With the adoption of the European Statistics Code of Practice, Eurostat and the statistical institutes of the
EU Member States, including NSO, have committed themselves to an encompassing
approach towards high-quality statistics. The Code builds on a common
definition of quality in statistics across the European Statistical
System (ESS). It takes a holistic approach, ranging from governance and
institutional matters to production processes and dissemination of statistics.
The European Statistics Code of Practice was first adopted by the Statistical Programme Committee (SPC) in 2005.
The Code was revised by the European Statistical System Committee (ESSC) in
2011 and 2017; the ESSC endorsed the latter revision on 16 November 2017.
The revised Code has 16 principles concerning the institutional
environment, statistical processes and statistical outputs. The Code aims to
ensure that statistics produced within the ESS are relevant, timely and
accurate, and that they comply with the principles of professional
independence, impartiality and objectivity. A set of indicators of best
practices and standards for each principle provides guidance and a reference
for reviewing the implementation of the Code.