The fourth session of the Committee was held on 5 July 2023 in the Croatian Bureau of Statistics.
It was attended by representatives of all producers of official statistics.
The agenda included four items:
- Approval of the Minute of the third session held on 15 June 2023
- Dissemination of official statistics
- Revision of the NACE Rev. 2.1 and preparation of the National Classification of Activities 2025 - NKD 2025
- Miscellaneous
The second item of the agenda presented the obligations of the producers of official statistics pertaining the dissemination of statistical data, i.e. all activities related to the presentation of the official statistics results to the general public.
These obligations stem from the legal framework covering
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European statistics, the
Official Statistics Act, the
Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics in the region and the
Code of Practice of European Statistics.
The key elements to be taken into account when disseminating official statistics are confidentiality, deadlines and availability.
For the purpose of further regulation and standardisation of dissemination of official statistics domain, the Croatian Bureau of Statistics adopted the
Dissemination Policy, which is also published on its website.
Members discussed examples in practice about communication channels for data dissemination, the media of publishing statistics, the importance of methodological explanations for a better understanding of the data and the prevention of misinterpretations, about enabling equal access for all users, etc. The Croatian Bureau of Statistics publishes all data/First Releases bilingual, and all data available on the website are free of charge for users.
Particular emphasis was placed on the provision of Article 59 of the Official Statistics Act, which stipulates that statistical data must be available to all users in the same way and at the same time. Therefore, users do not have the right to access the statistics prior to their official release, i.e. there are no privileged users.
The obligation, purpose and manner of keeping the Calendar of Statistical Data Issues has been clarified, which applies to all producers of official statistics. On the example of the Calendar of the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, the possibilities that users have in accessing data and other information such as news and other useful information about the system of official statistics have been explained. In addition to announcing the release deadlines, the Calendar should also provide for the possibility of subsequent amendments, which should be defined by the rules.
It was concluded that all producers should have a release calendar and a dissemination policy, which will regulate the dissemination rules in detail. The Croatian Bureau of Statistics will provide all the necessary support and assistance to other producers.
Members discussed how to publish unplanned releases and data corrections, and agreed that they all should have a common approach. Therefore, all producers can develop their own dissemination policy, tailored to their needs, but they all need to be harmonised.
Further planned improvements to the CBS website and access to data for users have been announced. A very important step in this process is the introduction of a dissemination base. It would allow for the interoperability of data currently published in a number of different publishing media (PC-Axis, STS databases, First Releases, Excel - Statistics in Line, etc.).
In conclusion, it was agreed that preconditions will be planned and ensured that will make information on the data produced and published by ONAs on their websites accessible also on the CBS website, in order to further harmonise the system and implement the Peer Review Recommendation No 15. Members discussed the technical possibilities and challenges in connecting the websites of the CBS and ONAs, i.e. the locations where the data are released.
The third item on the agenda presented the Revision of NACE Rev. 2.1 and the preparation of the National Classification of Activities 2025 - NKD 2025.
The reason for the revision of the National Classification of Activities (NKD 2025) is to align it with the new revised NACE Rev. 2.1 of June 2022 and to enable the international comparability of statistical data. In October 2022, the European Commission adopted the new structure by passing the
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/137. The application of NACE Rev. 2.1 in registers has been mandatory since 1 January 2025, while application dates in statistical surveys are still under discussion.
The International System of Classifications of Activities and Products was presented, a comparison of the structure of NACE Rev. 2 and NACE Rev. 2.1 was performed and a number of activities to be carried out for a successful revision of the NKD 2025 were explained. The organisational structure in the overall process and the planned deadlines for implementation of all activities were presented. The key steps in the preparation of the NKD 2025 classification are: drafting the NKD 2025 (until June 2023), informing the public, consulting external users, harmonising opinions and preparation of the final draft (July - September 2023), development of tools for the application of the NKD 2025 and preparation of correspondence tables (by the end of 2023), drafting and adoption of the legal framework for the implementation of the NKD 2025 (end-2023 - 2024), announcement in the Official Gazette (by the end of 2024), recoding of business entities, training, production of publications and preparation for updating the register (by the end of 2024), updating the register and performing user training (during 2025). The implementation of these activities also depends on Eurostat’s instructions, which are waited for in order to take further steps.
As regards the introduction and application of the NKD 2025, double coding according to both classifications, NKD 2007 and NKD 2025, is planned to be applied for five years.
