Minister urges public participation to improve data

| 19/10/2015 | 7 Comments
Cayman News Service

Marco Archer, Minister for Finance and Economic Development

(CNS): The minister of finance and economic development stressed the importance of accurate statistics on Tuesday as he urged the community to actively contribute to the improvement of official figures in the Cayman Islands. Marco Archer said official statistics are public goods and while better data requires resources, his ministry was working on more ways to accurately measure life in Cayman. In a message for the World Statistics Day celebrations he said more money has been budgeted to improve data collection.

In addition to the introduction of two Labour Force Survey (LFS) per year and the 2015  household survey over the next two years, the Economics and Statistics Office (ESO) will implement new survey instruments to pave the way for developing the proper tool to measure the multi-sector economic impact of private and public spending, Archer said.

“In all these initiatives, the contribution of households and businesses as sources of data cannot be emphasized enough. I am pleased to note that households in Cayman have been responding extremely well to the surveys, generating a response rate that is considered one of the highest in the region,” he said.

However, he warned this was not the case in the business sector. “Although it has gradually improved over the years, the response rate for the business surveys falls short of the household surveys.”

Recognizing the issue of confidentiality raised by the business sector, he said the current confidentiality accorded to all survey data in the Statistics Law (2011 Revision) conforms with best practice internationally and, he added, survey data collected under the same Law is exempt from Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

Archer pointed out that accurate data can be used not just by government but also the private sector and is the most apolitical way to understand society. He also said that official statistics facilitate good governance by measuring and reporting on the overall fiscal performance of governments on one end, and the socio-economic conditions of various sectors impacted directly or indirectly by government policies on the other end.

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Comments (7)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Big government is just as corrupt as the police. I would not trust them with my budgie.

  2. Anonymous says:

    They collect data and do nothing with it. Wages are still not increased nor have the prices for goods or services looked at. What’s the point.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Why haven’t we heard more about that farce of a 2010 Census?
    Still lost how the earnings bracket in table 9.10.1 only went as far as $86,400 +. Essentially, 2,683 people on this island could be making $10mil a year and the Govt would have no idea. ESO need only look at the classifieds to see the salary offerings of lawyers, yet decided on a completely arbitrary figure. Is income inequality not a topical issue?
    What good are statistics if the results are useless?

  4. Anonymous says:

    I wonder what the ‘celebrations’ for World Statistics Day consist of and how much public money is being wasted on them?

  5. Anonymous says:

    I don’t trust Governments….. Period! especially with my personal data.

    • Anonymous says:

      I trust governments in places that are not riddled with corruption with my personal data. Cayman does not get my data freely.

  6. Anonymous says:

    There are too many of these silly impositions on freedom. That is why I make the answers up.

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