Cayman overcomes fears of official surveys

(CNS): Once reluctant to reveal information to government officials for statistical surveys, the public in Cayman has become much more willing to respond to important socio-economic surveys, and is also embracing the resulting statistics in a variety of ways. Finance Minister Marco Archer, who has responsibility for the Economics and Statistics Office, has said that local household surveys now have one of the highest response rates in the region.

Archer said that the business sector has also helped in achieving higher response rates for the business surveys over the years, helping government get more accurate and timely data to help shape policy.

In a statement to mark this year’s UN Statistics Week, the minister said that the use of electronic tablets for household interviews in Grand Cayman instead of paper questionnaires had “enabled a more timely completion” of surveys, including the all-important labour force survey reports by at least a month. Archer pointed to a number of major changes and improvements that are creating more accurate and precise data, such as the inclusion in the labour report of the category of permanent residents with right to work and the introduction of narrower wage brackets for “more robust for earnings analysis”.

The minister listed a number of changes, such as amendments to the law and the imminent changes to the basket of goods used to calculate the consumer price index, all of which have resulted in more accurate and relevant statistics that are helping the public and private sector.

During this week’s statistics celebrations, which was introduced in 1997 to promote awareness of statistics and their value and to encourage people to provide data and use it, there will be several events and activities taking place in Cayman at schools, in the media and throughout the community.

See details of events here and the minister’s full statement in the CNS Library