statistics uses

OFFICIAL STATISTICS are used for a great many different purposes, by a great variety of users.

Users include governments (central, regional and local), research institutions, analysts and researchers, journalists and the media, businesses, educational institutions and the general public. There are many ways of categorizing users and types of use, but broadly speaking four types of users may be distinguished:

• Decision makers
• Those with a general interest
• Those with a business interest and
• Those with a research interest

Each of these user groups has different needs for statistical information. Official statistics are not just a record of our economy and society. They are a tool used in decision-making inside and outside government. A remarkable range of use is made of official data in decision-making in public, voluntary and private sector organizations. The nature of the statistical influence on decision-making varies, from sketching in a social and economic backdrop against which investment decisions are made to being an integral and essential element of the decision process – for example, in formula-driven allocation of funding to services where a change in the relevant statistics can lead directly to a change in financial allocation.

Statistics are also used in marketing, monitoring, policy development, benchmarking, for lobbying, for the planning of services and for internal research purposes. Such use in turn influences a multitude of less obvious decisions about matters as diverse as stock for supermarkets, location of cash machines, fashion trends, where to situate services, etc. Although some sources of statistics such as the Population Census are particularly widely used, the range of statistics on which decision-makers rely is as wide among users outside government as it is among those inside. Were a balance sheet for official statistics to be prepared, the costs would be clear enough. The benefit, or value, would however be found to be much more diffuse and harder to treat. Given this, it is possible that the vital asset that official statistics represent is undervalued in public sector planning processes.