Peer Review external evaluation

Peer Reviews (evaluations made by equals), are assessment exercises of the situation or the practices of a country in a particular field. They are discussions among peers, generally from a self-assessment questionnaire, and not audits from a higher body. The purpose of this exercise is to help the country subject to review to improve its formulation, in this case statistical, to adopt best practices and to comply with the principles and rules established.

In the framework of the implantation of the European Statistical Code of Practice, the main objectives of Peer Reviews are to improve transparency in this process and the responsibility of agents involved in it, to identify difficulties and delays regarding the compliance with the Code and to promote the transfer of knowledge and experiences through the identification of good practices.

Each Peer Review team draws up a report for the country assessed focused on the principles examined, which may also include a list of improvement actions regarding the different principles of the Code.

EU countries participate in this Peer Review process, as well as members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and Eurostat. In other words, this will apply to the whole European Statistical System (ESS).

The third round of peer reviews (2021-2023)

• In the 2021-2023 period, the European Statistical System Committee (ESSC) agreed to carry out a new round of peer reviews (Peer review-PR-); Like the previous rounds, its main objective is to assess the degree of country compliance with the Code of Good Practice for European Statistics (updated in 2017). The statistical systems of 31 European countries (the 27 EU countries and the 4 EFTA countries), as well as the European Statistical Office itself (Eurostat), are under evaluation.

  A team of international experts reviews each country, formulating a report with recommendations for improvement at the end of the process. By following this link you can see a set of infographics that intuitively explain the process characteristics.

  Of the phases that make up the reviews, the experts' visit to the INE took place from 31 May - 3 June 2022. Some of the meetings were held with the INE's statistics-producing units (35 managers and technicians from the institution participated in the meetings), as well as with 30 representatives of the main stakeholder groups in the Spanish Statistical System:

  • Other institutions that produce national statistics, such as the Ministries and the Bank of Spain.
  • Qualified users, members of the Higher Statistics Council: business confederations, trade unions, non-governmental organisations.
  • Managers of administrative records: tax records, social security, agricultural aid funds.
  • Private companies managing digital sources, project collaborators with the INE.
  • Representatives of the scientific community: universities and researchers.
  • Media.

  The methodological documents and the self-assessment questionnaires and other auxiliary documentation, approved by the ESSC, can be consulted on the Eurostat website at the following link. Check this page dedicated to Peer Reviews to learn more.