Commission Regulation (EU) No 1151/2010 of 8 December 2010 implementing Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on population and housing censuses, as regards the modalities and structure of the quality reports and the technical format for data transmission Text with EEA relevance

This Regulation lays down the modalities and structure of the quality reports to be submitted by Member States on the quality of the data they transmit to the Commission (Eurostat) from their population and housing censuses for the reference year 2011, as well as the technical format for data transmission, to fulfil the requirements of Regulation (EC) No 763/2008.

The definitions and technical specifications set out in Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 and Commission Regulations (EC) No 1201/2009 and (EU) No 519/2010 shall apply for the purpose of this Regulation. The following definitions shall also apply: 1. ‘statistical unit’ means the basic observation unit, namely a natural person, household, family, living quarter, or conventional dwelling; 2. ‘individual enumeration’ means that information on each statistical unit is obtained so that their characteristics can be recorded separately and cross-classified with other characteristics; 3. ‘simultaneity’ means that the information obtained in a census refers to the same point in time (reference date); 4. ‘universality within a defined territory’ means that data are provided for all statistical units within a precisely defined territory. Where statistical units are persons, ‘universality within a defined territory’ means that data are provided which are based on information for all persons that have their usual residence in the defined territory (total population); 5. ‘availability of small-area data’ means the availability of data for small geographic areas and for small groups of statistical units; 6. ‘defined periodicity’ means the capacity to conduct censuses regularly at the beginning of every decade, including the continuity of registers; 7. ‘target population’ means the set of all statistical units in a defined geographical area at the reference date which qualify for reporting on one or more specified topics. The target population includes each valid statistical unit exactly once; 8. ‘estimated target population’ means the best available approximation of the target population. The estimated target population consists of the census population plus under-coverage minus over-coverage; 9. ‘census population’ means the set of statistical units which is factually represented by the census results on one or more specified topics for a specified target population. The data records for the census population are the data records in the data source for the specified target population, including all imputed records and excluding all deleted records. If a data source comprises, as a matter of methodological principle, data records for only a sample of the statistical units in its estimated target population, the census population comprises, in addition to the statistical units in the sample, the complementary set of statistical units; 10. ‘complementary set of statistical units’ means the set of those statistical units that belong to an estimated target population, but about which the data source contains no data records as a result of an applied sampling methodology; 11. ‘coverage assessment’ means a study of the difference between a specified target population and its census population; 12. ‘post-enumeration survey’ means a survey conducted shortly after the enumeration for coverage and content assessment purposes; 13. ‘under-coverage’ means the set of all statistical units that belong to a specified target population, but are not included in the corresponding census population; 14. ‘over-coverage’ means the set of all statistical units that are included in a census population used to report on a specified target population without belonging to that target population; 15. ‘record imputation’ means the assignment of an artificial but plausible data record to exactly one geographical area at the most detailed geographical level for which census data are produced, and the imputation of that data record into a data source; 16. ‘record deletion’ means the act of deleting or ignoring a data record that is included in a data source used to report on a specified target population, but does not report any valid information on any statistical unit within that target population; 17. ‘item imputation’ means the insertion of artificial but plausible information into a data record where the data record already exists in a data source but does not contain this information; 18. ‘data source’ means the set of data records for statistical units and/or events related to statistical units which forms a basis for the production of census data about one or more specified topics for a specified target population; 19. ‘register-based data’ means data that are in or originate from a register; 20. ‘questionnaire-based data’ means data that are originally obtained from respondents by the means of a questionnaire in the context of a collection of statistical data which refer to a specified point in time; 21. ‘register’ means a repository which stores information about statistical units and is directly updated in the course of events affecting the statistical units. 22. ‘record linkage’ means the process of merging information from different data sources by comparing the records for the individual statistical units and merging the information for each statistical unit where the unit to which the records refer is the same; 23. ‘matching of registers’ means a record linkage where all matched data sources are contained in registers; 24. ‘data extraction’ means the process of retrieving census information from information contained in a register and relating to individual statistical units; 25. ‘coding’ means the process of converting information into codes representing classes within a classification scheme; 26. ‘identifying variable’ means a variable in the data records in a data source or any list of statistical units which is used to evaluate whether the data source (or list of statistical units) includes no more than one data record for each statistical unit, and/or for a record linkage. 27. ‘capturing’ means the process by which collected data are put into a machine-readable form; 28. ‘record editing’ means the process of checking and modifying data records to make them plausible while at the same time preserving major parts of these records; 29. ‘generation of a household’ means the identification of a private household according to the household-dwelling concept as defined in the Annex to Regulation (EC) No 1201/2009 under the topic ‘Household status’; 30. ‘generation of a family’ means the identification of a family based on information on whether the persons live in the same household, but with no or incomplete information on family relationships between persons. The term ‘family’ is specified as ‘family nucleus’ in the Annex to Regulation (EC) No 1201/2009 under the topic ‘Family status’; 31. ‘unit no-information’ means the failure to collect any data from a statistical unit that is in the census population; 32. ‘item no-information’ means the failure to collect data on one or more specified topics for a statistical unit that is in the census population, while data on at least one other topic can be collected for that statistical unit; 33. ‘statistical disclosure control’ means the methods and processes applied in order to minimise the risk of disclosing information on individual statistical units while releasing as much statistical information as possible; 34. ‘estimation’ means the calculation of statistics or estimates using a mathematical formula and/or algorithm applied to the available data; 35. ‘coefficient of variation’ means the standard error (square root of the variance of an estimator) divided by the expected value of the estimator; 36. ‘model assumption error’ means an error due to assumptions underlying the estimation and containing uncertainty or lack of detail; 37. ‘data structure definition’ means a set of structural metadata associated with a data set, which includes information about how concepts are associated with the measures, dimensions, and attributes of a hypercube, along with information about the representation of data and related descriptive metadata.

1 Member States shall report to the Commission (Eurostat), by 31 March 2014, the background information specified in Annex I to this Regulation as well as the quality-related data and metadata specified in Annexes II and III to this Regulation, with reference to their population and housing censuses for the reference year 2011 and to the data and metadata transmitted to the Commission (Eurostat) as required by Regulation (EU) No 519/2010.

2 To meet the requirements of paragraph 1, Member States shall make a coverage assessment for their population and housing censuses for the reference year 2011 as well as an assessment of the imputation and deletion of data records.

3 Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 and the Euro SDMX Metadata Structure as defined in Commission Recommendation 2009/498/EC for the production and exchange of reference metadata (including quality) shall apply in the context of this Regulation.

Any data source shall be able to contribute information needed to fulfil the requirements of Regulation (EC) No 763/2008, in particular to meet the essential features as listed in Article 2(i) of Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 and defined in Article 2 (2) to (6), represent the target population, respect the relevant technical specifications laid down in Regulation (EC) No 1201/2009, and contribute to the provision of data for the programme of statistical data set out in Regulation (EU) No 519/2010.

At the request of the Commission (Eurostat), Member States shall provide the Commission (Eurostat) with access to any information relevant to the assessment of the quality of the transmitted data and metadata as required by Regulation (EU) No 519/2010, excluding the transmission to and storage at the Commission of any microdata and confidential data.

The technical format to be used for the transmission of data and metadata for the reference year 2011 shall be the Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX) format. Member States shall transmit the required data conforming to the data structure definitions and related technical specifications provided by the Commission (Eurostat). Member States shall store until 1 January 2025 the required data and metadata for any later transmission requested by the Commission (Eurostat).

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.