Understanding work of the CSO

SEAN O’BRIEN

THE EDITOR: The following aims to correct some misconceptions in the media recently and specifically a Express editorial dated December 15, regarding the Central Statistical Office’s statistics.

Recently, there seems to be some measure of confusion with regard to income data produced and disseminated by the CSO. Principle four of the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics (UNFPOS) states, “The statistical agencies are entitled to comment on erroneous interpretation and misuse of statistics.”

Given that Trinidad and Tobago is a signatory of the UNFPOS, the CSO is compelled to respond to recent comments and criticisms in the public domain that emanate from key stakeholders of official statistics.

From my perspective, the central problem is that our socioeconomic researchers and commentators attempt to analyse and interpret statistical data provided by the CSO and other official governmental sources without carefully examining the attendant metadata.

The simplest definition of metadata is “data that describes other data” and it represents an essential concept in statistical research. In the absence of a clear understanding of the metadata associated with official statistics there is likely to be widespread “erroneous interpretation and misuse of statistics.”

The recent conjecture that 75 per cent of people in TT earn less than $6,000 does not originate from the CSO and consequently it is not official statistics and may not be quoted as such. The income data that are produced by the CSO’s Continuous Sample Survey of Population (CSSP) pertain only to people who have jobs, a part of the metadata that has ostensibly gone unnoticed by many.

In 2016, the number of people with jobs was estimated at 613,200 whereas the mid-year estimate of total population was 1,353,895. According to the CSSP data, 41.4 per cent of these people with jobs earned an income of $5,999 or less but the CSSP metadata reveals that no such data were presented re the total population.

The CSO has no problems with our stakeholders using the official CSSP data so as to make inferences about the total population, indeed that is encouraged, but such analysis must not be confused with the actual official statistics on which it is based. Unfortunately, this is a practice that has become commonplace among the nation’s socioeconomic researchers.

An editorial that appeared in the Daily Express on December 15 sought to explain the disparity between the CSSP’s data and the unofficial analysis by indicating that the former emanated from 2016 and the latter was disseminated in July of 2017. To my mind this is further evidence of a misunderstanding of the metadata by the CSO’s valued stakeholders.

The latest annual income data disseminated in 2017 pertains to the calendar year 2016. The confusion is however understandable in light of the fact that the inference that 75 per cent of the population earned under $6,000 was erroneously attributed to the CSO.

The Express editorial further calls for the swift advent of the proposed National Statistical Institute of Trinidad and Tobago (NSITT) so as to improve the reliability of official statistics. The NSITT Bill is currently before the Parliament on the order paper.

I agree that this is necessary but contend that it is not sufficient to achieve such a lofty goal. The Statistics Act that governs the operations of the CSO is quite outdated and it does not afford the organisation the legal authority to collect certain crucial data from many source agencies. Notwithstanding these challenges, the 2017 IMF Article IV Country Report noted that “the CSO has made noticeable improvements in the timeliness of data provision since 2015.”

The ups and downs experienced by the CSO aside, if the society does not develop a more robust culture of using and understanding statistics then the confusion that obtains at present will continue even after the legislatively potent NSITT comes into fruition.

To this end the Ministry of Planning and Development has planned the National Statistics Promotion Campaign 2019 which will include a number of public education seminars, statistical presentations and newspaper articles. Hopefully the execution of this campaign in concert with the arrival of the NSITT would result in improved production and utilisation of statistics in Trinidad and Tobago.

Sean O’Brien is the Director of Statistics, Central Statistical Office