Total Process Error framework: an application to economic statistical registers

Abstract

In recent years, the Italian national institute of statistics (Istat), together with most National Statistical Institutes, is progressively moving from traditional production models based on the use of primary source of information - represented by direct surveys - to new production strategies based on the combined use of different primary and secondary sources of information. As result, new multisource statistical processes have been built, that guarantee a major improvement of both amount and quality of information about several phenomena of public interest. In this context, the Total Process Error (TPE) framework has been recently proposed in literature for assessing the quality of multisource processes. The TPE framework represents an evolution of the Zhang’s two-phase life-cycle approach and it additionally includes an operational tool to connect the steps of the multisource production process to the phases of the quality evaluation framework. TPE framework can be used both to support a multisource process design and to monitor an entire production process, in order to provide key elements to assess the quality of both the processes and their statistical outputs. In the present work, we describe as a case study in the new context of Istat production of official statistics the use of the TPE framework to support the process design of the Register for Public Administrations.