanent 2,155; Temporary 265 - National Accounts Directorate staffing at ROSC update mission: 115 staff (90 permanent, 25 temporary) - National Accounts quarterly division staffing: total 11 staff (nine permanent) - CPI unit staffing: 32 staff (four managers, two research officers, 26 employees) - PPI unit staffing: 13 staff (one manager, one research officer, 11 employees for domestic market; five also involved with PPI non-domestic market) - CPI price collection municipalities in 2006: 86 participating municipalities (cover about the 90 percent of the population of chief towns); 48 out of 86 used hand-held computers in October 2006 - CPI price quotations monthly: 400,000 price quotations from 40,000 outlets and nearly 10,000 households - HBS sample: about 28,296 households annually (coverage noted) - PRODCOM/PPI price collection: about 12,000 price quotations each month from 3,600 enterprises; monthly PPI collects 12,604 prices for 1,102 products from more than 3,600 enterprises - PRODCOM response rates: around 50 percent to 60 percent (specific 2003 overall response rate 61.0 percent) - SCI response rate: about 54-56 percent (compulsory survey), PMI response rate: about 52 percent (compulsory survey) - National accounts publication timing: provisional quarterly national accounts published 45 days after the reference quarter; first regular quarterly estimate at 70 days after the reference quarter; annual national accounts published on March 1 - SDDS-related timing examples: - Central government operations monthly: Italy publishes 45D (flexibility option); SDDS requirement 1M - Production indices timeliness Italy: 43D (flexibility option utilized); SDDS requirement 6W - CPI: Timeliness Italy NLT 2W; SDDS requirement 1M - International reserves template timeliness SDDS 1W; Timeliness Italy 1M ### Key cross-cutting and dataset-specific recommendations (preserved wording and timing) - Cross-cutting: - Increase the number of permanent staff in Istat’s National Accounts Directorate in view of the expanded compilation program of the national accounts and GFS (short term). - Istat to flag the status of published data (provisional, revised) and supply the necessary information to assess revision changes (short term). - National Accounts: - Implement plans to balance supply-and-use tables simultaneously at current and constant prices (short term). - Strictly adhere to scheduled calendar of cost structure surveys (medium term). - Develop short-term statistics on changes in inventories (short term). - Continue to investigate and implement ways to improve response rates of Istat’s mandatory enterprise surveys (short term). - Consumer Price Index: - Continue to contribute to development of a measure of the services of owner-occupied dwellings and to the debate on preferred approach for inclusion in national CPIs (short term). - Producer Price Index: - Bring forward plans to introduce more sophisticated imputation and quality adjustment techniques within the PPI as soon as practicable (short term). - Continue to work on improving response rates for PRODCOM and SBS surveys, including augmenting missing respondent data with Chamber of Commerce register (short term). - Government Finance Statistics: - Establish responsibility for compiling and disseminating a comprehensive and integrated set of general government statistics, preserving interagency cross-checking (short term). - Produce a comprehensive and integrated set of GFS using GFSM 2001 framework, integrating Istat, MEF, and BI data (medium term). - Pursue work on exploiting sources on arrears and trade credits of local health units (short term). - In validating data, incorporate new statistical information in aggregate figures (short term). - Pursue inter-agency cross-checking to eliminate discrepancy between borrowing requirement and SGP deficit (short term). - Provide more details on GFS revisions in tabular form (short term). - Improve timeliness of monthly central government operations in accordance with the SDDS (medium term). *IMF Report: Data Quality Assessment Framework July 2003 — Summary Results (extracted from _cr0787 PDF chapter)* ### 1. Data Quality Assessment Framework July 2003—Summary Results...................................7 ### _cr0787 - 1. Data Quality Assessment Framework July 2003—Summary Results ### I. Overall assessment — key findings - Italy subscribed to the SDDS on August 13, 1996 and started posting metadata on the DSBB on September 19, 1996. - Italy is in observance of the SDDS, meeting the specifications for coverage, periodicity, timeliness, and the dissemination of advance release calendars, while using two flexibility options for: - the timeliness of data on central government operations, and - production indices. - The ROSC data module covers the national accounts, the consumer price index (CPI), the producer price index (PPI), and government finance statistics (GFS). This Report constitutes an update of the 2002 data module ROSC. - Since 2002 notable developments: - Istat now has the primary responsibility for dissemination of general government statistics to the public and chairs a formal inter-agency working group (Istat, MEF, BI) to enhance GFS consistency and transmit general government statistics to Eurostat. - The responsibility for compiling and disseminating a comprehensive and integrated set of general government statistics remains to be specified; preserving interagency cross-checking while assigning overall responsibility is recommended. - A benchmark revision of the national accounts was successfully implemented despite staff resource strains. - CPI developments: random sampling techniques are well advanced and the price collection period has been adjusted to fully reflect the reference month. ### II. DQAF-based conclusions (July 2003 DQAF) - Prerequisites of quality: - Legal and institutional frameworks support the quality of datasets assessed, except GFS where responsibility for the integrated general government statistics remains to be specified. - Resources are broadly commensurate with statistical programs except for the National Accounts Directorate of Istat, where staff numbers are insufficient given expanded workload. - Assurance of integrity: - Agencies demonstrate professionalism, transparency, and provide ethical conduct guidelines to staff. - Methodological soundness: - All four datasets follow internationally accepted guidelines for concepts, definitions, classification/sectorization, and valuation basis. - CPI scope could be improved by including services of owner-occupied dwellings as per the Consumer Price Index Manual. - GFS are yet to be presented as the integrated and comprehensive set of statements for general government required by GFSM 2001. - Accuracy and reliability: - The 2005 national accounts revision changed the benchmark year from 1992 to 2000, revised FISIM calculation/allocation, improved many compilation methods, and introduced chained volume and price measures (work ongoing on a few series). - Remaining weaknesses relate to data sources for national accounts. - CPI uses sound data sources and techniques. - PPI was rebased from 1995 to 2000; scope exists to improve statistical techniques and weighting data sources. - GFS component consistency improved via interagency coordination; Istat validation constrained by time lags in assessing economic nature of transactions, limiting revisions and possibly creating inconsistencies with BI-responsible GFS components. - Serviceability: - Datasets conform to SDDS periodicity and timeliness except for monthly central government operations and production indices where flexibility options are taken. - Italy exceeds SDDS requirements in key areas: - CPI timeliness: 15 days versus SDDS requirement of 30 days. - GFS: publishes quarterly estimates on both accrual and cash bases versus SDDS annual periodicity requirement. - In addition to MEF's SDDS-required quarterly central government debt data, BI publishes monthly government debt data. - Data are consistent and revision policies are sound, but practices could be improved in identifying revised data and providing more details on GFS revisions. - Accessibility: - All four datasets are publicly available with comprehensive documentation on concepts, scope, classification, basis of recording, data sources, and statistical techniques. - Istat releases clearly identify contact persons. ### III. Summary assessment by dataset — DQAF summary ratings (key elements) Key to symbols: O = Practice Observed; LO = Practice Largely Observed; LNO = Practice Largely Not Observed; NO = Practice Not Observed; NA = Not Applicable - Dimension 0. Prerequisites of quality (selected elements) - 0.1 Legal and institutional environment: National Accounts O; CPI O; PPI O; GFS LO - 0.2 Resources: National Accounts LO; CPI O; PPI O; GFS LO - 0.3 Relevance and 0.4 Other quality management: all datasets O - Dimension 1. Assurances of integrity - 1.1 Professionalism: all datasets O - 1.2 Transparency: all datasets O - 1.3 Ethical standards: all datasets O - Dimension 2. Methodological soundness - 2.1 Concepts and definitions: National Accounts O; CPI O; PPI O; GFS LO - 2.2 Scope: National Accounts O; CPI LO; PPI O; GFS O - 2.3 Classification/sectorization and 2.4 Basis for recording: all datasets O - Dimension 3. Accuracy and reliability - 3.1 Source data: National Accounts LO; CPI O; PPI LO; GFS O - 3.2 Assessment of source data: all datasets O - 3.3 Statistical techniques: National Accounts O; CPI O; PPI LO; GFS O - 3.4 Assessment and validation of intermediate data and outputs: National Accounts O; CPI O; PPI O; GFS LO - 3.5 Revision studies: all datasets O - Dimension 4. Serviceability - 4.1 Periodicity and timeliness: National Accounts O; CPI O; PPI O; GFS LO - 4.2 Consistency: all datasets O - 4.3 Revision policy and practice: National Accounts O; CPI O; PPI O; GFS LO - Dimension 5. Accessibility - 5.1 Data accessibility: all datasets O - 5.2 Metadata accessibility: all datasets O - 5.3 Assistance to users: all datasets O ### IV. Agency-specific observations (Istat; Istat/MEF/BI for GFS) - Istat - Legal/institutional: Istat is central to SISTAN under Legislative Decree No. 322/1989 and is responsible for national accounts, CPI, and PPI. Legislative framework supports data sharing, confidentiality, and mandatory reporting; 2003 legislation strengthened protection of personal data. - Resources: National Accounts Directorate staff resources are under pressure; price indices staff and computer resources are adequate. Hand-held computer introduction for consumer price collection scheduled for completion in 2007. - Quality management: National Statistical Program, focus groups, users’ surveys, and formal quality bodies (Guarantee on Statistical Information Commission, Quality Circles, Information System for Survey Documentation and Quality Control). - Professionalism/transparency/ethics: high professionalism, impartial compilation, transparency in policies and methodologies, guidelines on ethical standards in place. - Government Finance Statistics — Istat, MEF, BI components - Legal/institutional: Istat now has prime responsibility for disseminating general government statistics to the public and chairs the formal working group coordinating GFS compilation (Istat, MEF, BI) and transmission to Eurostat. Responsibility for compiling and disseminating a comprehensive integrated set of general government statistics remains to be determined; preserving interagency cross-checking is recommended. - Resources: Istat GFS staff resources are insufficient for EU data demands; MEF is developing statistical capacity and undergoing reorganization; BI resources are commensurate with its functions. - Relevance and dissemination practices: - Istat publishes annual ESA 95 data and quarterly nonfinancial general government accounts; plans to publish annual deficit and debt data for EDP twice a year in user-friendly format starting in 2007. - MEF disseminates quarterly and annual cash data. - BI disseminates monthly and annual financing and debt data, quarterly and annual financial accounts, and financial net worth of general government and subsectors. - Professionalism/transparency/ethics: MEF and BI staff demonstrate professionalism; both agencies provide guidance on ethical standards and publish terms and conditions of statistical compilation. ### V. Notable numeric and dated points (preserved exactly) - SDDS subscription date: August 13, 1996 - DSBB metadata posting date: September 19, 1996 - Benchmark year change in national accounts: from 1992 to 2000 (2005 revision) - CPI timeliness: 15 days versus SDDS requirement of 30 days - Hand-held computer rollout for consumer price collection scheduled for completion in 2007 *IMF Report: Data Quality Assessment Framework July 2003 — Summary Results (extracted from _cr0787 PDF chapter)* ### 2. Methodological soundn ### 2. Methodological soundn ess ### National accounts — Concepts, scope, classification, recording - Concepts and definitions: follow ESA 95. - Scope: includes recommended annual and quarterly national accounts tables and extensions such as regional accounts, agricultural accounts, and environmental accounts. - Classification/sectorization: in accordance with international standards; ATECO 2002 (derived from NACE Rev.1.1) recently introduced. - Basis for recording: in accordance with international guidelines; change of benchmark year from 1992 to 2000 used to introduce many improvements regarding accuracy and reliability. ### National accounts — Source data and statistical techniques - Source data: - Istat’s business register introduced in 1996, made more comprehensive; local kind of activity units added in 2001. - Response rates of some major enterprise surveys remains low. - Cost structure survey planned for 2005 was postponed. - Short-term sources on changes in inventories are still lacking. - Some short-term indicators become available rather late, but this does not affect quarterly estimates significantly. - Assessment of source data: Istat assesses source data routinely; important innovations in validating enterprise data were introduced on occasion of the benchmark revision. - Statistical techniques: - Techniques are in accordance with good practice. - Large adjustments for the nonobserved economy are made using various labor sources. - Chained volume and price measures were recently introduced. - For health and education, output methods are used in making volume estimates. - Product breakdown in supply-and-use tables could be increased. - Balancing is not yet performed simultaneously at current and previous year prices. - FISIM is allocated to users. - No adjustments are made for holding gains/losses on inventories. ### National accounts — Validation, revisions, timeliness, consistency, accessibility - Assessment and validation: systematic procedures used to assess potential discrepancies in intermediate data. - Revision studies: Istat investigates direction and magnitude of revisions between preliminary and final estimates. - Periodicity and timeliness: - Provisional estimates of quarterly accounts meet SDDS requirements. - Timeliness of annual accounts publication is good. - Consistency: - Consistent time series for annual accounts available from 1970 onward, and for quarterly accounts from 1980 onward. - National accounts reconcilable with balance of payments and with MEF data on government operations. - Revision policy and practice: - Revisions follow a regular schedule with a few exceptions. - It would be useful to indicate whether the data are still prone to revision. - Releases of annual and quarterly accounts contain explanations on revisions to previously published data. - Data accessibility: national accounts data readily accessible; publications present statistics clearly with charts and tables to facilitate analysis. - Metadata accessibility: many publications provide metadata and glossaries; frequently publications on sources and methods produced; all metadata, including the inventory of methods prepared for the EU Gross National Income Committee, published on Istat’s website. - Assistance to users: Istat’s means of dissemination and assistance to users are excellent. --- ### Consumer Price Index (CPI) — Concepts, scope, classification, recording - Concepts and definitions: follow ESA 95 and EU regulations. - Scope: coverage is final private consumption of all resident households; a measure of services of owner-occupied dwellings is not included. - Classification/sectorization: expenditures follow COICOP. - Basis for recording: valuation at market prices, including VAT; transactions recorded on an accrual basis. ### CPI — Source data, assessment, and statistical techniques - Source data: - Weights and prices based on comprehensive surveys. - Since 1997, Household Budget Survey (HBS) is a continuous survey based on a two-stage stratified random sample; response rates are high. - Current CPI basket and weights based on national accounts data for the year 2004, updated for price changes through to December 2005. - Monthly price survey conducted in the chief towns of the provinces (86 out of 103 municipalities), necessitating collection of an unusually large number of prices. - Recommendation from 2002 ROSC to address possible over-sampling of prices and outlet selection bias; Istat has been monitoring outlet distributions by municipality and providing clear outlet selection criteria to local staff; guidelines discussed at annual Territory Officer Conferences prior to each rebase. - Work on designing and implementing a random sampling approach to selection of outlets and products is very well advanced. - From October 2006, pricing period shifted from between the 16th of the preceding month and the 15th of the reference month to from the 1st to the 21st of the reference month (now fully within the index reference month). - Assessment of source data: administrative prices from government agencies crosschecked in markets; other price data thoroughly checked and edited by computer programs and supervisors at municipal offices and headquarters. - Statistical techniques: sound; index employs annual chaining with weights based on national accounts data. ### CPI — Validation, revisions, timeliness, consistency, accessibility - Assessment and validation: unusual movements in certain items and regions are thoroughly investigated. - Revision studies: studies not undertaken regarding provisional and final monthly CPI because datasets rarely disagree at national level. - Periodicity and timeliness: - Monthly periodicity conforms to SDDS. - Two weeks timeliness exceeds one month SDDS requirement. - Consistency: all-items CPI and aggregate of regional CPIs are the same. - Revision policy and practice: well known to users; differences between preliminary and final estimates at national level are rare and trivial. - Data accessibility: CPI released on pre-announced schedule; data made available to all users at same time; monthly releases provide sufficient component detail. - Metadata accessibility: CPI press release contains a summary of methodology; comprehensive description in a specialized publication available on the Istat website. - Assistance to users: assistance available; contact persons identified in relevant publications and on the Istat website. --- ### Producer Price Index (PPI) — Concepts, scope, classification, recording - Concepts and definitions: based on ESA 95 concepts and definitions for recording and valuation of product prices and weights. - Scope: all resident market enterprises covered; as accepted by EU regulation, PPI differs from the 1993 SNA in excluding changes in inventories, own-account production of goods for own final consumption, illegal sales to willing buyers, and services. - Coverage: over 90 percent of manufacturing value added. - Classification/sectorization: classification of economic activities based on NACE Rev. 1.1; products classified according to PRODCOM, derived from CPA 2002. - Basis for recording: weights and prices recorded as billed sale prices, on an ex-factory basis, excluding VAT and other specific taxes. ### PPI — Source data, assessment, and statistical techniques - Source data: - About 12,000 price quotations collected each month from 3,600 enterprises. - Product weights based on detailed PRODCOM data; upper-level activity-based weights drawn from Surveys of Structural Business Statistics (SBS). - Despite initiatives, response rates remain low (around 50 percent to 60 percent); quality of detailed results which fed into the 2000 rebase must be questioned. - Assessment of source data: enterprise price survey data analyzed in detail each month using clerical and automated editing techniques; Istat’s PPI staff specialize in different sectors and are industry specialists. - Statistical techniques: - Most techniques are sound. - Current base is 2000; index rebased every five years and linked to form continuous series. - Scope for improvement in handling temporarily missing prices (seasonal or missing observations) and products that change in quality over time. - Istat plans to implement improved methods as part of the 2005 rebase; assessment that improvement should be implemented as soon as practicable rather than delaying until release of rebased series in early 2009. ### PPI — Validation, revisions, timeliness, consistency, accessibility - Assessment and validation: PPI data regularly compared with CPI, Agriculture PPI (especially for food), and external industry and administrative sources. - Revision studies: discrepancies between preliminary and final PPI data are small and monitored. - Periodicity and timeliness: within one month SDDS requirements. - Consistency: aggregate and component PPIs are consistent. - Revision policy and practice: made known to users. - Accessibility: - PPI released on pre-announced schedule and made available to all users at the same time. - Monthly releases provide sufficient detail and clear formats. - Metadata accessibility: PPI press release contains a summary of methodology; comprehensive description in a specialized publication available on the Istat website. - Assistance to users: release and website list contact person name and telephone number; catalog of publications available and updated each year. --- ### Government Finance Statistics (GFS) — Concepts, scope, classification, recording - Concepts and definitions: GFS concepts and definitions used are consistent with general government sector defined in ESA 95; not produced in context of comprehensive GFSM 2001 framework that would fully integrate components currently disseminated by three agencies involved in GFS compilation. - Scope: consistent with ESA 95 general government sector. - Classification/sectorization: data conform to national accounts sectorization standards; classifications linkable to GFSM 2001. - Basis for recording: - GFS components recorded on both an accrual basis (Istat) and cash basis (MEF). - Data on financing and debt (BI) are valued and classified in accordance with international standards. - For financial accounts and balance sheets (BI), time of recording and valuation fully consistent with GFSM 2001. ### GFS — Source data and assessment - Source data include: - Public accounting quarterly records of the MEF. - Monthly financing and debt data of the BI (compiled mainly through the BI’s Monetary Policy and Foreign Exchange Rate Department, bank reporting system and Italian Foreign Exchange Office information). - Local health data from the Ministry of Health. - Local government data from the Ministry of the Interior supplemented with surveys by Istat. - BI uses information obtained from the Treasury and direct information from individual institutional units. - Assessment of source data: - Data collection from local government units improved with General Government Network RUPA becoming operational in 2005. - Security borrowing by local governments to finance capital spending is now being reported to the MEF. - BI collects data on all financing and debt of local government. - Arrears made by local health authorities are not captured unless refinanced with financial institutions. - Source data are not always amenable in specifying the economic nature of transactions. ### GFS — Techniques, validation, revisions, timeliness, consistency, accessibility - Statistical techniques: adequate techniques used for adjusting source data to accrual basis, to calculate payables/receivables, and to apply appropriate economic classification. - Assessment and validation: - Capacity to cross-check data compiled from independent sources is a trademark of the Italian system. - A high-level commission investigated causes of discrepancies among measures of government borrowing requirements and financing. - A formal working group established and chaired by Istat pursues this work. - Validation process at Istat constrained by important time lags in assessing economic nature of transactions and practices that limit revisions to published aggregates, which may lead to inconsistencies with the GFS component under BI responsibility. - Revision studies: not routinely done, but undertaken when major changes are made. - Periodicity and timeliness: - Data on general government operations published annually within six months after the end of the year as prescribed in the SDDS. - Quarterly nonfinancial accounts for general government on an accrual basis are also published. - SDDS quarterly central government debt data disseminated by MEF; central (and general) government debt data published monthly by BI within two months of the reference period, exceeding SDDS requirements. - Data also made available to Istat and Eurostat on a quarterly basis. - Central government operations published by MEF monthly in line with SDDS but only after 45 days compared to 30 days in SDDS (authorities use a flexibility option on timeliness). - MEF publishes quarterly cash statistics on general government. - Consistency: consistency among GFS components published by various data agencies has improved in recent years. - Revision policy and practice: Istat has a clear revision policy but practices could be improved, e.g., by identifying which data are revised and providing more details on revisions. - Data accessibility: very good in most respects; data usually published by each agency in a timely fashion (timing of MEF quarterly release may fluctuate due to legislative arrangements). - Metadata accessibility: Istat provides extensive documentation on the general government sector of the national accounts; BI publications routinely include summary information on concepts, sources, and methods; documentation on administrative data published by MEF in its releases is limited, although extensive commentary on fiscal developments is included. - Assistance to users: provided through catalogs and an on-line list of documents; contact persons identified on Istat releases; BI provides in each publication a contact e-mail address; MEF provides names of contact persons for central government debt. *Source: _cr0787 - 2. Methodological soundn* ### 13. Based on the review of Italy’s statistical practices, discussions with the ### 13. Based on the review of Italy’s statistical practices, discussions with the ### Cross-cutting Recommendations - Increase the number of permanent staff in Istat’s National Accounts Directorate in view of the expanded compilation program of the national accounts and GFS (short term). - Istat to flag the status of published data (provisional, revised) and supply the necessary information to assess revision changes (short term). ### National Accounts - Implement existing plans to balance the supply-and-use tables simultaneously at current and constant prices (short term). - Strictly adhere to the scheduled calendar of the cost structure surveys, which are essential for the accuracy of the supply-and-use tables (medium term). - Develop short-term statistics on changes in inventories (short term). - Continue to investigate and implement ways to improve the response rates of Istat’s mandatory enterprise surveys (short term). - Recent methodological and data changes introduced in December 2005 (benchmark year moved from 1992 to 2000) include: - A revision in the method of calculating financial intermediation services indirectly measured (FISIM) and their allocation to users. - Adoption of chain volume and price measures, replacing measures based on the structure of a fixed base year. - Move towards compilation of supply-and-use tables instead of input-output tables based on homogeneous industries. - Incorporation of results of the censuses conducted during 2000 and 2001 and adoption of the activity classification ATECO 2002. - Improved editing of enterprise sources and refined methods to adjust for underreporting. - Results of research in specific areas: intermediate consumption of enterprises active in agriculture and fishing; construction activity; gratuities paid to hotels and restaurants staff; composition of the housing stock; activities of nonprofit institutions; capital formation; depreciation of government assets; and the labor force. - Annual data revised back to 1970, quarterly accounts back to 1980. ### Consumer Price Index - Continue to contribute to the development of a measure of the services of owner-occupied dwellings and to the debate on the preferred approach for inclusion in national CPIs with a view to incorporating this very important activity within the scope of the Italian National CPI (short term). ### Producer Price Index - Bring forward plans to introduce more sophisticated imputation and quality adjustment techniques within the PPI as soon as practicable (short term). - Continue to work on the improvement in the response rates for the PRODCOM and SBS surveys, including the initiative to augment missing respondent data with data from the Chamber of Commerce register, especially the sales data required for PPI weights (short term). ### Government Finance Statistics - Establish the responsibility for compiling and disseminating a comprehensive and integrated set of general government statistics, preserving the valuable inter-agency cross-checking by maintaining each agency’s responsibilities for the separate components (short term). - Produce a comprehensive and integrated set of GFS using the GFSM 2001 framework, integrating GFS data produced by Istat, the MEF, and the BI. The initiative currently underway to convert ESA 95 data into the GFSM 2001 format provides a good basis in that direction (medium term). - Pursue the work on exploiting sources on the arrears and trade credits of local health units (short term). - In validating data, incorporate, in addition to methodological changes, new statistical information in the aggregate figures (short term). - Pursue the inter-agency cross-checking work to eliminate the discrepancy between the borrowing requirement and the SGP deficit (short term). - Provide more details on GFS revisions in tabular form (short term). - Improve the timeliness of the data on the monthly central government operations in accordance with the SDDS (medium term). - Note: "These categories of financial instruments are not part of the Maastricht debt definition." ### Practices Compared to the SDDS — Selected entries from Table 4 - National accounts - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: Q - Periodicity Italy: Q - Timeliness SDDS: 1Q - Timeliness Italy: 70D - Production Index/indices - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: M (M encouraged) - Periodicity Italy: M - Timeliness SDDS: 6W - Timeliness Italy: 43D - Comment: Flexibility option utilized for timeliness of data. - Employment - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: Q - Periodicity Italy: Q - Timeliness SDDS: 1Q - Timeliness Italy: NLT 12W - Comment: Timeliness exceeds SDDS requirements. - Unemployment - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: Q - Periodicity Italy: Q - Timeliness SDDS: 1Q - Timeliness Italy: NLT 12W - Comment: Timeliness exceeds SDDS requirements. - Wages/earnings - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: Q - Periodicity Italy: M - Timeliness SDDS: 1Q - Timeliness Italy: 30D - Comment: Periodicity and timeliness exceed SDDS requirements. - Consumer price index - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: M - Periodicity Italy: M - Timeliness SDDS: 1M - Timeliness Italy: NLT 2W - Comment: Timeliness exceeds SDDS requirements. - Producer price index - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: M - Periodicity Italy: M - Timeliness SDDS: 1M - Timeliness Italy: NLT 1M - General govt. operations - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: A - Periodicity Italy: Q, A - Timeliness SDDS: 2Q - Timeliness Italy: NLT 6M - Comment: Periodicity exceeds SDDS requirements. - Central govt. operations - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: M - Periodicity Italy: M - Timeliness SDDS: 1M - Timeliness Italy: 45D - Comment: Flexibility option utilized for timeliness of data. - Central govt. debt - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: Q - Periodicity Italy: Q - Timeliness SDDS: 1Q - Timeliness Italy: NLT 1Q - Balance of payments - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: Q - Periodicity Italy: M - Timeliness SDDS: Q - Timeliness Italy: 30D - Comment: Periodicity and timeliness exceed SDDS requirements. - International Investment Position - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: A (Q recommended) - Periodicity Italy: Semi-annual - Periodicity Italy (alternative): 2Q (1Q encouraged) - Timeliness Italy: 130 days - Comment: Periodicity and timeliness exceed SDDS requirements. - International reserves — Reserves template - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: M (W recommended) - Periodicity Italy: M - Timeliness SDDS: 1W - Timeliness Italy: 1M - Italy NLT: 1W (SDDS) - Italy NLT: 1M (Italy) - Merchandise trade - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: M - Periodicity Italy: M - Timeliness SDDS: 8W (4–6W encouraged) - Timeliness Italy: 1M and 7W - Comment: Extra EU trade: 1M; Intra EU trade: 7W - External debt - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: Q - Periodicity Italy: Q - Timeliness SDDS: 1Q - Timeliness Italy: 1Q - Addendum: population - SDDS Coverage: Yes - Periodicity SDDS: A - Periodicity Italy: A - Timeliness Italy: NLT 6M - Note on periodicity and timeliness notation: (D) daily; (W) weekly or with a lag of no more than one week from the reference data or the closing of the reference week; (M) monthly or with a lag of no more than one month; (Q) quarterly or with a lag of no more than one quarter; (A) annually; NLT not longer than, and (...) not applicable. - Footnote: "Given that the data are broadly disseminated by private means, the timeliness with which official data are disseminated is not time critical. Data are released simultaneously to all interested parties, generally on the websites of the relevant agencies and on Italy’s National Summary Data Page, which is maintained by Istat (http://www.Istat.it/fmi/ITALY-NSDP.html)." *Source: INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND — ITALY Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC)—Data Module; Detailed Assessments Using the Data Quality Assessment Framework (DQAF), February 22, 2007.* ### 0.1 Legal and institutional environment ### 0.1 Legal and institutional environment ### 0.1.1 Responsibility for collecting, processing, and disseminating statistics - Legislative Decree 322/1989 places the National Institute of Statistics (Istat) at the center of the National Statistical System (SISTAN), which covers the statistics offices of all levels of government and the chambers of commerce, industry, crafts industries, and agriculture. - The Committee for Directing and Coordinating Statistical Information (COMSTAT), over which Istat presides, defines and issues binding directives for implementing the SISTAN. - The National Statistical Program (established under the Law on the National Statistical Program of December 1994) details Istat’s responsibility for the compilation of national accounts, price statistics, and the accounts of the public administration. - Istat is the agency responsible for reporting national accounts data to the European Commission for monitoring the Maastricht criteria. - The Premier approves the National Statistical Program by decree. - The Guarantee of Statistical Information Commission (independent body in the Office of the Premier) ensures impartiality and completeness of information, methodological and IT quality, compliance with European Community directives, and protection of confidentiality of personal data. - In the budget of 2007, a new bill was introduced for the Commission to report to the Office of the Premier and to be given increased resources: 21 staff and funding of 1.2 million euros. - Laws governing the CPI: - Laws No 222/1927 and 621/1975 specify responsibilities and tasks of contributing agencies (Istat and district statistical offices) for the national CPI. - EU Council Regulations on harmonized European CPIs include Regulations No 2494/95, 1749/96, and 2214/96 as base legal acts. - Local districts for price collection are established by laws n. 2421/1927 and 621/1975: - Price collection must be carried out in chief towns of the provinces (103 municipalities) and cities with more than 30,000 inhabitants (127 municipalities) that have an operational Municipal Statistical Office (MSO). - Because of lack of adequate MSOs, in 2006 only 86 chief towns of the Italian provinces participated in the monthly price survey and CPI computation (they represent about the 90 percent of the population of chief towns). ### 0.1.2 Data sharing and coordination among data-producing agencies - Data sharing and coordination among data-producing agencies are adequate. - SISTAN law contains provisions on data sharing and coordination; COMSTAT directives have strengthened these provisions. - Istat has developed statistical information systems used throughout SISTAN for sharing data. - Istat cooperates closely with agencies outside SISTAN, such as the BI and the MEF, to establish data-sharing protocols and agreements. - As the national agency responsible for the Italian consumer price survey: - Istat promotes the CPI in all Italian districts, makes methodological decisions, coordinates and controls the survey, centrally conducts the collection of prices for a range of products, and officially produces the CPI as legally required. - MSOs collect local prices according to Istat instructions. - Istat is part of the European Statistical System and coordinates and shares data with Eurostat. ### 0.1.3 Confidentiality and statistical use of individual reporters’ data - Comprehensive confidentiality rules are in place: - Legislative Decree 322/1989 specifies dissemination only in aggregate form to prevent identification of individual persons or entities. - Law on the National Statistical Program of December 1994 establishes strict confidentiality rules for included data. - Legislative Decree n. 196 of 30 June 2003 (Personal Data Protection Code) requires written respondent information on rights and obligations and assurance that information will be used for statistical purposes only. - Special aggregation rules and access restrictions: - Access to individual data is restricted to staff who require the information for duties; provisions supervise analysts requiring disaggregate data. - Advance approval required for staff to work outside normal working hours in the National Accounts Directorate building; an (armed) guard is present if any staff are working there; guards posted in the immediate vicinity when no staff are working. - All workstations are password protected. - Database security: - Detailed basic statistics are provided to the National Accounts Directorate; part are on a database providing secure access at organization level. - The system does not restrict access to specific database components within the Directorate, making comprehensive records on individual reporters accessible to an unnecessarily large number of people. - Some basic statistics use a second database system that provides the requisite level of security. - Istat plans to migrate all basic statistics to the second, more secure system. - All enterprises involved in the producer price survey are informed in writing of their rights and obligations and assured their information will be used for statistical purposes only. ### 0.1.4 Legal mandate and measures to encourage response - Legislative Decree 322/1989 requires all government agencies, bodies, and administration offices to supply any data and information for surveys that are part of the National Statistical Program and sets administrative sanctions. - Separate legal provisions acknowledge Istat’s power to access administrative files of public administration offices, government agencies, and companies controlled by such administration offices. - Decrees approving the National Statistical Program specify which statistical surveys carry a mandatory requirement for private individuals and entities to supply requested data and information. - Most surveys carry measures to encourage voluntary response. ### 0.2 Resources #### 0.2.1 Staff, facilities, computing resources, and financing - Istat’s overall budget for 2005 was 177.6 million Euros: - 166.4 million Euros in government appropriations - 8.8 million Euros in grants from other national or international agencies - 1.3 million Euros revenues from other sources - Istat employment evolution (as presented): - End-2001: Total 2,613; Permanent 2,240; Temporary 373 - May 2006: Total 2,420; Permanent 2,155; Temporary 265 - National Accounts Directorate staffing: - At ROSC update mission visit: 115 staff (90 permanent, 25 temporary with fixed-term contracts) - At 2002 ROSC data module: 117 staff (94 permanent) - Quarterly national accounts division: total 11 staff (nine permanent) - Workload pressures identified (no numeric staffing changes specified): - Development of quarterly institutional accounts scheduled to be published in 2007 - Work on regional accounts at MEF request - Analytical work on total factor productivity and annual/quarterly estimates on hours worked - Development of sectoral balance sheet information on nonfinancial assets - Development of methods for simultaneously balancing current price data and previous year prices in supply-and-use table format - Feasibility studies for flash employment estimates with timeliness of 45 days after the reference period at Eurostat request - Development of simplified supply-and-use tables for quarterly accounts - Preparation of an inventory of quarterly accounts compilation methods - Computing resources: every employee in the National Accounts Directorate has access to a workstation. - CPI unit staffing: 32 staff (four managers, two research officers, 26 employees). - Hand-held computer rollout for CPI data collection: - October 2006: 48 out of 86 participating municipalities use hand-held computers. - These 86 participating municipalities are the number participating in the monthly price survey and CPI computation in 2006. - In each municipality, the MSO provides training for software use. - By 2007, the number of municipalities equipped with hand-held computers is expected to increase further. - Eighteen additional MSOs have initiated purchase of computers for price collection; during 2007 Istat will directly purchase the necessary equipment for the remaining MSOs. - PPI unit staffing: 13 staff (one manager, one research officer, 11 employees working on the PPI (domestic market), five of which are also involved with the PPI (non-domestic market)). - EU requirements for additional PPI statistics (e.g., exports and services) put a strain on the Price Statistics Division’s resources. #### 0.2.2 Measures to ensure efficient use of resources - Istat uses a wide range of efficacy, efficiency, structural, economic, and financial indicators to monitor institutional performance; these indicators are published in Istat’s Annual Report. - Istat’s Governing Board optimizes available financial resources for statistical programs and evaluates costs against planned activities. ### 0.3 Relevance #### 0.3.1 Monitoring relevance and practical utility of statistics - Istat strategies focus on user needs by collecting and processing aspects of demand for statistical information to set priorities (National Statistical Program, corporate programming, integrated output, tailor-made requests) and seek feedback via user satisfaction surveys. - Collegiate bodies of SISTAN, the Guarantee of Statistical Information Commission, and COMSTAT help ensure statistical series address user concerns; COMSTAT focuses on SISTAN’s rolling statistical program. - Quality Circles established by Istat serve as contact points between producers and users; the national accounts Quality Circle meets about three times a year. - Istat does not run specific surveys for data users’ needs and views, though customers accessing central and regional data shops, subscribers to hardcopy publications, and website visitors are surveyed at least annually; specific users’ views are collected within “Circoli di qualità.” - Main users (BI, Institute for Economic Studies and Analysis, MEF, Center for Economic Forecasts) are frequently met in working groups. - Well-visited seminars on new themes and the bi-annual Conference on Statistics provide feedback opportunities. - Istat participates in international statistical meetings (Eurostat, OECD, Conference of European Statisticians). - In price statistics: - Users’ needs are periodically monitored by the Guarantee of Statistical Information Commission in connection with the annual review of the three-year National Statistical Program. - Istat arranges regular SISTAN Quality Circle meetings and holds at least annual meetings with the Association of Industry. - High priority is given to regional and international users; municipal-level users’ views are sought and reflected in local statistical commissions. - Istat staff regularly participate in the Prices Monitoring Group (which includes trade unions, retailers, and wholesalers) and in meetings organized by Eurostat, the UN, the ILO, the OECD, and the IMF, contributing to best practices in EU price compilations. ### 0.4 Other quality management #### 0.4.1 Processes to focus on quality - Istat’s Methodological Studies Office focuses on methods and techniques for survey quality control. - COMSTAT issues binding directives to SISTAN agencies on methodological and qualitative aspects of the National Statistical Program. - Quality emphasis visible in the Legend of Quality Measures published in the 2001 Italian Statistical Yearbook and Istat’s role in the Eurostat expert group on quality. #### 0.4.2 Processes to monitor quality of the statistical program - Overall monitoring of quality of statistics is legally attributed to the Guarantee of Statistical Information Commission; proposed legislation would modify the Commission’s role and increase its resources and governance structure. - Quality is monitored by SISTAN Quality Circles. - Information System for Survey Documentation and Quality Control (SIDI) manages qualitative information and quality indicators related to each phase of statistical surveys. - EU scrutiny: - The Gross National Income Committee (GNI Committee) formulates opinions on quality of national accounts estimates and may give recommendations. - Member states have prepared inventories of methods used for compiling annual accounts. - Eurostat regularly visits national statistical offices to review national accounts quality. #### 0.4.3 Processes to integrate quality into statistical program planning - Quality considerations motivated Istat’s institutional reorganization in 2003 to emphasize pertinence, promptness, and ease of use. - Measures introduced or planned to reduce release delays and improve accessibility (hard copy and electronic). - Istat’s quality commitment focuses on relevance; accuracy; timeliness and punctuality; accessibility and clarity; comparability; coherence. - Quality is integrated structurally into strategic planning and statistical processes. - Innovations implemented: - Intensive introduction of ICT in processes; - Development of generalized tools to harmonize processes and elaboration tools (management of sampling, data collection, editing and imputation, data confidentiality) and related training; - Massive investment on the field to prevent errors and monitor process phases; - Emphasis on training and involvement of local and central operators. *Source: _cr0787 - 0.1 Legal and institutional environment* ### 1. Assurances of integrity ### 1. Assurances of integrity ### 1.1 Professionalism — impartiality and commentary - Istat is autonomous under legal provisions and its independence is assured. - The Guarantee of Statistical Information Commission ensures impartiality and completeness for Istat and other SISTAN agencies; impartiality comprises: - data as a truthful description of reality; and - simultaneous dissemination to all users. - Impartiality cited as a cornerstone of Istat’s 2003 reorganization with principles: “Independence, impartiality, reliability, pertinence of the statistical information, reduction of the burden on respondents, and protection of statistical secrecy and privacy…” - No evidence that Istat is subject to outside pressure in its choice of sources or statistical techniques. - Istat investigates daily any erroneous interpretations (particularly in the press) and requests publication of responses when appropriate. - Communication measures to avoid misunderstandings: - Press Office call-in service for journalists. - Senior researchers present at most press conferences to explain data and methodological changes. - Istat’s President may give interviews to major newspapers. - Practice note: despite institutional ability to comment on misuse, such commentary “is rarely done in practice with respect to the CPI.” ### 1.2 Transparency — access, identification, and advance notice - Terms and conditions for collection, processing, and dissemination: - Complete documentation available on the SISTAN website (http://www.sistan.it). - Carta dei Servizi Esterni della Diffusione (Charter of Dissemination Services) available on the Internet. - Internal governmental access prior to release: - No national government access prior to release; data releases are not signed off by outside authority. - Eurostat receives preliminary quarterly national accounts (those published 45 days after the reference quarter) in greater detail than publicly published GDP totals; details include final consumption, gross fixed capital formation, exports, imports, inventories, and an estimation of hours worked. - Eurostat and the European Central Bank (ECB) receive quarterly institutional accounts data with a 95 day timeliness in the framework for Monetary Union and the EU; apart from quarterly general government institutional accounts, the data Italy provides are neither published by Istat nor the supranational organizations. - Eurostat is prohibited from disseminating nonpublished information to any users, including other services of the European Commission. - Recommendation: Istat should make more widely known what kind of nonpublished information it provides to Eurostat and the ECB. - Products identification: - All Istat publications are identified as being produced by Istat. - Advance notice of methodological/source changes: - Provided through seminars, papers, Three Year National Statistical Plan, Information Notes, Information Series, articles in Istat’s bulletin, press briefings, news releases, and work groups open to academics and experts. - Example: extensive website information provided for the 2000 benchmark revision and change to chain volume and price measures. - Calendar and seasonal adjustments use Tramo-Seats; calendar year adjustment introduced in June 2003. - Advance notices sometimes sent via e-mail to institutional users and/or published on Istat website. ### 1.3 Ethical standards — staff conduct and legal framework - All public servants take an oath on conduct before entering public service. - Employment contract requires new Istat staff not to disclose individual data. - New employees undergo a one-week training program where staff ethics is covered. - Guidelines for staff behavior codified in: - Ministerial Decree of November 28, 2000 (pertaining to all officials), - Legislative Decree n. 322 of September 1989 article 8 (secrecy duties for statistical office employees), - Code of conduct annexed to Legislative Decree n. 196 of June 30, 2003. - Istat is bound to the 15 principles in the Code of Conduct for statistical agencies endorsed by the EU. ### 2. Methodological soundness ### 2.1 Concepts and definitions — standards followed - Since April 1999, the general framework for Italian national accounts is ESA 95. - Annual accounts according to ESA 95 are available from 1970 onward (with reduced detail for 1970-1991). - Quarterly ESA 95-consistent data are available from the first quarter of 1980. ### 2.2 Scope — coverage and extensions - National accounts cover all tables and accounts defined as minimum requirements by the Inter-Secretariat Working Group on National Accounts for implementation of the 1993 SNA, and recommended compilations. - Minimum set includes: - Annual value added and GDP at current and constant (or previous year) prices by activity. - Annual expenditures of GDP at current and constant (or previous year) prices. - Annual value-added components at current prices by activity. - Sequence of accounts for the total economy (up to financial accounts) with an annual frequency. - Annual rest-of-world accounts (until net lending). - Recommended set includes: - Quarterly value added and GDP at current and constant (or previous year) prices by activity. - Quarterly expenditures of GDP at current and constant (or previous year) prices. - Extensions compiled by Italy include: - Simplified subregional accounts on an annual basis. - Annual satellite accounts for agriculture. - Annual social protection accounts. - Annual national accounts matrices with environmental extensions (NAMEA). - Seasonally adjusted and calendar day adjusted quarterly accounts. - Subregional account structure: - Three levels: regions and autonomous provinces (21 areas according to NUTS second-digit), provinces (103 NUTS-3 areas), and 686 clusters of municipalities. - For NUTS-2 areas, goods and services and employment published by 25 branches; 10 government functions; 12 private consumption functions; and 3 durability categories. Household accounts also compiled for these areas. - Additional developments and experimental work: - Social Accounting Matrices (experimental SAM for 1996). - Experimental satellite accounts for nonprofit institutions and tourism (available for 1999 and 2002). - New input-output table planned for 2005; last input-output table dated 2000. - After 2000 benchmark, annual supply-and-use tables at current prices produced for final years (t + 3); complete set available from 1995 onward. - Working group established in 2004 chaired by Istat to develop estimates for illegal activities; availability of such estimates will be required by the EU in the near future. - Residence and economic territory definitions follow 1993 SNA and BPM5 and the European Commission decision of July 1991; included: territorial enclaves (Italian embassies), bonded warehouses and free-zone activities, and workers who work only part of the year in another country. Vatican State and San Marino are not included. - Production boundary follows 1993 SNA; included own-account R&D, output of goods for own-account fixed capital formation, mineral exploration, production of entertainment/literary/artistic originals, and computer software produced on own account. - Illegal output sold to willing buyers is not included; estimates are made and published for hidden activities (hidden activities defined in source). - Italian convention: own-account production of households limited to production, storage, and processing of agricultural products and construction of dwellings (ESA 95 paragraph 3.08 b). - Asset boundary follows 1993 SNA; included tangible and intangible assets listed (defense-related assets usable for civilian purposes; valuables; historical monuments if salable; mineral exploration; systems and standard applications computer software and data bases; entertainment/literary/artistic originals; patented entities; leases and other transferable contracts). - Deviation: agricultural work-in-progress is not recorded; Istat keeps this deviation under review. ### 2.3 Classification/sectorization — conformity and publication detail - Institutional units and transactions classified per 1993 SNA. - Activities classified according to ATECO 2002 (first four digits coincide with NACE Rev.1.1). - Producing units further broken down by size and category: private market, government market, government nonmarket. - Goods and services classified by EU CPA. - Capital formation shown in six categories according to Pi6 level in ESA 95. - Foreign trade classified according to Combined Nomenclature. - Household expenditure published by COICOP expanded for national purposes. - COFOG used for government functions; COPNI for nonprofit institutions serving households. - Publication detail: - Final annual accounts: breakdown of 60 activities and products (A60 and P60), and one-digit breakdown by COICOP, COFOG, and COPNI; two most recent years use a slightly more aggregate classification. - Quarterly accounts: supply distinguishes 17 activities. - Household final consumption expenditure: broken down by 12 functions and 4 types of goods by durability. - Capital formation breakdown by Pi6. ### 2.4 Basis for recording — valuation and recording conventions - Valuation rules follow 1993 SNA: - Market output valued at basic and producer prices; output for own-use at equivalent market prices. - Intermediate consumption valued at purchasers’ values (including sales, excise taxes, nondeductible VAT). Deductible VAT excluded from valuation of final uses. - GDP components published at current prices, previous year’s prices, and chain-linked volumes; move to chain-weighted basis is ongoing for some series. - Imports and exports valued on an f.o.b. basis using insurance and freight information from the Italian Foreign Exchange Office (UIC). - Transactions in foreign currency converted using the mid-point exchange rate prevailing when transactions occur. - FISIM (financial intermediation services indirectly measured): - Calculated only on loans and deposits with interest rates influenced by financial institutions (both domestic production and imports). - Central bank output estimated on the basis of costs rather than FISIM. - FISIM attributed to users using reference interest rates representative of “pure” rates. - Recording basis: - All flows recorded on an accrual basis in principle, with a few exceptions in government. - Grossing/netting: - Procedures in accordance with international recommendations; transactions between establishments within the same enterprise recorded on a gross basis. *Source: _cr0787 - 1. Assurances of integrity* ### 3.1 Source data ### 3.1 Source data ### General - Istat uses the Statistical Register of Active Enterprises (ASIA) as the common sample frame for its enterprise surveys (except for agriculture, forestry, and fishing, which are planned to be added in the future). - ASIA is fed from large administrative registers and surveys carried out by Istat and will be used to build a Statistical Information System (SIS) integrating a wide range of statistics on enterprises, including government units. - Historical improvements: - Previously the business register was fed only from the 10-yearly economic censuses and excluded enterprises with 10 or fewer persons employed. - Work to improve exhaustiveness and methodology began in 1994. - ASIA data sources include the Enterprise Census, tax registers, chambers of commerce, the social security institute, and other sources such as the register of the Electric Power Board. - Unique fiscal numbers facilitate combining registers; new enterprises request fiscal numbers via chambers of commerce at inscription. - ASIA is annually updated from indicated registers; from 2004, information on local units has been updated through special surveys. - Units in ASIA: enterprises and their local units. In 2001 the National Accounts Directorate added local kind-of-activity units using the 2001 General Census of Industry and Services. - ASIA identifiers and variables: name and address, legal status, activity according to NACE, employment (number of employees and other workers), and turnover. - Turnover data availability: turnover data are available 16 months after the reference year (example: at the end of April 2006, the turnover data for 2004 appear in ASIA). This is two months faster than required by EU regulation. - Definition of “active” per Eurostat: having turnover in a period of one year (Italy measures via tax administration) or employing at least one employee/other dependant (measured via social security registration). - Istat censuses in 2000/2001 included General Census of Industry and Services, General Population and Housing Census, and Agricultural Census. Agricultural Census updated annually via the Farm Structure and Production Survey with a sample size of 87,000 farms. ### Sources for the annual accounts - Two main annual business surveys by Istat: - Survey of Economic and Financial Accounts (SCI) for enterprises with 100 or more persons employed. - The SCI is an exhaustive survey covering, since 1998, close to 10,000 enterprises. - Collects profit and loss accounts, balance sheets, and employment. - Results available 18 months after the reference year. - Although compulsory, response rate is around 54-56 percent. - Survey of Small and Medium Enterprises (PMI) for enterprises with up to 100 persons employed. - PMI is a stratified simple random sample stratified by four-digit ATECO, region, and size class. - Sample size about 108,000 enterprises or 2.8 percent of the target population. - Grossing up is done on the basis of number of workers and number of enterprises. - Main variables same as SCI; results available 18 months after the reference year. - Survey is compulsory with response rate about 52 percent. - PRODCOM industrial sector survey: - Directed at extractive and manufacturing local units: all local units of enterprises of 20 workers and over, and a sample of enterprises with 3 to 19 workers. - Two-page questionnaire on output and energy consumption in volume terms and, where appropriate, in values. - Provisional data available after 6 months; final data available 18 months after the reference year. - About 63 percent of enterprises respond. - Chambers of Commerce business accounts: - Chambers annually receive business accounts from 650,000 corporations. - Administrative source provides several economic variables with activity breakdown by five-digit NACE. - Preliminary results available 10 months after the reference year. - Useful for filling nonresponse gaps for entities with corporate status, though product detail is limited. - Supply-and-use and cost structure surveys: - Separate cost structure surveys were carried out for 1996 and 2001 to meet EU requirements. - The cost structure survey planned for 2005 was not conducted for budgetary reasons and because the EU did not require such survey, leaving a weak spot for compiling use tables. - Household surveys: - Quarterly Household Budget Survey (HBS) and annual Multipurpose household survey each sample about 24,000 to 28,000 households and represent all regions and most socio-economic groups. - Nonresponse around 20 percent; standard imputation methods used. - HBS collects expenditure on nondurable and durable consumption items, housing, valuables, and value of goods produced on own-account. - Multipurpose household survey provides qualitative information (medical services, leisure, entertainment, holidays) and frequency of activities but does not ask for value information. - MEF General Accounts Department provides annual revenue and expenditure data by chapter for central government (including defense but excluding social security funds) on both cash and approximate accrual bases; lower level government data partially from administrative sources and Istat surveys. - Recording of taxes and social security: In line with EU decisions, Italy records taxes and social security only insofar as they are likely to be collected (not the preferred 1993 SNA recording, but within SNA flexibility). ### Main source coverage assessments (production and expenditure approaches) - Production Approach: coverage assessments by NACE section (selected entries) - Agriculture, hunting, and forestry: Good (sources: Area and output data from Regional Agricultural Depts., Agricultural prices, Livestock sample survey, slaughter statistics, Data on agricultural inputs) - Fishing: Good (sources: Fishermen’s cooperatives, Fish markets, Harbor offices, Administrative records from municipalities) - Mining and quarrying: Good (SBS by Istat and the Ministry of Industry) - Manufacturing: Good (SBS) - Electricity, gas, and water supply: Good (Detailed data from the Electric Power Board; SBS by Istat and Ministry of Industry) (Poor for water supply) - Construction: Good (Building permits, Survey of building activity, SBS, Government budget data, Production index, Surveys on business cost) - Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles, and personal and household goods: Satisfactory (SBS) (Poor for repair) - Hotels and restaurants: Satisfactory (SBS; Overnight stays in hotels) - Transport, storage, and communication: Satisfactory (Italian State Railways, Volume data from Ministry of Transport and Navigation, Major air transport providers, SBS for road transport and telecommunication, Postal service) - Financial intermediation: Good (Data from supervisory bodies, in particular the BI) - Real estate, renting, and business activities: Good (SBS) - Public administration and defense; compulsory social security: Good (Exhaustive budget data from central, state, and local authorities, as well as from other government bodies; SBS) - Education/Health and social work: Good (Budget data (government); Social Security Funds and budget data of local health units; SBS) - Other community, social, and personal service activities: Satisfactory (Less than satisfactory for domestic services) (Sources include domestic service monitoring unit, Multipurpose household survey) - Net taxes less subsidies on products: Good (MEF; Treasury records for EU) - Expenditure Approach: coverage assessments by category (selected entries) - Household final consumption expenditure: Satisfactory (HBS; Commodity flow (SCI and PRODCOM); Multipurpose household survey; Administrative sources, incl. new car registrations) - Final consumption expenditure of nonprofit institutions serving households: Satisfactory (1999 Survey of nonprofit entities; Surveys on voluntary organizations and social cooperatives; Administrative sources (Social Security and VAT); HBS) - Government final consumption expenditure: Good (MEF data; SBS) - Acquisitions less disposals of tangible fixed assets: Satisfactory (Commodity flow; SBS; New car registrations) - Acquisitions less disposals of intangible fixed assets: Good (SBS; Italian Society for Authors and Editors) - Additions to the value of non-produced non-financial assets: Good (Budget records; Loans for land improvements) - Changes in inventories: Satisfactory (SBS and business accounts of corporations; Energy balances from the Ministry of Industry) - Acquisitions less disposals of valuables: Poor (Commodity flow approach) - Exports and imports of goods: Good (Foreign trade statistics) - Exports and imports of services: Good (Balance of payments) ### Sources for the quarterly accounts and adequacy - Production Approach adequacy for quarterly estimates (selected entries) - Agriculture, hunting, and forestry: Reasonable (Fixed calendar of production and harvest) - Fishing: Adequate (Surveys/administrative data on quantities landed) - Mining and quarrying: Adequate (Industrial production index; Input statistics from the coke and refinery industry) - Manufacturing: Adequate (Industrial production index for 15 activities) - Electricity, gas, and water supply: Adequate (Production index) - Construction: Adequate (Production index) - Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles, and personal and household goods: Adequate (Fixed trade margins for different categories) - Hotels and restaurants: Adequate (HBS and other quarterly sources on household consumption) - Transport, storage, and communication: Adequate (Revenues of air and sea transport enterprises; Goods and passenger rail traffic data; Motorway traffic data; Revenues of communication enterprises) - Financial intermediation: Adequate (Information from BI) - Real estate, renting, and business services: Adequate (Fixed input coefficients; Employment statistics) - Public administration, Education/Health and social work: Adequate (MEF data; Employment statistics) - Other community, social, and personal service activities: Reasonable (HBS and other quarterly household consumption sources; Employment data from LFS and social security) - Net taxes less subsidies on products: Adequate (MEF data on adjusted cash basis) - Expenditure Approach adequacy for quarterly estimates (selected entries) - Household final consumption expenditure: Adequate (HBS for 19 of the 29 functions distinguished; Commodity flow approach; Retail sales; New car registrations) - Final consumption expenditure by government and nonprofit institutions serving households: Adequate (Administrative data) - Gross fixed capital formation: Adequate (Commodity flow approach; Construction index; Car and truck registrations) - Changes in inventories: Not adequate (None) - Acquisitions less disposables of valuables: Commodity flow - Exports and imports: Adequate (Foreign trade statistics; Balance of payments) - Price information used: industrial producer price indices, consumer price indices, unit values of foreign merchandise trade, sale prices of agricultural products, price indices of purchases by agricultural enterprises, construction price index for building motorways, construction price index for residential buildings. - Timeliness of short-term indicators: - Industrial production index: available 40-45 days after the reference month. - Monthly retail sales data: available with a time lag of 55 days (noted as potential area for improvement). - Calendar effects and seasonal adjustments: performed with the TRAMO-SEATS program. ### Timeliness of source data and implications for estimates and revisions - Publication timing: - Annual national accounts published on March 1. - Preliminary quarterly national accounts published 45 days after the reference quarter. - First regular quarterly estimate published 70 days after the reference quarter. - For first estimates of the annual accounts, Istat relies largely on short-term economic indices; partial structural business survey results available one year later; complete structural business survey data normally available for third estimates. - For preliminary quarterly estimates (published 45 days after the reference quarter), availability of weighted indicators: - About 70 percent of the weighted indicators for production are available. - About 50 percent of the indicators for demand are available. - Indicators usually missing for preliminary quarterly estimates: - One month of foreign trade data. - Two months of foreign trade unit values. - One month for the construction index. - One month for the rail transportation indicator. - About half of the indicators for financial services. - The HBS completely. - About half of the indicators for nonmarket activities and collective consumption. - The LFS completely. - For the first regular estimates the situation is much better, though some indicators (e.g., many for financial services) may still be missing. - Methods to estimate missing data for preliminary estimates: ARIMA models or other time series techniques, sometimes introducing additional explanatory variables such as qualitative surveys. - Revision experience: - Revisions in GDP quarter-to-quarter growth rates, if they occur, are mostly limited to one-tenth of a percentage point. - An occasional big change of half a percentage point may occur, warranting further investigation. - Istat made a comparative study of revision of GDP quarterly growth rates in the United States and other countries that shows, according to the authorities, that the reliability of Italy’s quarterly accounts estimates compares favorably. ### Statistical practices and quality control - Sampling: scientific random sampling techniques used where sampling takes place. - Nonresponse handling: standard imputation methods (donor imputation from same sector, size class, and region); grossing up factors derived scientifically (often using a combination of number of workers and type of enterprise). - Structural business surveys provide sufficient information on turnover and other receipts, inventories, personnel costs, employment, and balance sheet information; however, they do not provide sufficient information on intermediate inputs for supply-and-use tables—separate cost structure surveys are required. - Continuous Labor Force Survey is extensively used to assure full coverage of production estimates; it targets legal residents and collects data on persons employed in first and secondary jobs. *Italic: Source: _cr0787 - 3.1 Source data* ### 3.2 Assessment of source data ### 3.2 Assessment of source data ### Source data assessment, coverage, and quality control - Source data—including censuses, sample surveys and administrative records—are routinely assessed for coverage, sample error, response error, and nonsampling error; results of the assessments are monitored and made available to guide statistical processes. - Information is available about sampling errors for all surveys, which are regularly reviewed. - Information is available about nonsampling errors. - National Accounts Directorate specialists keep archives for internal purposes on problems met on misclassifications, measurement problems, etc., to avoid similar problems in the future. - Information is available about imputation methods for nonresponse in the basic statistics as well as imputations made, if any. - Outliers in basic statistics occur in the provisional figures but are mostly removed from the final results. - Unexpected values in the responses are confirmed with respondents. - Surveys/censuses requiring direct contact with respondents (mostly household surveys) are audited to verify the accuracy of the individual survey data; such procedures are not normally followed for surveys conducted by post. - Accuracy of budgetary data, international trade, price statistics, and other secondary sources used to compile national accounts statistics is routinely assessed by national accounts specialists, who: - analyze source data to correct underreporting and misreporting, - check for temporal consistency, - review consistency with other data sources, - check source data with respect to definitions, valuation, reference periods, and classifications. - If sampling errors become large, the Directorate takes action to ensure that the sample selection is adjusted. - Revisions in the sources receive special attention. - A unit for quality analysis, validation, and implementation of data sources for the national accounts has been created in the Supply of Goods and Services Division. - The unit introduced improvements in filters used to identify anomalous and erroneous source data. - The unit validated the data for 6,100 enterprises received via the 2004 PMI against the corresponding data in the corporate business accounts deposited at the chambers of commerce. - The unit is instrumental in improving grossing up the information from basic sources by refining the calculation of value added per worker. ### Statistical techniques: general compilation approach - Data compilation employs sound statistical techniques to deal with data sources. - Annual accounts are mainly compiled according to the production and the expenditure approaches; some elements of the income approach are worked out. - Largely independent estimates of the two approaches are balanced in a final integration process. - Few direct level estimates are exclusively based on current sources (examples: foreign trade, taxes, general government transactions). - Estimates typically start from the balanced accounts of the benchmark year (2000), applying rates of change based on current year and previous year data in source statistics (example: household final consumption expenditure based on the HBS). - Estimates are adjusted to cover target populations: - Corrections for enterprises that escape enterprise statistics are largely based on comparison with employment data gathered from households. - Adjustments for underreported income of small enterprises (less than 20 persons employed) are based on comparisons between reported mixed income of enterprise owners and typical compensation received by employees. - Information from different sources is compared at detailed and aggregate levels. - Quarterly estimation techniques include elements of annual techniques and quarterly disaggregation methods; choice depends on available information. - When annual and quarterly information coincide, quarterly estimates mimic annual ones. - When annual sources are not available quarterly, an indicator is used to determine a quarterly pattern and make quarterly estimates for the year for which annual estimates do not yet exist. - Annually, statistical tests assess the indicator model; dummies may be introduced if the model does not yield accurate forecasts. - Istat uses a version of the Chow-Lin method. - Other benchmarking techniques are used where appropriate, such as Fernandez and Denton methods. ### Production approach procedures and measurement details - Output estimates are made in sufficient detail: - Annual account estimations are made for 101 categories of economic activity (intermediate level between two- and three-digit levels of NACE Rev.1). - Publication level of the final annual accounts shows a breakdown of sixty activities (A60). - Quarterly accounts are compiled for 32 categories of economic activity and published for 17 categories. - Intermediate consumption estimates are compiled at the same level of detail as output (between two- and three-digit levels of CPA); this detail is not particularly fine compared with good practice (three- or four-digit level). - Published supply-and-use tables show 60 activities and 60 types of products; authorities may wish to consider expanding product breakdown detail for analytical reasons even though current level meets EU requirements. - National accounts are benchmarked on 2000; estimates for several variables are influenced by levels and ratios used for that year, but benchmark ratios are adjusted in the balancing process and chaining effects cause ratios to change gradually over time. - Owner-occupied dwellings output is valued as estimated rentals tenants would pay for similar accommodation; since 1994, the Eurostat decision methodology is followed and census data enable dwellings stratification; HBS actual tenant prices applied to stock by category. - Work-in-progress treatment: - Crops, maturing trees, livestock reared for purposes of food (except calves), and fish are recorded as output when harvested or sold, not while they grow. - Progress in large construction projects is recorded as work-in-progress only if the producer — not the eventual user — is owner of the output produced; Italy approximates this rule by recording fixed capital formation in proportion to payments received by the producer or, for own-account construction, as work progresses. - Continuing work on large equipment (e.g., ships) is recorded as work-in-progress and transformed into gross fixed capital formation on finalization; this is not in accordance with 1993 SNA paragraph 10.10 but is in accordance with ESA 95 paragraph 3.119 (4). - Inventory valuation and holding gains: - Inventory data are used in output estimates in annual accounts; authorities consider no valuation adjustments needed. - Up to 1995, questionnaires requested opening and closing stocks at average prices of the year to avoid holding gains/losses entering value added; after 1995, questionnaires no longer requested average period prices as revaluations were presumed negligible due to low inflation. - Authorities could give more attention to possible distortions of recorded value added due to inclusion of holding gains and losses. - Consumption of fixed capital is estimated by the perpetual inventory method. - Deflators/price indices: - Deflators/price indices used for compiling volume measures of GDP are compiled at a detailed level and mostly appropriate in price concept, coverage, and reference period. - Output prices constructed by weighting the PPI and export unit values. - Input prices constructed by combining the PPI with import unit values. - Prices for internationally traded services calculated on price change in major partner countries, corrected for exchange rate changes. - Reference year for chained volume and price data is 2000. - Annual accounts use the double deflator method; limits of usually between 1 and 2 percent have been set on the extent to which the ratio value added/output may change from year to year because double deflation can generate unacceptable results. - Health and education: - Volume measures are constructed by output methods (preferred for other nonmarket output per the Eurostat Handbook on Price and Volume Measures in the National Accounts). - Collective services are deflated on the basis of cost components. - Data are adjusted for quality change by considering wage change for different categories of worker. - Taxes/subsidies on products: - Volume measures estimated by applying previous year tax rates to the volume of transactions subject to the specific tax/subsidy. - Trade margins: trade data deflated by applying previous year margins on volume of traded goods. - A simplified balancing exercise at prices of the previous year is performed at the end of calculations; constructed prices for intermediate consumption and changes in inventories are categories where adaptations are considered acceptable, accepting potential erratic movements in implicit prices for changes in inventories over making adjustments in other categories. ### Expenditure approach, quarterly compilation techniques, and publication practices - Annual accounts: no expenditure components are simply derived as a residual, though the commodity flow method is extensively used for estimating gross fixed capital formation and parts of household final consumption expenditure. - Currently no short-term sources for changes in inventories; their value has to be estimated residually in quarterly national accounts. - Istat considers qualitative inventory data from the Institute for Economic Studies and Analysis less adequate for quarterly national accounts; the recommended solution is Istat collection of data from major holders of inventories to serve quarterly accounts and as a business cycle indicator. - Classification detail in GDP by expenditure: - Annual accounts: household final consumption expenditure published in three-digit functional COICOP (expanded to 56 items nationally) and, for year t+3, 60 products. - Quarterly accounts: breakdown into 17 categories. - Government final consumption expenditure published annually at one-digit COFOG level. - Annual published capital formation distinguishes Eurostat Pi6 categories of assets (Pi4 if crossclassified with activities) and by 31 groups of owning industries. - Quarterly accounts breakdown fixed capital formation at Pi6 level. - Annual publications contain changes in inventories by type (industry of origin) in the same detail as output; no information published about owning industries. - Reliance on fixed ratios derived from benchmarks is very limited because benchmark ratios are gradually adjusted in balancing; for household final consumption expenditure, direct level estimates are made without reliance on earlier period ratios. - Specific GDP compilation techniques: - Government final expenditure is exclusive of incidental sales. - National concept of household final expenditure (including expenses of resident households abroad and excluding expenditure by nonresident households on the economic territory) is calculated though national purposes mainly use domestic final expenditure. - Expenditures on stores of wealth (e.g., jewelry, works of art) are included in estimates of valuables. - Price indices/deflators: - Dedicated indices used to deflate GDP components at appropriate detail. - Household consumption implicit deflator consistent with the CPI. - Government final consumption expenditure derived by deflating cost components of output for final use where it concerns collective services. - Volume measures of individual services (health and education) deflated using output methods. - Prices to deflate fixed capital formation are a weighted average of import unit values and elements of the PPI. - Changes in inventories, expressed in average prices of the period in basic statistics, are correctly deflated. - Specific quarterly compilation techniques: - Preliminary estimate of quarterly GDP published 45 days after the end of the reference quarter uses the same methodology as regular quarterly national accounts but with more extensive forecasting. - Forecasts generally use autoregressive distributed lag regressions with explanatory variables, Arima models, or the Tramo-Seats program with or without intervention variables. - Current calculations are made from production, expenditure, and income sides. - Data are available calendar effect adjusted, seasonally adjusted, and not seasonally adjusted at current and previous year prices from the first quarter of 1980 onward. - Preliminary estimates are exclusively available in seasonally adjusted format and in chained volume measures expressed in monetary terms with reference year 2000. - Calculations are carried out for 32 industries, 29 categories of consumption, and 14 capital formation items. - Quarterly output derived on the basis of specific indicators; value added at previous year prices obtained using output at previous year prices as an indicator. - Intermediate consumption at previous year prices derived as the difference between output and value-added estimates. - Output prices combine appropriate producer and export prices; input prices constructed by weighing producer and import prices with weights derived from previous year data. - Capital formation mainly estimated using the commodity-flow method; inventories are obtained as a balance between supply and expenditure approaches. ### Other statistical procedures, adjustments for exhaustiveness, and labor-based grossing up - Other statistical procedures employ sound statistical techniques for data adjustments, transformations, and analysis. - Istat uses many procedures to adjust data sources to improve coverage, definitions, classifications, and valuation in conformity with international guidelines. - Istat works to ensure exhaustiveness of GDP estimates: - To include hidden economy components, use is made of employment information from different sources. - Corrections are made for underreporting that may influence estimates of value added per person employed. - Longstanding method to improve exhaustiveness: expand per capita values from enterprise surveys to the universe by means of labor data. - Almost 70 percent of Italian GDP is subject to this method, introduced at the 1982 benchmark and further refined during preparations of the 2000 benchmark. - Labor input estimates are made by comparing, at a very detailed level, labor demand from enterprises and labor supply by households. - Labor estimation data sources and process: - Some labor estimates still based on carried-forward 1991 benchmark due to late availability of census data. - Benchmark integrates independent information on demand and supply of labor after adjustments for reference period, territory, definitions, and classifications. - Labor demand estimation uses all information on employment by enterprises; main sources were the Manufacturing and Services Census and the Agricultural Census, compared and completed with information from the Social Security Institute (for employees and quasi-subordinate workers) and Istat surveys. - Labor supply sources included the Labor Force Survey (LFS) and carried-forward results of the October 1991 Population Census, duly adjusted. - Corrections made for errors in classification by economic activity; comparisons made detailed by five-digit ATECO, region, and category of worker. - Only information on first jobs was considered reliable in the LFS. - Further adjustments made for employment categories not directly observed: nonregistered and nonresident workers, nonregistered multiple jobs, unemployment fraud, persons employed by private households, and informal jobs in agriculture and construction. - Resulting method yields number of labor units actually employed, which multiplied by value added per labor unit for each enterprise category (classified by activity and size) provides an estimate of overall value added. - Adjustments for understatement of value added in small enterprises: - Istat computes coefficients of possible understated value added when micro data show per hour compensation remaining for the owner of a small enterprise (operating surplus/mixed income minus compensation of employees and other costs) is lower than typical per hour compensation of an employee in the same enterprise type. - Overall impact: - The total influence on GDP of the two methods described (labor-based grossing up and small-enterprise adjustments) was to raise GDP in 2000 by about 12 to 14 percent. - Influence of additions made to value added estimates for manufacturing and nonpublic services are much higher than these percentages for GDP as a whole because agriculture and general government are estimated using different methods. - Balancing: - Estimates according to the production and the expenditure approaches are balanced in a square supply-and-use framework at current prices. - It is advisable that the analysis be expanded by also taking the (implicit) prices and previous year price data into account. *Italic: Source: 3.2 Assessment of source data (extracted from the provided IMF content unit).* ### 3.4 Assessment and validation of intermediate data and statistical outputs ### 3.4 Assessment and validation of intermediate data and statistical outputs ### Validation of intermediate results - Data compiled from the main sources used to compile national accounts statistics are checked with other primary/secondary sources. - Intermediate results are validated against other information where applicable. ### Assessment and investigation of statistical discrepancies - Systematic procedures exist to routinely assess potential discrepancies in intermediate data, leading to adjustments to remove them. - The National Accounts Directorate investigates any statistical discrepancies and other potential indicators of problems. - For final estimates, investigations are done in the framework of supply-and-use tables that: - Show 101 industries and 101 types of products. - Reconcile discrepancies when the difference is more than 1-2 percent (except for the smallest activities). - Focus year-to-year developments in values at current prices; concurrent analysis of (implicit) prices and volume data is planned for future implementation. - Remove remaining small discrepancies by applying a method based on the so-called RAS algorithm. - A degree of reliability is assigned to different basic data, causing some basic data (for example, foreign merchandise trade and taxes) not to be changed, while allowing relatively large changes to original data for valuables, and for transport and trade margins by product. - Istat does not undertake an evaluation of data against unofficial estimates (e.g., from government units, universities, nongovernmental organizations, or international organizations) that employ plausible assumptions and methods; Istat considers it inappropriate to be possibly influenced by outside agencies. ### Revision studies and use of revision analysis - Direction and magnitude of revisions between preliminary and final data are investigated, including explanations for sources of errors, omissions, and fluctuations. - Results of investigations and adjustments are taken into account in compiling data for subsequent periods to ensure that bias in the GDP estimate is negligible. - Revisions are assessed and explained in the publication of the statistical series. ### Serviceability — periodicity and timeliness - Quarterly national accounts estimates are disseminated as prescribed under the SDDS. - Timeliness: - National accounts estimates are disseminated within the timeliness limit of three months after the reference quarter prescribed under the SDDS. - Since the end of 2000, Istat has published preliminary quarterly GDP figures after 45 days at previous year prices, and calendar effects and seasonally adjusted; this first release provides only limited detail (contribution of agriculture, manufacturing, and services). - A more extensive quarterly publication follows at 70 days after the reference quarter. - Annual national accounts are published on March 1, two months after the reference year. - Further annual-details publication timing: - Institutional sector accounts: 13 months after the reference year (not particularly fast). - Regional accounts: 22 months after the reference year. - Provincial employment and value added: 25 months after the reference year. - Starting 2002, publication delays will be shortened to: - 10 months for the institutional sector accounts. - 12 months for the regional accounts. ### Consistency within and across datasets - Internal consistency: - National accounts are internally consistent; GDP by activity and expenditure components are made consistent in a detailed balancing process. - Estimates at current prices are consistent with matching series at previous year prices and the deflators. - Quarterly (not calendar effects adjusted) GDP estimates add up to the annual estimates except for a period of ten days between publication of the annual accounts and the release of the quarterly accounts that fit the new annual estimates. - Annual and quarterly calendar effects adjusted data are always consistent. - Production and expenditure approach consistency is ensured through a detailed comparison in a supply-and-use framework. - Consistency over time: - Consistent annual national accounts series according to the ESA 95 are available from 1970 onward (with reduced detail for 1970-1991). - Consistent quarterly series are available from 1980 onwards. - Any breaks in the series are explained to users; releases are accompanied by explanatory texts on unusual changes. - Consistency with other macro statistics: - National accounts statistics are reconcilable with general government data produced by the MEF. - National accounts are consistent with the balance of payments, apart from a few differences due to varying recommendations in international manuals (examples: treatment of construction by nonresidents; imputation of property income received by mutual investment funds). - Change to the benchmark year 2000 removed a large difference between balance of payments and national accounts regarding imports and exports of services. - The balance of payments revises its data in May, just after publication of the annual national accounts; close consistency between the two statistics is likely to hold only for a few months. - Better coordination of revision policies between institutions, at least for older years, is highlighted as highly desirable. ### Revision policy and practice - Schedule and releases: - First provisional annual estimates of year t are released on March 1 of year t+1. - Provisional annual estimates may be revised three times, all published on March 1: provisional estimate in year t+1; semi-final estimate in year t+2; fourth and final estimate in year t+3. - Preliminary quarterly GDP in chained volume measures and seasonally adjusted is published with a lag of 45 days; revised at 70 days after the reference quarter. - In the course of a year, data of each quarter of the current year and those of the two previous years may be revised. - In the March release, revisions in the quarterly accounts can extend back to year t-3 in line with the new annual accounts. - Regularity: - Recurrent revisions in annual and quarterly national accounts follow a predetermined and constant cycle. - Major revisions used to lack regularity; EU requirements have set recent timing, and future major revisions are expected with a five-yearly periodicity. - Documentation and incorporation of new sources: - Revised data are disseminated with the same or greater level of detail as previously published. - Istat provides extensive documentation on major revisions in hard copy, on the Internet, in press releases, and in dedicated seminars. - Major new source data are generally not incorporated immediately to avoid frequent breaks; they are introduced on occasion of a major revision. - Identification of preliminary/revised data: - Istat’s publications do not always alert users that initially published data are preliminary and subject to revision, nor are tables always flagged as revised; accompanying texts often make revision status obvious. - It would be helpful if quarterly publications indicated that all data for recent years remain subject to revision. - Public availability of revision analyses: - Studies and analyses of revisions are made public; revisions are assessed and explained in the publication of the statistical series. ### Accessibility — data dissemination and formats - Presentation: - National Accounts data are published in a clear manner; charts are disseminated with the data. - Datasets are published with various levels of detail and contain an analysis of current-period developments; estimates are disseminated at detailed level and with time series. - Dissemination media and formats: - Istat releases data via a press release and maintains an Internet site with extensive statistical data and explanatory documents. - ConIstat (Istat’s short-term indicators database) provides interactive and constantly updated data access. - Hard-copy publications include: Yearbooks (Annuari), Information (Informazioni), Topics (Argomenti), Methods and Norms (Metodi e norme), Essays (English-language), Statistical Annals (Annali di statistica), Research Papers (Quaderni di ricerca). - Quick releases include: Statistics in short (Statistiche in breve) and Studies in depth (Approfondimenti). - Offline electronic dissemination includes CD-ROM with ConIstat information. - Most data, including extensive detailed data, are published free of charge on the Istat website. - Release scheduling and equal access: - Istat publishes a release calendar each December with precise release dates for the coming year for all datasets. - The release schedule is available on the IMF’s Data Standards Bulletin Board (DSBB) on a quarter-ahead basis. - Istat provides data to the media on an embargo basis at a press conference held 30 minutes prior to general release; data are available about ten minutes later on the Internet. - Unpublished (but nonconfidential) specialized tabulations are made available upon request (as a rule for a fee); the Elementary Data Analysis Laboratory is available for specialized users. - Metadata accessibility and documentation: - Metadata on concepts, scope, classifications, basis of recording, data sources, and techniques are available on the Istat website. - Press releases include a short methodological description and glossary; quick releases indicate where more extensive discussion can be found. - Glossaries are included in the national accounts section of the Italian Statistical Yearbook. - Methods and Norms series and seminar proceedings provide extensive methodological information; the booklet The accounts about the Italians (I conti degli italiani) serves teaching purposes. - Documentation levels are adapted to intended audiences; exhaustive description for Eurostat GNI Committee was published on the Internet. - Assistance to users: - Prompt and knowledgeable service and support are available; statistical releases reference Istat’s Communications Office and often identify specific individuals in the National Accounts Directorate. - Publications include contact details (mail, telephone, facsimile, website). - A separate service within the National Accounts Directorate handles publications, press releases, website updates, and responses to international questionnaires. - Assistance is not monitored through periodic user surveys within the National Accounts Directorate; the Dissemination Directorate tracks telephone calls and website visitors and surveys customers at least annually. - A catalog of publications, documents, and services (including prices) is available and updated each year; assistance in placing orders is available through Istat data shops in Rome and Milan and regional statistical information centers. *Source: _cr0787 - 3.4 Assessment and validation of intermediate data and statistical outputs* ### 0. Prerequisites of quality 0.1 Legal and institutional environment 0.2 Resources 0.3 Quality awareness 0.4 Other qualit ### _cr0787 - 0. Prerequisites of quality 0.1 Legal and institutional environment 0.2 Resources 0.3 Quality awareness 0.4 Other qualit ### Prerequisites of quality — summary findings - Number of staff is not commensurate with strongly expanded tasks. - Istat collects and compiles large volumes of data to meet legal requirements for small-area coverage (see Price Statistics): 40,000 outlets, nearly 10,000 households, and 400,000 price quotations each month. - Istat is moving toward automation of data collection using hand-held computers and direct loading to a secure Istat website. ### Assurances of integrity — checklist - Professionalism, transparency, and ethical standards are indicated as met (marked X X X in the source). ### Methodological soundness — National Accounts (high-level) - Concepts and definitions, scope, classification/sectorization, and basis for recording are all marked as compliant (X X X X). - Specific methodological actions recommended in National Accounts (see Recommendations) include chain-weighting, supply-and-use balancing at current and constant prices, and investigation of holding gains on inventories. ### Methodological soundness — Price Statistics (CPI) - Assessment frameworks referenced: 1993 SNA, ESA 95, 2004 Consumer Price Index Manual. - CPI revised in 1999 to comply with EU standards; geometric means introduced for elementary series; aggregates computed using the chain version of the Laspeyres formula with annual links on each December. - Coverage and scope: - CPI covers expenditures of all resident households, including net expenditures by tourists; refers to market purchases of consumer goods and services (final consumption expenditure of the ESA 95). - Excluded: own-account production for own final consumption and illegally sold goods and services. Included: life insurance services and gambling. - Both the national CPI and HICP currently exclude services of owner-occupied dwellings; Istat participates in a Eurostat task force working toward measures to estimate these services (pilot study to develop measures of new house prices; aim to have new measures available by mid-2007). - Istat’s aim: convergence of national CPI and HICP into the same index. - Index structure: - 1,041 items grouped into 562 elementary references, 205 categories, 106 classes (COICOP four-digit), 38 groups (COICOP three-digit), and 12 divisions (COICOP two-digit). - Geographic coverage: full Italian economic territory. - Classification/sectorization: - ESA 95 used to classify institutional units and transactions; COICOP used for household expenditure classification. - Basis for recording: - Market prices used to value flows and stocks, including VAT; sales prices excluded from national CPI (recorded for HICP since 2001); medicine prices net of subsidies for HICP but subsidies included in CPI. - Prices recorded by price collectors; from October 2006 price collection undertaken over first three weeks of the reference month; fresh food and energy items collected twice during this period; some durables and rents collected quarterly; services paid in advance recorded when consumed. ### Accuracy and reliability — Source data (CPI) - Sampling and frames: - Comprehensive population and business registers available; population register maintained by municipalities and revised every 10 years by census; register provides sampling base for HBS. - HBS continuous since 1997; two-stage stratified random sample covers about 467 municipalities (out of 8,101) and 28,296 households (out of 23,267,709) each year. - Data for 107 large municipalities collected monthly; smaller municipalities (360) included every three months. - HBS response and precision: - Each household surveyed for one week a year; response rate about 85.2 percent of the original sample. - Sample error for monthly expenditures is on average 0.6 percent. - Price collection: - Collection by municipal collectors in 86 main towns or by Istat; elementary references collected by municipal collectors have weight 80 percent; remaining collected directly by Istat. - Groups collected centrally include tobacco, magazines, mostly pharmaceutical products, national tariffs; products with frequent technological change (computers, mobile phones, cars); selected services (campsites, bathing establishments, ski lifts). - Outlet inclusion criteria: department stores, supermarkets, discount stores, large supermarkets (ipermercati), specialized stores, and service establishments; judgmental sampling used for items, varieties, and outlets. - Proportion of elementary quotations from specialized stores: 65.4 percent in 2004 and 62.5 percent in 2006 (noted as declining). - Volume of collection: - Prices collected each month from 40,000 outlets and nearly 10,000 households yielding 400,000 price quotations monthly. - Sampling methodology improvements: - Project started in 2003 to evaluate probabilistic design for outlet and product samples; working paper referenced (Biggeri and Falorsi). - 2006 working group set up to implement random sampling methodology in two steps: select outlet sample from business archive of local units, then select product sample. - Data completeness and timing: - CPI consumer basket and weights derived each year from national accounts and HBS; HBS/national accounts data become available in June of the following year. - Expenditure estimates used for the 2006 rebase were based on HBS for 2004 (adjusted for price change through to December 2005). - About 85 percent of the price data are received on time for a provisional CPI (flash estimate) by the end of the reference month; final data released about two weeks later. - Collection period change: - Until October 2006: collection for month M took place from the 16th of month M-1 to the 15th of month M (applied for about 84 percent of products, corresponding to 75 percent in terms of households final consumption expenditure; remaining 16 percent of products, 25 percent in terms of expenditure, collected within the reference month). - From October 2006 onward: collection period shifted to the 1st to the 21st of the reference month for all products. - For October 2006, prices were collected according to both old and new periods to analyze impact. - Data quality practices: - Istat provides software for municipal offices for recording price data; centralized collections help treat product substitutions and quality changes uniformly. - Istat conducts experiments with hand-held computers and barcode extraction; monitors markets with Eurostat for new products and services to include in the basket. - Source-data adequacy: - Istat national accounts, HBS, and CPI data are closely coordinated in definitions, scope, classifications, time of recording, reference periods, and valuation. - For some items (vegetables, cheese), details are missing and special procedures or alternative sources (agricultural statistics for fish and fruit; producers for telecommunication items) are used. - Quality of municipal price data varies; Istat closely monitors and interacts with MSOs (Municipal Statistical Offices). ### Identified shortcomings and operational issues - Low response rates in major source statistics for National Accounts; no regular information on enterprise cost structure; no short-term data on changes in inventories. - Some Istat offices tended to select too high a proportion of specialized stores in outlet samples (noted variation across regions and large vs small centers). - Shift in price collection period implies year-on-year rates of change will, for at least one year, be calculated on indices with different price collection periods. ### National Accounts — key recommendations (ordered as in DQAF) - Increase the number of permanent staff in Istat’s National Accounts Directorate in view of the strongly expanded compilation program (0.2.1, short term). - Give priority to completing the process of bringing all Istat price and volume series to a chain-weighted basis (2.4.1, short term). - Continue to investigate and implement ways to improve the response rates of Istat’s mandatory enterprise surveys, in particular the SCI (3.1.1, short term). - Strictly adhere to the scheduled calendar of the cost structure surveys, which are essential for the accuracy of the supply-and-use tables. This would also allow, in due time, to increase the number of product groups distinguished in these tables (3.1.1, medium term). - Develop short-term statistics on changes in inventories (3.1.1, short term). - Investigate possible distortions of recorded value added as a result of holding gains and losses on inventories (3.3.1, medium term). - Implement existing plans to balance the supply-and-uses tables simultaneously at current and constant prices (3.3.2, short term). - Flag the status of data (provisional, revised) in published tables (4.3.2, short term). - Investigate whether the revision policies of Istat and the BI can be better coordinated (4.2.3, short term). - Reduce, to the extent possible, the time lag between the official release of quarterly data and their publication on the Internet (5.1.4, short term). *Content derived from: _cr0787 - 0. Prerequisites of quality 0.1 Legal and institutional environment 0.2 Resources 0.3 Quality awareness 0.4 Other qualit (IMF PDF).* ### 3.2 Assessment of source data ### 3.2 Assessment of source data ### Assessment of source data and survey quality - Source data—including censuses, sample surveys and administrative records—are routinely assessed for coverage, sample error, response error, and nonsampling error; results are monitored and made available to guide statistical processes. - Household Budget Survey (HBS): - Nonresponse is not an issue because substitute households are used. - Sampling errors are acceptable and made available. - Problems of misclassification and undercoverage are identified and solved internally. - Post-enumeration surveys help to eliminate reporting errors. - Price survey: - Sampling errors are not available due to the judgmental nature of the selection of outlets and products. - Administrative prices received from government agencies are crosschecked in the markets. - Other price data are checked and edited by computer programs and by supervisors at municipal offices and at headquarters. - Price collectors are instructed to report any unusual change to supervisors; automatic checks run after micro data are loaded. - Source data tend to be analyzed frequently as part of the process of updating the CPI basket and weights at the beginning of each year. ### Statistical techniques used in compilation (3.3) - HBS expenditure data are provided in detail according to COICOP (two-, three- and four-digit level). - In 2006, the CPI provides monthly data for 107 expenditure categories and 205 subcategories. - A special dataset of 562 indices is provided for major users; these data are available on request. - ESA 95 is used to define household final consumption expenditure from which index weights are established. - Valuation and scope: - Goods and services purchased are valued at actual prices paid by households regardless of the method of payment. - Interest on purchases on credit is not included. - Non-market goods and services are not included in the weights; this particularly applies to owner-occupied dwellings and goods and services produced for own final consumption. - Index methods: - Since 1999, geometric means have been used to calculate elementary series for the CPI. - Item indices are aggregated to subgroup, group, and all-item indices applying the Laspeyres chain formula with annual links. - Processes are covered by software provided to municipalities. - For the overall CPI for Italy, a weight matrix lists both item and regional/urban center weights; indices for all municipalities of the sample are provided separately. - Both the weight and the price reference period refer to the month of December of the preceding year; each year the new December-based index is linked to the old 1995=100 index. - The base year will be moved when Eurostat decides to move the HICP base year. - Treatment of missing prices: - For items collected by territories, temporarily missing prices are carried forward for no more than two months. - If still missing, a substitute with similar characteristics is introduced using the overlap pricing method. - For centrally collected items, prices of missing items are imputed using movements in related products or a higher level index. - Seasonal items and special treatments: - Seasonal items (particularly fruit and vegetables): products included each month must be available in at least 50 percent of the sample outlets. - Only the prices for the first 75th percentile are considered to avoid recording extreme price quotations at the beginning or end of the season. - If a product is out of season, the price is imputed using movement in prices of related products. - Clothing: a basket representing prices of summer and winter products is used all year. - Other out-of-season prices are imputed using higher level index movements or prices carried forward, depending on circumstances. - Quality change and new products: - Case-by-case approach for quality changes, especially for centrally collected items. - Where possible, an explicit estimate of the value of the quality change is made; otherwise, direct comparison or attribution of price change to quality change is applied. - New products are introduced into the index at the time of each annual rebase. ### Other statistical procedures and use in national accounts (3.3.2) - Detailed CPI components are provided to the National Accounts Directorate of Istat for deflation of consumer expenditures. - CPI covers over 90 percent of resident households’ expenditures; no need to resort to micro-surveys for activities not covered by regular CPI compilation. - Adjustments are needed to account for exclusion of owner-occupied housing and illegal transactions from the CPI. ### Assessment and validation of intermediate data and statistical outputs (3.4) - Intermediate results are validated against other information where applicable: - CPI data are regularly compared with comparable series from the PPI and the import price index. - Processing is verified by automatic checks. - Statistical discrepancies in intermediate data are assessed and investigated: - Unusual movements in certain items and regions are thoroughly investigated. - Statistical discrepancies and other indicators of problems in outputs: - The overall CPI for Italy is calculated product by product from municipal and regional indices, so there are no inconsistencies in aggregation. ### Revision studies (3.5) - Studies and analyses of revisions are carried out internally and used to inform statistical processes. - Regarding provisional and final monthly CPI: - Studies have not been undertaken as the two datasets basically agree at the national level. - In the last 45 months before the mission’s visit, there have only been three instances where there were differences between the two sets of estimates; these were very small. - Differences are monitored. ### Serviceability: periodicity and timeliness (4.1) - The CPI is published monthly and conforms to the SDDS. - Timeliness: - The provisional CPI is published at the end of the reference month. - Final and more detailed data become available around the 15th of each month. - The CPI therefore exceeds one month SDDS requirement. ### Consistency (4.2) - Statistics are consistent within the dataset: - The all-items CPI and the aggregate of the regional CPIs are the same. - Consistency over time: - A set of tables containing series, regularly updated since 1996, are available on the Istat web site. - Tables present data for: - The national CPI from 205 product categories to 12 divisions; - The CPI for white and blue collar workers (FOI) for 12 divisions and cross-classified by municipality; - The harmonized CPI (HICP) by 12 divisions and by European countries. - Consistency with other data sources/frameworks: - Following ESA 95 and other EU regulations, CPI data are broadly in line with national accounts deflators of household consumption. - Differences can be observed due to exclusion of owner-occupied housing from the CPI. ### Revision policy and practice (4.3) - Revisions follow a regular and transparent schedule: - Istat advance release calendar provides dates for release of preliminary and final estimates; minimal differences between series and users are well aware of the cycle. - Preliminary and/or revised data clearly identified: - Preliminary CPI data are clearly identified as provisional in the title of the release paper. - Preliminary data are published with less detail than final data, but with detailed analyses. - Studies and analyses of revisions are made public: - As revision of final CPI data is negligible, it has not been necessary to analyze and publicize differences, although they are monitored internally. ### Accessibility: dissemination, metadata, and user assistance (5.1–5.3) - Data accessibility and presentation: - Provisional national CPIs released through a monthly press release providing data for 12 COICOP divisions, with overall indices including and excluding tobacco; press release includes index numbers and percentage changes. - 33 major municipalities are authorized by Istat to release their local CPIs broken down by 12 COICOP divisions, the general index and more disaggregated indices (up to 205 categories) at the same time. - Final national CPIs released via monthly press release with breakdown by 12 COICOP divisions, including and excluding tobacco; press release covers overall indices and 12 division indices of the 20 regional capitals. - Detailed analytical report on inflation published on Istat website with the press release. - Final estimates of overall index and 12 COICOP division indices for the 86 municipalities participating in CPI surveys are released through Istat’s website. - Dissemination media and schedule: - CPI is first released as a press release and simultaneously posted on the Istat website; later published in Istat’s Monthly Bulletin of Statistics and in more detail in an annual publication. - In December each year, Istat publishes a release calendar giving precise release dates for the coming year; calendar is distributed to the press and available free of charge and is disseminated on Istat's website. - During the first part of the year, one-quarter-ahead approximate release dates are disseminated on the Internet on the IMF's Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board and publicized through Comunicato Stampa. - Data are released simultaneously to all users via press release Comunicato Stampa - Indici dei Prezzi al consumo; embargoed to media at a press conference held 30 minutes prior to general release. - Access to non-routine statistics: - For a fee, tabulations of more detailed data than normally published can be obtained by users; users are advised of this service in the press release. - Metadata accessibility: - A comprehensive description of methodology for CPI, FOI, and HICP is posted on Istat website. - In connection with annual CPI rebases, Istat publishes comprehensive papers on new methods and techniques introduced. - SDDS summary methodologies are updated quarterly as necessary. - Both summary and very detailed metadata are available; Note Rapide for analysts; Monthly Bulletin of Statistics and annual publication for general users. - After each annual rebase, a very detailed technical bulletin is released containing descriptions of new weights and basket, methodological changes, and so forth. - Assistance to users: - CPI press release and website list a contact person and telephone number for queries and requests. - A catalog of publications is available and updated each year; each Istat publication lists most recent publications and discloses prices of statistical publications; assistance in placing orders is provided. ### Recommendation - Continue to contribute to the development of a measure of the services of owner-occupied dwellings and to the debate on the preferred approach for inclusion in national CPIs with a view to incorporating this important activity within the scope of the Italian national CPI. See Chapter 10 of the CPI Manual (2.2.1, short term). *Source: _cr0787 - 3.2 Assessment of source data_* ### 2.2 Scope ### _cr0787 - 2.2 Scope ### Scope — coverage and exclusions - The current PPI on the domestic market covers the mining, manufacturing, and energy sectors. - The following groups are excluded: - 10.1 - Mining and agglomeration of hard coal - 10.2 - Mining of agglomeration of lignite - 10.3 - Extraction and agglomeration of peat - 11.2 - Service activities to oil and gas extraction, excluding surveying - 12.0 - Mining of uranium - 13.1 - Mining of iron ore - 13.2 - Mining of non ferrous metal ores - 17.3 - Finishing of textile - 22.3 - Reproduction of sound and video recording and computer media - 23.3 - Nuclear fuel - 35.1 - Shipbuilding - 35.2 - Railway and tramway locomotives and rolling stock - 35.3 - Aircraft and spacecraft. - Rationale for exclusions: - Most exclusions relate to particular pricing difficulties (or the group being of minor importance) and are allowed by EU regulations. - Examples of pricing difficulties: building of ships and aircraft (long production cycles); industrial services where consistently observable product prices are difficult to define. - Coverage sufficiency: - The indices at the three-digit and four-digit levels represent more then 90 percent of the total value added of Section D, manufacturing, of NACE Rev. 1.1 in the base year 2000, which conforms to the Eurostat coverage requirement. - Institutional and geographic scope: - Following the ESA 95, all resident market enterprises are in the scope of the PPI. - Geographic coverage is the full Italian national territory. - Items excluded from the index: - Changes in inventories of final products, own-account production of goods for own final consumption and capital formation, services, and illegal sales to willing buyers, as allowed by the EU. - Planned expansions: - A PPI for the non-domestic market (exports) and a Total PPI (the domestic market plus the export market) will be released by the end of 2006. - Separate indices produced for inputs and outputs of the agricultural sector. - Construction cost indices compiled covering labor, materials, and transport costs for residential buildings, industrial warehouses, and roads. - Output indices produced for selected business services: national post services, and telecommunication services. - Compilation of indices under investigation for: freight transport by road, courier services other than national post services, sea and costal water transportation services, and scheduled air transportation services. ### Classification and sectorization - Classification systems used: - ESA 95 for institutional units and transactions. - ATECO 2002 (Italian version of NACE Rev. 1.1 with a fifth digit) for economic activities. - PRODCOM, derived from CPA 2002 with nine-digit level (including the fifth digit of ATECO 2002), for classification of products. - Main Industrial Grouping classification (EU Regulation n. 586/2001) for classification of goods by end use. ### Basis for recording — valuation and timing - Valuation: - Output data used for weights are valued at billed sales prices (ex-factory selling prices) for own products, excluding VAT and other specific taxes and transportation costs. - Recording basis: - Recording is done on an accrual basis. - Output data for product weights are recorded in the period in which they are sold or ordered. - Price data for products refer to the time of the sale contract (or order booked during the month), not when they are produced (consistent with Eurostat Methodological Manual STS 2002). - Grossing/netting: - Transactions between establishments of the same enterprise are not recorded (pragmatic reasons); this practice is documented. - Istat does not produce a stage of processing index, so net weights are not required. ### Source data — PRODCOM, SBS, and price collection - Frames and primary sources: - Enterprises for weighting source data selected from Istat Business Register (ASIA—Archivio Statistico delle Imprese Attive), updated annually; ASIA draws on chambers of commerce, MEF tax records, National Institute of Social Security, and SEAT Business telephone directory. - Main source for PPI product weights: PRODCOM Survey System for year 2000. - Other external sources (professional associations and administrative sources) used for selected products not covered by PRODCOM. - PRODCOM system composition and coverage: - PRODCOM consists of four surveys: - quarterly survey of production of textiles and textile products; - quarterly survey of chemicals, chemical products and man-made fibres; - monthly survey of basic metals; - annual survey of the remaining industrial sectors. - Surveys cover about 60,000 industrial establishments (out of about 250,000) and about 6,000 products. - Sample includes all establishments with 20 employees or more (about 50,000) and a random sample of around 10,000 establishments with three to 19 employees. - Survey coverage is 90 percent of each NACE class (four-digit level), as required by Eurostat. - PRODCOM response rates and handling of nonresponse: - For each reference year 2000 to 2003, the response rate has been around 60 percent. - For 2003, overall response rate was 61.0 percent, split as follows: - Industrial companies Survey - Population - Sample - Respondents - Response Rate - Three to 19 employees / 216,446 / 10,013 / 4,918 / 49 percent - 20 or more employees / 47,445 / 47,445 / 30,118 / 63 percent - Despite being compulsory, poor response rates persist; Istat sends questionnaires at beginning of year and three reminders including one by telephone. - Main approaches to missing PRODCOM data: sample weights adjustment, imputation using previous year’s data indexed by detailed industrial production indices. - Initiatives to improve PRODCOM: - Specific monitoring of larger enterprises with 200 or more employees. - Decrease in number of products surveyed from about 6,000 to 4,500 per simplified PRODCOM list. - From reference year 2004, use of electronic questionnaires on Istat website. - From reference year 2005, change in periodicity of quarterly collections (textiles, chemicals, and man-made fibres) to annual. - From reference year 2005, use of more extensive local unit register (from ASIA) updated with annual survey of local units of larger enterprises with 100 or more employees. - Improving editing and imputation methods. - Redefinition of main variables surveyed (Eurostat task force including Istat). - Use of Foreign Trade data: - PRODCOM surveys do not distinguish domestic vs non-domestic market; Istat is considering using Foreign Trade data (export value of products by industrial enterprises) in conjunction with PRODCOM to estimate product weights for the 2005 base year. - PPI activity weights source: - Domestic sales from Structural Business Statistics (SBS) surveys for year 2000. - SBS surveys used: Survey of Economic and Financial Accounts of large enterprise (SCI) and Survey of Small and Medium Enterprises (PMI). - SCI and PMI characteristics and response rates: - SCI: completely enumerated survey of larger enterprises with 100 or more employees (about 8,500 enterprises for reference year 2000); collects profit and loss, balance sheets, employment, investment, personnel costs, regional items; KAU data for enterprises with 200 or more employees. - PMI: sample survey covering enterprises with less than 100 employees (random sample of 120,000 enterprises for reference year 2000); stratified by economic activity, size class, geographic area; follow up three times a year. - Use of chamber of commerce register (650,000 corporations) to augment SCI coverage; augmented SCI increased coverage to nearly 90 percent; remaining enterprises mathematically imputed. - SCI response rate: gradually increased from 48 percent in 1998 to 54 percent in 2004 (53.5 percent in 2000). - PMI response rate: increased from 43 percent in 1998 to 52 percent in 2004. - Concern: low PMI response (nearly 60 percent of turnover vs 40 percent from SCI) affects weight quality in current PPI. - Selection process for monthly PPI price collection: - Judgmental process based mainly on cut-off sampling: - Five-digit product groups selected to cover at least 90 percent of total value added. - Nine-digit products selected from each five-digit group to account for at least 70 percent of total sales in each selected five-digit category. - Main source for product selection: PRODCOM sales data for year 2000; other external sources used where PRODCOM not available (MEF for tobacco; Unione Petrolifera for refined petroleum products). - Enterprise selection: enterprises ranked by sales of product; highest ranked drawn until 70 percent of value of total sales of product reached; where impossible due to low concentration, minimum coverage of 40 percent of total sales value achieved (consistent with EU recommendations). - Total of 3,667 enterprises selected for monthly PPI, of which about 1,000 were new to the survey and about 1,000 dropped out from the 1995-based survey. - For regular monthly PPI, 12,604 prices for 1,102 products are collected directly from more than 3,600 enterprises. - Data submission: enterprises submit each month via form sent by fax or e-mail; use of electronic questionnaires via Internet under investigation; a survey indicated that 45 percent of the PPI respondents would prefer to supply data via the Internet. - Timeliness: - Source weight data for 2000 classified by NACE Rev. 1.1 were available at rebasing. - Monthly questionnaires: enterprises required to submit data by the 15th day after end of reference month; reminders sent on the 20th by external postal services company via faxes; Istat staff telephone nonrespondents if needed. - Producer price index available within the month following the reference month, consistent with SDDS and EU standards. ### Assessment of source data and quality assurance - Sampling error monitoring: - Information on sampling errors is available for the PMI survey and is routinely monitored. - Monthly price data checks: - Two main checks undertaken: - Have the price determining characteristics of the products changed? (enterprises generally indicate changes on the form) - Have prices changed more than expected for the particular activity or market? (enterprises contacted by telephone to query such changes) - Additional checks: verifying enterprise status (active, address changes, out of scope). - Data-entry program flags price changes outside fixed range (-5 percent, +10 percent). - Istat staff can confirm prices using other information sources when respondent confirmation not required. - Staff responsibilities: - Each PPI staff member responsible for one or more sectors at two-digit NACE level; collect, check, and record data; industry experts. - Indicators used: - Unit response rates and other accuracy indicators are calculated and used to monitor production process. ### Statistical techniques — imputation and quality change - Missing price handling: - Temporarily missing product varieties: last reported price carried forward for a maximum of three months. - Different imputation procedures for nonresponse under examination for adoption during forthcoming rebase. - Istat considering using period-on-period movements for responding enterprises at nine-digit product level, or indices at higher aggregation, to impute missing prices by applying movements to previous period prices. - Quality change adjustments: - When price variation due to change in price determining factors, a correction factor applied based on prices surveyed for new and old varieties in a month of overlap (overlap pricing method). - Use of explicit methods to estimate effect of quality changes under examination. - Eurostat Manual on Short-term Statistics and PPI Manual encourage hedonic methods for products with rapid technological development (e.g., computer hardware). - Planned methodological improvements: - New statistical methods for imputing missing prices and handling quality change planned to be adopted for the index during the 2005 rebase, with results scheduled for release in early (text ends). *Source: _cr0787 - 2.2 Scope (IMF content unit)* ### 2009. This is an area where the statistical techniques used could be considerably improved and ### _cr0787 - 2009. This is an area where the statistical techniques used could be considerably improved and ### PPI compilation methodology - For each product variety (specification), a price relative is calculated as the ratio between the price for the current month and the corresponding annual average price in the base year 2000. - For each nine-digit product, a price index is calculated using an unweighted arithmetic mean of price relatives (known as elementary product price indices). - The Laspeyres formula is used for aggregating the elementary product price indices from the lowest level (five, four, three, two-digits, two and one letter ATECO 2002) up to the total index. - The new PPI for exports and the total output price index will be released by the end of 2006; both new indices will be compiled using the fixed base version of the Laspeyres formula. - For the current PPI for the domestic market, the weight reference period and the base price reference period are the same, that is, year 2000. - The base of the PPI and its weighting system are updated every five years and the rebased series are available within three years after the end of the new base year. - When the PPI (2000 = 100) was introduced in 2003, the previous indices (base 1990 and base 1995) were linked to it after making reclassifications for the adoption of the new economic activity classification ATECO 2002. - Historical series were reconstructed back to January 1991 with the last change in reference base year (from 1995 to 2000) and adoption of NACE Rev. 1.1 / ATECO 2002. ### Treatment of product and enterprise replacements - A product variety is replaced when it becomes permanently unavailable because the enterprise does not produce it any more, or when the variety is no longer representative of the enterprise’s production. - In replacement cases, the reporting enterprise proposes a new variety that should have similar characteristics as the old variety and be representative. - Enterprises that cease to be active or are no longer within the scope of the survey are replaced as soon as possible by similar units, in term of size, which produce the same or similar product varieties. ### Assessment, validation, and investigation of intermediate data - For each elementary (nine-digit) product, percentage changes from the previous month for each variety are compared to identify any discrepancies; in the case of major discrepancies, enterprises are contacted by telephone for confirmation. - PPIs are compared across: - Similar groups of products; - Groups closely related in terms of price determining processes (e.g., basic metals and manufactured metal products, refined petroleum products, and basic chemicals); - Higher-level aggregations and other Istat price indicators (CPI and PPI for agricultural products); - Other price index sources such as raw material price indices compiled by Confindustria. - To validate data on refined petroleum products, information released from the Italian daily petroleum magazine Staffetta Quotidiana is used. - PPI data are compared with export and import price indices (unit value indices from foreign trade statistics). - Unusual movements arising from large movements in particular sectors are investigated and explained during press conferences at data release; each month a descriptive note on annual and monthly index movements is prepared to support the press briefing. - The economic activity indices are derived directly from product indices, so there are no discrepancies between components and aggregates. ### Accuracy, reliability, and revision practices - The discrepancies between preliminary and final PPI data are small. - The response for enterprises which have a critical impact on the PPI (for instance, oil companies) are subject to an intensive follow-up program. - The PPI is published monthly according to the SDDS monthly periodicity requirement. - The provisional PPI is published at the end of the month following the reference month and complies with the SDDS one month timeliness requirement. - The final PPI is disseminated within about 45 days after the end of the reference month. - The Istat advance release calendar provides dates for release of the provisional index; final data are released 15 days after the release of provisional data and are made available on the Istat website. - The final PPI is compared with the provisional PPI to analyze any revisions in the aggregates. - The SDDS metadata, summary methodology, and other descriptions are updated quarterly as required; the latest revision was made in September 2006. - Changes in methodology were described in Note Informative; information on the last updating of the base year and other changes were provided in the March 12, 2003 edition of Note Informative. ### Accessibility, metadata, and dissemination - Current data are presented in the monthly press release Indice dei prezzi alla produzione dei prodotti industriali, which provides the total PPI, indices for MIGs, and indices for three sections and 16 subsections of ATECO 2002; a technical explanatory note and a file of historical time series are attached. - Time series at more detailed levels are available in the ConIstat data base, on the Istat website, and in the Istat publication Bollettino Mensile di Statistica. - The PPI press release and website list a contact person and a telephone number for user queries. - Data release procedures: - Data are first disseminated as a press release and posted on the Istat website a few minutes after the embargo has been lifted. - Detailed data are available from the ConIstat database shortly after. - Final data are published on the Istat website and in Bollettino Mensile di Statistica. - Data are released simultaneously to all interested parties; press conference is held 30 minutes prior to general release under embargo. - Provisional and final data are disseminated by e-mail to government institutions and research institutes. - Documentation: - A short methodology description is attached to the monthly press release. - A full description is contained in “Numeri indici dei prezzi alla produzione dei prodotti industriali venduti sul mercato interno. Base 2000 = 100,” Metodi e Norme, n. 22, 2004. - No information on data accuracy is currently released; an Istat working group was formed to identify a minimum set of quality indicators for different surveys. - Istat publishes documentation at various levels: Note Informative, Metodi e Norme, Metadata of ConIstat for analysts; summary descriptions and glossaries in Monthly Bulletin of Statistics and explanatory notes. ### Key assessment findings (from Data Quality Assessment Framework table) - Surveys providing the weighting scheme were subject to large nonresponse. - Imputation and quality adjustment techniques need improvement. - Overall assessment symbols indicate broad observance of practices across prerequisites, assurances of integrity, methodological soundness, accuracy and reliability, serviceability, and accessibility with specific LNO/NO flags for source data response and statistical techniques. ### Recommendations (as listed) - Continue to work on the improvement in the response rates for the PRODCOM and SBS surveys including the initiative to augment missing respondent data with data from the chamber of commerce register, especially the sales data required for PPI weights (3.1.1, short term). - Bring forward plans to introduce more sophisticated imputation and quality adjustment techniques within the PPI as soon as practicable (3.3.1, short term). *Source: Price Statistics (Producer Price Index), excerpts from _cr0787 (2009).* ### 0.1 Legal and institutional environment ### 0.1 Legal and institutional environment ### 0.1.1 Responsibility for collecting, processing, and disseminating statistics - Each of Istat, the BI and the MEF is responsible for producing its GFS own dataset. - Legislative and institutional framework (selected elements): - Legislative Decree 322/1989 places the National Institute of Statistics (Istat) at the center of the National Statistical System (SISTAN) and gives Istat authority to collect data required for compiling macroeconomic statistics (Article 15). Istat cooperates closely with agencies outside SISTAN, such as the BI, to establish data-sharing protocols and agreements, notably in regards to government finance statistics (GFS). - Since July 2005, Istat publishes by the end of July in the official journal of the Italian Republic, as prescribed by the Financial Act, Law 311/2004, the list of all units that belong to the general government sector according to the rules of the ESA 95; the list is compulsory and published annually. - Legislative Decree 468/1978 Article 30, as modified by Legislative Decree 208/1999, gives the MEF responsibility for the compilation and dissemination of the revenue and expenditure data for general government on a cash basis; the MEF must present the Economic and Financial Planning Document, containing the budget (and three-year forecasts), to Parliament not later than June 30 each year and must present cumulative quarterly reports on the execution of the budget on a cash basis. The MEF also compiles central government financing and debt data on the basis of Legislative Decree 468/1978 and Presidential Decree 38/1998. - State Budget Reform Act (94/97) reclassified state budget transactions to be closer to national accounts economic criteria; the new classification (first used in the 2000 budget) introduced counterpart sectors. - Ministerial Decree no. 389/2003 requires local authorities to communicate to the MEF their intention to issue new bonds and to report quarterly all their new liabilities contracted; use of derivatives is monitored. - The 1993 Banking Law (Legislative Decree 385/1993) provides the BI with authority to collect information directly from Italian banks and other financial institutions; the BI is responsible for compiling financing and debt data for the general government sector. - Dissemination practices: - Istat publishes annual and quarterly accrual data for the nonfinancial operations of the general government sector following national accounts releases. - The MEF publishes monthly cash-based data on revenue, expenditure, financial asset transactions, and the cash borrowing requirement for the budgetary central government; it also publishes quarterly and annual details for the general government sector. - The BI publishes monthly, quarterly, and annual data on financing, debt and financial accounts for the general government sector with breakdowns by subsector, financial instrument, and holder. - Institutional coordination and reconciliation: - Fragmentation allows valuable cross-checks but can cause discrepancies (notably in 1999 and 2000). A high-level Commission under the Prime Minister and chaired by the President of Istat analyzed disparities and reduced gaps between MEF and BI cash balances; a final report was produced for an interagency working group and, on request, international organizations. - An interagency working group, established and chaired by Istat and comprising Istat, the MEF, and the BI, continues reconciliation work (including treatment of financial assets, capital injections, EU funds, accrued but not paid interest on debt securities, swaps). - Compared to 2002, Istat has the primary responsibility for dissemination of the general government statistics, consistent with Istat (i) chairing the formal working group coordinating the partial GFS produced by Istat, the MEF, and the BI; and (ii) transmitting the official Italian GFS data for the general government sector to Eurostat. - The responsibility for compiling and disseminating a comprehensive and integrated set of general government statistics remains to be determined; recommended to preserve cross-checking by maintaining each agency’s responsibilities for separate components. ### 0.1.2 Data sharing and coordination among data-producing agencies - Formal and informal data-exchange arrangements: - Protocol and legal convention from 2003 govern provision of data by the state accounting office (Ragioneria Generale dello Stato—RGS) to Istat for national accounts compilation. - MEF provides central government interest expenses (accrual basis) to Istat and the BI on a quarterly basis; MEF maintains a data bank with main characteristics of all state securities. - For EDP transmission to Eurostat: the BI provides Istat with data for financial accounts (excluding other accounts payable and receivable) and debt; the MEF provides budgetary data on government (fabbisogno del settore statale), government balance of public accounts, and financial transactions in the working balances. - Agreements exist with the Ministry of Health (2001) for local health units; Ministry of Interior for provinces and municipalities; Ministry of Defense for nature of military goods (to improve split between intermediate consumption and gross fixed capital formation). - Istat collects directly GFS data on an exhaustive basis from the regions and the two autonomous provinces. ### 0.1.3 Confidentiality of individual reporters’ data - Legal and procedural safeguards: - Istat treats government statistics collection under its comprehensive confidentiality provisions: Legislative Decree 322/1989 specifies dissemination only in aggregate form not identifying individuals; the Law on the National Statistical Program of December 1994 establishes strict confidentiality rules. - Legislative Decree n. 196 of June 30, 2003 (Personal Data Protection Code) requires surveys to inform respondents in writing and assures use for statistical purposes only. - MEF employees’ oath of office provides broad confidentiality guidelines. - BI statistics do not disclose individual institutions’ or transactions’ data; 1993 Banking Law Article 7 includes a secrecy clause ensuring confidentiality. - Council Regulation (EC) 2533/1998 includes a confidentiality requirement (Article 8) for ESCB statistical collection. ### 0.1.4 Statistical reporting mandates and measures to encourage response - Legal mandates: - Legislative Decree 322/1989 requires all government agencies, bodies, and administration offices to supply data for surveys in the National Statistical Program and sets administrative sanctions. - Decrees approving the National Statistical Program specify which surveys carry mandatory requirements for private individuals and entities. - Legislative Decree 468/1978, as amended by Legislative Decree 208/1999, is viewed by the MEF as an obligation for all central government units to report cash-based data to the MEF. - Compliance and coverage: - MEF reports that all units do report except about 5 percent of local government units and the small mountain communities. - SIOPE (Informative system for the government units’ operations), a common project of the BI, MEF, and Istat under BI management, currently in test phase, foresees standardized reporting of expenditures and revenues; expected to improve reliability, consistency, and timeliness of cash data. - BI statistical reporting to support supervisory and surveillance functions is governed by ECB regulations and provisions in the 1993 Banking Law. ### 0.2 Resources #### 0.2.1 Staff, facilities, computing resources, and financing - Istat: - Staff resources at the National Accounts Directorate are under pressure; staff are well qualified and highly motivated but constrained by existing regulations amid increased statistical requirements (infra-annual data, COFOG breakdowns, ESSPROS, EDP reporting extensions). - Maintenance of the official list of general government entities is resource consuming. - A unit dedicated to GFS is being set up in the National Accounts Directorate. - MEF: - Reorganized statistical work by merging two former units within the Department of Personnel. - A new inspectorate in the RGS, to be in place by December 2006, will supervise and coordinate all statistical work and complement Istat’s work for ESA 95 and IMF reporting. - Istat regularly trains MEF staff for national accounts and GFS. - BI: - Resources at the BI (Public Finance Directorate) seem sufficient for current GFS responsibilities. #### 0.2.2 Measures to ensure efficient use of resources - Istat: - Governing Board optimizes financial resources and evaluates costs against activities. - Uses efficacy, efficiency, structural, economic, and financial indicators; indicators published in Istat’s Annual Report. - BI: - Implemented programs to monitor utilization of staff, computing, and financial resources. - Constraints: - Istat and MEF management report little flexibility to reallocate scarce resources during periods of critical need. ### 0.3 Relevance #### 0.3.1 Monitoring relevance and practical utility of statistics - User focus and feedback: - Istat strategies collect and process demand aspects to set priorities (National Statistical Program, corporate programming, integrated output, tailor-made requests) and seeks feedback via user satisfaction surveys. - Istat surveys customers accessing central/regional data shops, hardcopy subscribers, and website visitors at least annually; specific users’ views collected within the “Circoli di qualita.” Main users (BI, Institute for Economic Studies and Analysis, MEF, Center for Economic Forecasts) meet in working groups and Istat organizes well-visited seminars and a bi-annual Conference on Statistics. - User need for clarity: - Users indicate a need to clarify differences among datasets produced by Istat, MEF, and BI. - Istat publishes ESA 95 format with emphasis on net lending/borrowing required by the EU. - MEF uses cumulative year-to-date monthly budgetary central government data and cumulative quarterly general government data in national format emphasizing the government’s borrowing requirement. - BI compiles and publishes financing-focused statistics (monthly Supplements to the Statistical Bulletin, biannual Economic Bulletin, Annual Report) emphasizing financing of the borrowing requirement and, per EU requirements, general government gross debt at face value. - Eurostat also publishes general government statistics on Italy. ### 0.4 Other quality management #### 0.4.1 Processes to focus on quality - Istat: - Quality emphasis evident from the Legend of Quality Measures (2001 Italian Statistical Yearbook) and Istat’s lead role in the Eurostat expert group on quality. - Created a quality manager post and a relevant team to perform quality audits; position is recent and results are yet to be produced. - MEF: - Focus on application of accounting rules as internal control and informal processes relying on professional judgment for central government operations data. - MEF debt data are checked for underlying databases, imputation techniques, documentation; cross-checked against budget data; Debt Management Department relies on “internal professionalism and market based conventions” for yields. - BI: - Has processes to enhance quality of statistics (see 0.4.2). #### 0.4.2 Processes to monitor the quality of the statistical program - Interagency checks and EU scrutiny: - Extensive interagency working groups enhance accuracy and treatment of GFS used by Istat; Istat regularly checks coverage, classification, missing/erroneous recordings, internal consistency, and consistency among alternative sources (Istat, MEF, BI). - Eurostat units on government finance examine GFS quality, request CMFB opinions; member states prepared inventories of methods used for EDP data to be published after Eurostat approval. Eurostat visits member states’ statistical offices (in principle bi-annually). - Audits and consistency checks: - MEF data for budgetary central government and local government are audited by the Court of Auditors; only budgetary central government data are subject to a ruling (Decisione sul Rendiconto dello Stato). - BI (Public Finance Directorate) employs consistency checks between financing flows and debt stocks, cross-checks large datasets with agent reporting, monitors consistency with Istat and MEF data and developments (example: prompted Eurostat classification confirmation regarding rescheduling of local health units’ arrears to suppliers). #### 0.4.3 Quality considerations in planning the statistical program - Although many processes exist to address quality, trade-offs (e.g., timeliness vs. accuracy) do not always appear central when setting priorities; new data requirements are frequently added to the work program. *Source: _cr0787 - 0.1 Legal and institutional environment* ### 1. Assurances of integrity ### 1. Assurances of integrity ### 1.1 Professionalism - Institutional independence and impartiality - Istat is autonomous with respect to the Executive and its independence is assured under legal provisions. - The Guarantee of Statistical Information Commission is charged with ensuring the impartiality and completeness of information produced by Istat and other SISTAN agencies. - Government Finance Statistics Commission views impartiality as composed of two elements: data should be a truthful description of reality; data should be simultaneously disseminated to all users. - A legal proposal may modify the mandate, governance and composition of the Commission. - Istat’s 2003 reorganization emphasized: “Independence, impartiality, reliability, pertinence of the statistical information, reduction of the burden on respondents, and protection of statistical secrecy and privacy are the fundamental criteria…” - Legislative Decree 468/1978 provides for the impartiality of data compiled by the MEF. - Statutory provisions, Community Legislation, and the 1993 Banking Law support the BI’s independence and professionalism. - Staff professionalism and international engagement - Recruitment and selection procedures evaluate exclusively the merit and potential of candidates and current employees. - Staff participate in international organizations’ committees, national working groups, and academic debate via discussion papers, articles, books, conferences, and seminars. - Methodological papers produced evidence staff participation and expertise. - Independence in methodological choices - Staff in Istat, the MEF, or the BI appear to be free from political or other influence in choosing sources and methods for compiling government finance data. - Right to comment on misuse and erroneous interpretation - Istat investigates daily any erroneous interpretation, particularly in the press, and may request publication of a response. - Istat provides ample information with releases; a Press Office call-in service allows journalists to obtain explanations. - Senior researchers attend most press conferences; Istat’s President may give interviews to major newspapers. - Istat and the BI release methodological notes explaining differences in concepts/content of items with similar names. - The three agencies provide expert technical advice and routine explanatory material to aid interpretation. ### 1.2 Transparency - Public availability of terms and conditions - Terms and conditions for compilation and dissemination by Istat are available through the SISTAN website. - The Carta dei Servizi Esterni della Diffusione (Charter of Dissemination Services) is available on the Istat website. - Legislative Decree 468/1978 as amended by Legislative Decree 208/1999 (governing MEF data collection) is publicly available. - Banking Law and other national normative texts are available on the BI website. - Internal governmental access prior to release - Access by Eurostat to quarterly general government data is laid down in EU Regulation 1221/2002; data are examined and disseminated only after adoption of a quality report on these data. - Member states may give access to their own government agencies and publish data on their initiative without waiting for the quality report. - Istat publishes quarterly nonfinancial accounts; first press release of quarterly nonfinancial accounts of general government for Q2 2003 took place in October 2003. - Identification of products - GFS components are disseminated in agency-specific publications and websites; statistics compiled by another agency included in a publication normally identify the source agency in a footnote. - Advance notice of methodological changes - Advance notification is provided through seminars and papers in the academic community. - Changes under consideration are indicated in the Three Year National Statistical Plan, Quick Notes, and Information Series. ### 1.3 Ethical standards - Codes, rules, and training - Staff in Istat and the MEF are bound by rules applying to all public service staff as set out in the Code of Conduct adopted by the Italian Guarantee of Statistical Information Commission (loyalty, impartiality, diligence, commitment). - All public servants take an oath before entering public service. - New Istat staff sign employment contracts committing not to disclose individual data and follow a one-week training program including staff ethics. - Guidelines are laid down in Ministerial Decree of November 28, 2000; Legislative Decree n. 322 of September 1989 Article 8; Code of Conduct annexed to Legislative Decree n. 196 of June 30, 2003. - Istat is bound to the 15 principles in the Code of Conduct for statistical agencies endorsed by the EU. - BI guidelines are published in Bank of Italy Staff Rules (including professional secrecy); new BI employees receive extensive orientation and training. ### 2. Methodological soundness #### 2.1 Concepts and definitions - Adoption of international frameworks - No comprehensive integrated presentation of government finance statistics is published in a single location. - Initiatives are underway to accelerate compilation according to the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2001 (GFSM 2001), including Istat participation in the IMF/Eurostat data exchange agreement; a first run was elaborated by the middle of 2006 and is being validated by Istat. - BI’s Annual Report and bi-annual Economic Bulletin publish statistics from Istat (general government accounts) and the BI (general government financing and debt); methodological section of Annual Report explains conceptual relations among indicators. - Istat general government statistics are produced in the context of national accounts based on ESA 95 and conform to international guidelines; they cover nonfinancial transactions and complement BI financial accounts. - Istat data are used to compile the net lending/borrowing balance required under the Stability and Growth Pact. - MEF publishes cash-based public sector accounting data identifying government cash borrowing requirement and publishes reconciliation between MEF cash borrowing requirement and accrual net lending/borrowing. - Istat compiles “other accounts receivable and payable” for general government financial accounts. - All other financial transactions of general government according to ESA 95 are compiled by the BI and transmitted to Istat; MEF produces data corresponding to Central Government debt. - BI produces financing data corresponding to cash borrowing requirement and publishes general government debt stock valued in domestic currency at face value. #### 2.2 Scope - Coverage alignment and projects - Istat’s ESA 95 general government statistics cover budgetary and extra budgetary central government, social security funds, and local government (regions, provinces, municipalities and mountain communities, local health units, and so on). - MEF public accounting data (quarterly and annual) have coverage slightly different from Istat’s general government; consolidated data published for MEF’s version of general government and component subsectors in Relazione generale della situazione economica del paese. - BI financing and debt statistics scope is in line with ESA 95 and Istat statistics; BI publishes financial accounts (balance sheets and flows) for subsectors central government, local government and social security funds in supplements to the statistical bulletin. - MEF publishes Central Government debt statistics and is developing an exhaustive database on outstanding debt of local government agencies; reporting obligations from ministerial Decree no. 389/2033 on local authorities resulted in a database that, by end 2006, had around 90 percent coverage. - Scope of central government debt statistics aligns with BI statistics (liabilities recorded at face value). #### 2.3 Classification/sectorization - Consistency with international classifications - Istat defines general government sector and subsectors in accordance with ESA 95, consistent with the 1993 SNA and GFSM 2001, using the allowable option of showing social security funds as a separate subsector. - Istat compiles nonfinancial transactions according to ESA 95 classifications: production, primary and secondary income flows, transactions in nonfinancial assets, and revenue/expenditure. - BI uses the same government definition as Istat; a common listing of public entities ensures consistency of coverage. - BI Annual Report section on public finances provides consolidated accounts with revenue by broad type, current expenditure by economic type, capital expenditure, net borrowing, cash borrowing requirement formation and financing by instrument and sector, and detailed debt breakdowns (by instrument, holding sector, subsector, local government by subsector/instrument/geographical area); some tables published monthly in a supplement. - MEF uses a national classification to derive the government’s cash borrowing requirement with detailed presentation of current revenue, current expenditure (including Personnel costs, Social contributions, Intermediate consumption, Current transfers, Interest, Depreciation (historic cost), Other current expenditure), capital revenue, capital expenditure, financial assets and liabilities, total cash inflows and outflows, and Balance (government cash borrowing) = Total cash inflows less total cash outflows. - MEF data are consolidated in accordance with GFSM 2001 requirements and provide a table showing each subsector and consolidation adjustments separately; treatment of some public accounting transactions differs from macroeconomic statistics, and Istat and MEF cooperate to identify and treat such transactions appropriately. - Istat prepares general government expenditure estimates classified by COFOG (10 divisions) and by economic classification; MEF prepares COFOG data for budgetary central government expenditure. #### 2.4 Basis for recording - Valuation and currency conversion - Generally, flows are valued at market prices. - In accordance with EU guidelines, debt liabilities are recorded at face value rather than market value; BI also publishes financial stocks at market value. - Foreign currency flows are converted to national currency using the mid-point of the buying and selling market exchange rates on the date of the transaction; stocks are converted using end of period rates. - Recording basis and accrual adjustments - Istat estimates nonfinancial transactions on an accrual basis. - MEF data on nonfinancial transactions and on financial transactions in assets are on a cash basis; MEF produces information allowing time-adjustment of cash data provided to Istat. - BI publishes financial flows that include accrual adjustments in the context of flow-of-funds statistics compiled in accordance with ESA 95; this work is carried out in close cooperation with Istat. - Grossing/netting procedures - All revenue and expenditure transactions are shown on a gross basis. - Istat records tax revenue net of any refund, adjusting MEF data that show taxes and related tax refunds (including refunds arising from the net payment of VAT by producers) on a gross basis. - Debt stocks are recorded by the BI (and, for Central Government, also by the MEF) on a gross basis. - BI shows financing transactions net at the detailed level of classification used (by instrument, currency, residency, or counterparty). *Source: _cr0787 - 1. Assurances of integrity* ### 3.1 Source data ### _cr0787 - 3.1 Source data ### Major source systems and coverage - Istat uses a variety of sources to compile GFS, including MEF data, data it collects itself, and data obtained from the BI. - MEF administrative sources provide coverage of general government cash-based transactions; quarterly and annual source data coverage (general government) is broader than in many other countries. - Public entities outside the budget are required by law to report to the MEF on a quarterly basis; these include social security funds, extra budgetary funds, regional, provincial, and local government units. - Extra budgetary funds include research funds, development funds, and the Motorway Guarantee Fund. - According to the MEF, data are reported for all units except for about 5 percent of local governments and the small mountain communities. - The MEF Department of Treasury compiles quarterly central government debt data based on reports from the Public Debt Management Directorate. - Istat collects from the regions comprehensive information on revenue (assessments and cash receipts), expenditure (commitments and cash payments), and financial transactions; the basic register is compiled and standardized by Istat. - Istat conducted a rapid reporting survey (introduced in 2000) of a stratified random sample of municipalities to address long reporting delays; beginning with reporting year 2005, the sample reporting is superseded by online census reporting carried out by the Ministry of Interior. - The Ministry of Health collects direct accrual-basis information from Local Public Health Units and Hospital Agencies for compilation of the general government consolidated account; balance sheets of local health units are not used. - Financing and debt data compiled by the BI are available through the bank reporting system; post office savings are reported directly to the BI each month; treasury securities information is available from BI units cooperating with the MEF and from issuing bodies and financial intermediaries. - Information on securities issued by local government are obtained by BI from the “Financial Market” unit of BI Research Department, via the Foreign Exchange Office. ### Conformity to definitions, classifications, valuation, and scope - Revenue and expenditure data from Istat (as an intermediate step in national accounts preparation) provide a good basis for compiling GFSM 2001 nonfinancial statistics. - Following the State Reform Act (Legislative decree 94/97), an inter-institutional working group (MEF, Istat, BI, Italian Court of Auditors) elaborated economic and functional classifications to align budgetary classification with ESA 95. - The BI publishes flows and stocks on financial transactions in compliance with ESA 95. ### Timeliness of source data - Budgetary central government source data are available within 45 days of the end of the reference month. - Quarterly and annual data from the MEF are available within one quarter and six months respectively. - Istat’s annual surveys generally provide data usable for general government sector data for year t-1 (i.e., for 2004 in early 2006). - BI financing and debt data are available monthly, between five and nine weeks after the reference month, depending on the sector. - Central government debt data produced by the MEF on a quarterly basis are available with a lag of one quarter after the reference period. - European Union regulations require quarterly national-accounts-based accrual data for general government revenue and expenditure classified by main ESA 95 economic type categories; Istat has adopted procedures for compilation and dissemination. ### Assessment of source data quality and coverage - There are no material gaps in the coverage of general government units. - Istat routinely compares reported data for subsectors against alternative sources; MEF data are validated through auditing of agency accounts. - Collection for distinguishing capital transfers and financial transactions is based on profit and loss accounts of public enterprises; loss-making enterprises’ financial statements are analyzed to determine government payments. - For large transactions an ad-hoc evaluation (business plan, profitability, past performance) determines classification as capital transfer or financial transaction. - For securitization, detailed information on special purpose vehicles (SPVs) is used. ### Statistical techniques and estimation procedures - The rapid survey of municipalities uses internationally accepted sampling techniques; Istat’s collections from other government units use full enumeration. - MEF data collections are from administrative accounting systems. - For income, only information from the State budget is used; estimates for other central government operations are determined residually as the difference between State budget information and total borrowing requirement of central government computed from the financing side. - Istat procedures for estimating accrual data: - Revenue: time-adjust cash data, accounting for different timing characteristics across revenue items. - Expenditure: estimated from commitments. - Local health units: report directly on an accrual basis. - Interest expense: estimated on an accrual basis using original contract terms to adjust for premiums or discounts. - Consumption of fixed capital: follows Eurostat recommendations based on a shorter asset life time. - Istat noted past discrepancies between cumulative accrual and cash estimates for taxes due to built-up arrears from unpaid tax refunds and recent reductions of those arrears. - Treatment of fiscal amnesty: - Law 282/2002 and Law 289/2002 provided a tax amnesty allowing self-declared taxes to be recorded as tax revenue on an accrual basis and paid in installments, generating “other accounts receivable.” - Law decree 335/2004 extended deadlines for tax amnesty declarations, impacting accrual estimates. - When majority of payments had been made in 2006 and accrual estimates exceeded cash amounts, Istat revised accrual amounts for 2003 and 2004 and included in the assessments only amounts effectively cashed. ### Validation of intermediate data and statistical outputs - Istat validates major nonfinancial aggregates for the general government sector in the context of national accounts. - Additional information (even with long lags) is used for validating specific transactions (e.g., dividends, debt cancellations, securitization, prepayments of concession rights). - Examples of validation-driven reclassifications and treatments: - Dividends: financial statements from Structural Statistics at Istat are used. - Debt cancellations: covered by SACE financial statements and MEF balance sheet. - Securitization and sale of real estate assets: complex accounting problems addressed with detailed analysis. - Refund of VAT after a court decision: recorded at the date of legal decision as a capital transfer with a corresponding receivable. - Guaranteed debt of a company managing construction of infrastructure: reclassified as government debt after discussion with Eurostat. - Prepayments from private tax collectors: reclassified as financial transactions after discussion with Eurostat. - Prepayment of concession rights: recorded as government liability with revenue to accrue over the life time of the concession. - Payments from enterprises to government of social contributions devoted to TFR scheme: currently in stage of normative approval; treatment corresponds to current payments of social contributions. - The BI checks consistency between stocks and flows of government financial assets and liabilities and cross-checks data from different sources as they become available. - The MEF checks central government debt database with BI for central government securities, with the BI and other ministries for loans, and with the centralized Treasury for current accounts deposits held by private sector units. ### Handling of statistical discrepancies and revisions - Behavior of series is cross-checked with related series/indicators; cash data from MEF for local authorities are checked against Istat survey quality. - A high-level Commission chaired by the President of Istat investigated discrepancies between nonfinancial data and corresponding financing data for years 1999 and 2000; its work supported revisions that reduced discrepancies for 2001-2004. - Istat analyses discrepancies between financial and nonfinancial transactions and, in adjusting for accruals, derives other accounts payable and receivable to improve coherence. - Work by the discrepancies working group identified transactions not covered by standard sources (e.g., loans granted by the social security fund to public employees) which reduced discrepancies. - Regarding the deficit: - Hardly any additional information becomes available between April 1 and October 1—particularly for local government. - Finalised budget reports of almost all government units are available only with a one-year time lag; no major revision of EDP figures is therefore possible. - Istat’s revision policy aims at not introducing negligible changes between April and October to provide users a stable scenario. - General government accounts released by March 1 jointly with the full set of national accounts data follow agreed practice with the MEF and are based on information available by the beginning of the year; no use is made of preliminary estimates based on quarterly accounts. - After early March, more public entity data (public accounts, profit and loss statements) become available as government boards approve final budgets; legal provisions require approval within sixth months after the reference period (e.g., 2006 budget should be approved by end of June 2007). - Istat Directorate for Structural Statistics should receive approved data shortly after approval to be used in calculation of general government net borrowing; delays occur frequently and affect processing because the process involves more than 9,000 government bodies. - BI revision policy for debt data differs: debt data are not usually revised significantly between April 1 and October 1, but small revisions in component time series are made whenever deemed necessary; debt time series are constantly updated and made available through the BI website. - Between the two EDP transmissions, inter-institutional working group (BI, Istat, MEF) reconciles change in debt and the deficit; significant revisions of debt data between April and October would lead to revision in reconciliation items or a revision of the deficit if new information is available. ### Revision studies and use of revision analysis - Revisions are investigated and inform statistical processes. - In 2006, annual revisions were made to the Istat national accounts time series back to 1980 and the factors leading to revisions were investigated. - A review is made of transactions and revisions when the EU decides on a different treatment from that adopted by Italy with regard to new arrangements (such as securitization) in the national accounts. *Source: _cr0787 - 3.1 Source data* ### 4.1 Periodicity and timeliness ### _cr0787 - 4.1 Periodicity and timeliness ### Periodicity and timeliness - Periodicity meets or exceeds SDDS standards: - Central government operations data are published monthly (SDDS monthly). - Central government debt data compiled by the MEF are published quarterly (SDDS quarterly). In addition, the BI publishes monthly government debt data. - General government operations data are published quarterly and annually (SDDS annually). - Timeliness: overall meets SDDS except monthly central government operations: - Monthly central government operations data are not published until 45 days after the reference month (instead of within one month as per SDDS requirements). - The quarterly central government debt data compiled by the MEF are published within one quarter (SDDS quarterly). - The monthly government debt data compiled by the BI are published within two months after the reference period. - Annual general government operations data are published within six months of the end of the year. ### Consistency - Internal consistency within datasets: - General government sector data from the national accounts, from the BI, and the MEF are each internally consistent. - Aggregates are consistent with their components; balances are consistent with aggregates. - The sum of subsector data, after appropriate consolidation, is consistent with consolidated general government. - Annual data are consistent with the sum of quarterly estimates. - Time-series consistency and documented breaks: - Time series are consistent over time; MEF, BI, and Istat can explain divergences from expected trends and there are no major breaks due to methodological developments except: - The reclassification of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti outside the government sector beginning from 2004 constitutes a break in the series but has been sufficiently well documented. - Istat and BI databases were recalculated backwards following the introduction of the ESA 95 methodology and more recently with the 2006 historical revision. (The revised time series cover data from 1980 to 2005.) - Reconciliation with other frameworks: - Most items in Istat’s estimates of the general government sector are consistent or reconcilable with equivalent data sources. - External transactions of government are consistent with the balance of payments. - Net lending/borrowing is reconcilable with the cash borrowing data at the MEF. - Data are consistent with other Istat data series. ### Revision policy and practice - Regular schedule and transparency: - Publication follows a regular pattern: initial provisional data subsequently replaced by revised data. - Example: Istat’s first provisional annual estimates of year t are released on March 1 of the year t+1. - Some improvements needed: provide more details on GFS revisions in tabular form. - Identification of preliminary and revised data: - Preliminary data are not clearly identified by Istat although revisions are explained and aggregate tables produced to show magnitudes of revisions. - MEF data status is not identified and no general comment on revision policy is given; MEF publishes cumulative current period data and equivalent data for the previous two years. - BI publishes detailed notes to statistical tables and a “Notice to readers” accompanies tables discussing changes when methodological revisions occur; provisional data are always clearly identified in BI tables. - Revision studies: - Istat publishes analyses and descriptions when extraordinary revisions are made (e.g., in 1999 to adopt ESA 95, and in June 2006 for the revision of long-time series from 1980 to 2005). ### Accessibility — Data dissemination and formats - Presentation and clarity: - Istat presents GFS data according to the ESA 95 framework across a range of synthetic and detailed publications with time series and methodological material. - Istat does not yet publish information on the financial transactions of general government. - Istat planned to disseminate in 2007 the EDP tables in a more user friendly format and is studying a more user friendly reporting format for publishing GFS statistics. - MEF data presented in a standard national format with clear link between aggregates and derivation of the borrowing requirement; format suited to specialist users due to public accounting standards. - MEF publishes central government debt quarterly with instrument breakdown. - BI presents financing of the borrowing requirement and gross debt with subsector, instrument, and holder breakdowns; time-series available for Istat and BI aggregates. - Recommendation: disseminate a reporting format based on GFSM 2001 to help users and improve integration across agencies. - Dissemination media and schedule: - No single publication provides complete GFS; users must consult several publications/formats. - Istat publications and typical release timing: - End of June, annual general government accounts online under the series Statistics in short. - End of December, expenditures according to the functional classification. - 90 to 95 days after the end of the quarter, quarterly general government nonfinancial accounts. - Other Istat publications: national accounts publication on gross fixed capital formation in September; National Accounts Yearbook; Istat Yearbook. - Istat planned to publish the EDP notification tables at the national level in a user-friendly format with the next EDP notification due before April 1, 2007. - MEF publications: - Relazione Trimestrale di Cassa: cumulative quarterly public accounting data and Central Government debt with instrument breakdown. - Relazione sulla la situazione economica del paese: consolidated data for local government and local health units. - BI publications: - Monthly Supplements to the Statistical Bulletin, Monetary and Financial Indicators; Annual Report (10-year time series); Economic Bulletin; Annual supplement on Local Government debt; Quarterly Supplement on Flow of Funds Statistics (Conti Finanziari). - BI website allows downloading of monthly time series. - Advance release calendars and simultaneous release: - Istat publishes in December a release calendar with precise release dates for the coming year; the schedule is also available on the DSBB on a quarter-ahead basis. - Simultaneous release practices: - General government revenue and expenditure data: released simultaneously through an Istat press release, followed by national accounts publication. - Central government operations data: released through an MEF press release on its website, followed by hard copy publication. - Central (and general) government debt data: released by the BI through supplements to its bulletin. - Press releases and publications are simultaneously posted on respective agency websites. - Non-routinely disseminated statistics: - Istat provides additional elaborations on request subject to confidentiality. - MEF releases unpublished data very rarely. - BI regularly publishes large detail and on demand releases unpublished data for earlier periods than available electronically. ### Accessibility — Metadata and user assistance - Metadata availability: - Metadata on concepts, scope, classifications, basis of recording, data sources, and statistical techniques are available from the Istat website; press releases include short methodological descriptions. - Eurostat’s Manual on Deficit and Debt provides background for Istat’s work on compiling general government sector. - Istat staff produce research papers and documents on specific procedures. - MEF provides very limited documentation in publications despite extensive commentary on fiscal developments. - BI publications routinely include summary descriptions of concepts, sources, and methods; ESA 95 and 1993 SNA provide background for flow-of-funds; Eurostat’s Manual on Deficit and Debt is reference for debt statistics. - Istat planned to produce the EDP inventory in a user-friendly format in the near future. - Assistance to users: - Contact persons are indicated for each Istat website publication; Istat’s dissemination directorate monitors assistance through user surveys. - BI provides a contact e-mail address in each publication. - MEF publishes contact names for central government debt (Debt Management Department) in its quarterly bulletin. - Contact persons for each subject field are publicized on the IMF’s Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board. - Catalogs of publications are widely available on Istat, BI, and MEF websites; Istat catalog indicates prices and provides ordering assistance via data shops in Rome and Milan and regional statistical information centers. ### Key numeric timings and dates (preserved verbatim) - 45 days after the reference month (monthly central government operations publication lag). - within one month (SDDS requirement for monthly data). - within one quarter (SDDS quarterly for MEF quarterly debt). - within two months after the reference period (BI monthly government debt publication). - within six months of the end of the year (annual general government operations). - Istat’s first provisional annual estimates of year t are released on March 1 of the year t+1. - Revisions: 1999 (adoption of ESA 95) and June 2006 (revision of long-time series). - Revised time series cover data from 1980 to 2005. - Istat plans to disseminate in 2007 the EDP tables in a more user friendly format. - Next EDP notification due before April 1, 2007. - Istat quarterly general government nonfinancial accounts: 90 to 95 days after the end of the quarter. - End of June (annual general government accounts online under Statistics in short). - End of December (expenditures according to the functional classification). ### Recommendations (as listed in the source) - Establish the responsibility for compiling and dissemination of a comprehensive and integrated set of general government statistics, preserving the valuable interagency cross-checking by maintaining each agency’s responsibility for the separate components (0.1.1, short term). - Increase the number of permanent staff in Istat’s National Accounts Directorate in view of the strongly expanded compilation program of the GFS (0.2.1, short term). - Produce a comprehensive and integrated set of GFS, using the GFSM 2001 framework, integrating GFS data produced by Istat, the MEF and the BI. The initiative currently underway to convert ESA 95 data into the GFSM 2001 format provides a good basis in that direction. (2.1.1, medium term). - Pursue the work on exploiting sources on the trade credits financing of local health units (3.1.1, short term). - In validating data, incorporate, in addition to methodological changes, new statistical information in the aggregate published figures (3.4.3, short term). - Improve the timeliness of the data on the monthly central government operations in accordance with the SDDS (4.1.1, medium term). - Istat to flag the status of published data (provisional, revised) and provide more details on GFS revisions in tabular form (4.3.1, short term). *Source: _cr0787 - 4.1 Periodicity and timeliness (compilation of Italy’s Government Finance Statistics assessment).* ### 0.1 Legal and institutional ### 0.1 Legal and institutional ### Prerequisites of quality - 0.1 Legal and institutional environment—The environment is supportive of statistics. - 0.1.4 Statistical reporting is ensured through legal mandate and/or measures to encourage response. - 0.2 Resources—Resources are commensurate with needs of statistical programs. - 0.2.1 Staff, facilities, computing resources, and financing are commensurate with statistical programs. - 0.2.2 Measures to ensure efficient use of resources are implemented. - 0.3 Relevance—Statistics cover relevant information on the subject field. - 0.3.1 The relevance and practical utility of existing statistics in meeting users’ needs are monitored. - 0.4 Other quality management—Quality is a cornerstone of statistical work. - 0.4.1 Processes are in place to focus on quality. - 0.4.2 Processes are in place to monitor the quality of the statistical program. - 0.4.3 Processes are in place to deal with quality considerations in planning the statistical program. ### Assurances of integrity - The principle of objectivity in the collection, processing, and dissemination of statistics is firmly adhered to. - 1.1 Professionalism—Statistical policies and practices are guided by professional principles. - 1.1.1 Statistics are produced on an impartial basis. - 1.1.2 Choices of sources and statistical techniques as well as decisions about dissemination are informed solely by statistical considerations. - 1.1.3 The appropriate statistical entity is entitled to comment on erroneous interpretation and misuse of statistics. - 1.2 Transparency—Statistical policies and practices are transparent. - 1.2.1 The terms and conditions under which statistics are collected, processed, and disseminated are available to the public. - 1.2.2 Internal governmental access to statistics prior to their release is publicly identified. - 1.2.3 Products of statistical agencies/units are clearly identified as such. - 1.2.4 Advance notice is given of major changes in methodology, source data, and statistical techniques. - 1.3 Ethical standards—Policies and practices are guided by ethical standards. - 1.3.1 Guidelines for staff behavior are in place and are well known to the staff. ### Methodological soundness - 2. Methodological soundness—The methodological basis for the statistics follows internationally accepted standards, guidelines, or good practices. - 2.1 Concepts and definitions—Concepts and definitions used are in accord with internationally accepted statistical frameworks. - 2.1.1 The overall structure in terms of concepts and definitions follows internationally accepted standards, guidelines, or good practices. - 2.2 Scope—The scope is in accord with internationally accepted standards, guidelines, or good practices. - 2.2.1 The scope is broadly consistent with internationally accepted standards, guidelines, or good practices. - 2.3 Classification/sectorization—Classification and sectorization systems are in accord with internationally accepted standards, guidelines, or good practices. - 2.3.1 Classification/sectorization systems used are broadly consistent with internationally accepted standards, guidelines, or good practices. - 2.4 Basis for recording—Flows and stocks are valued and recorded according to internationally accepted standards, guidelines, or good practices. - 2.4.1 Market prices are used to value flows and stocks. - 2.4.2 Recording is done on an accrual basis. - 2.4.3 Grossing/netting procedures are broadly consistent with internationally accepted standards, guidelines, or good practices. ### Accuracy and reliability - 3. Accuracy and reliability—Source data and statistical techniques are sound and statistical outputs sufficiently portray reality. - 3.1 Source data—Source data available provide an adequate basis to compile statistics. - 3.1.1 Source data are obtained from comprehensive data collection programs that take into account country-specific conditions. - 3.1.2 Source data reasonably approximate the definitions, scope, classifications, valuation, and time of recording required. - 3.1.3 Source data are timely. - 3.2 Assessment of source data—Source data are regularly assessed. - 3.2.1 Source data—including censuses, sample surveys, and administrative records—are routinely assessed, e.g., for coverage, sample error, response error, and nonsampling error; the results of the assessments are monitored and made available to guide statistical processes. - 3.3 Statistical techniques—Statistical techniques employed conform to sound statistical procedures. - 3.3.1 Data compilation employs sound statistical techniques to deal with data sources. - 3.3.2 Other statistical procedures (e.g., data adjustments and transformations, and statistical analysis) employ sound statistical techniques. - 3.4 Assessment and validation of intermediate data and statistical outputs—Intermediate results and statistical outputs are regularly assessed and validated. - 3.4.1 Intermediate results are validated against other information where applicable. - 3.4.2 Statistical discrepancies in intermediate data are assessed and investigated. - 3.4.3 Statistical discrepancies and other potential indicators or problems in statistical outputs are investigated. - 3.5 Revision studies—Revisions, as a gauge of reliability, are tracked and mined for the information they may provide. - 3.5.1 Studies and analyses of revisions are carried out routinely and used internally to inform statistical processes (see also 4.3.3). ### Serviceability - 4. Serviceability—Statistics, with adequate periodicity and timeliness, are consistent and follow a predictable revisions policy. - 4.1 Periodicity and timeliness—Periodicity and timeliness follow internationally accepted dissemination standards. - 4.1.1 Periodicity follows dissemination standards. - 4.1.2 Timeliness follows dissemination standards. - 4.2 Consistency—Statistics are consistent within the dataset, over time, and with major datasets. - 4.2.1 Statistics are consistent within the dataset. - 4.2.2 Statistics are consistent or reconcilable over a reasonable period of time. - 4.2.3 Statistics are consistent or reconcilable with those obtained through other data sources and/or statistical frameworks. - 4.3 Revision policy and practice—Data revisions follow a regular and publicized procedure. - 4.3.1 Revisions follow a regular and transparent schedule. - 4.3.2 Preliminary and/or revised data are clearly identified. - 4.3.3 Studies and analyses of revisions are made public (see also 3.5.1). ### Accessibility - 5. Accessibility—Data and metadata are easily available and assistance to users is adequate. - 5.1 Data accessibility—Statistics are presented in a clear and understandable manner, forms of dissemination are adequate, and statistics are made available on an impartial basis. - 5.1.1 Statistics are presented in a way that facilitates proper interpretation and meaningful comparisons (layout and clarity of text, tables, and charts). - 5.1.2 Dissemination media and format are adequate. - 5.1.3 Statistics are released on a preannounced schedule. - 5.1.4 Statistics are made available to all users at the same time. - 5.1.5 Statistics not routinely disseminated are made available upon request. - 5.2 Metadata accessibility—Up-to-date and pertinent metadata are made available. - 5.2.1 Documentation on concepts, scope, classifications, basis of recording, data sources, and statistical techniques is available, and differences from internationally accepted standards, guidelines, or good practices are annotated. - 5.2.2 Levels of detail are adapted to the needs of the intended audience. - 5.3 Assistance to users—Prompt and knowledgeable support service is available. - 5.3.1 Contact points for each subject field are publicized. - 5.3.2 Catalogs of publications, documents, and other services, including information on any charges, are widely available. *Source: _cr0787 - 0.1 Legal and institutional* --- _Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/websites/imf/imported-full-text-pdf/external/pubs/ft/scr/2007/_cr0787.pdf_