Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2180 of 16 December 2019 specifying the detailed arrangements and content for the quality reports pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Text with EEA relevance)

This Regulation lays down the detailed arrangements for the quality reports and their required content, including an outline of the method for assessing compliance with precision requirements, on the data that Member States are required to transmit to the Commission (Eurostat) under Regulation (EU) 2019/1700.

For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions shall apply: (1) ‘proxy interview’ means an interview with someone other than the person from whom information is being sought following specific rules set by each survey specifying in which cases proxy interviews can be accepted; (2) ‘non-response’ means the failure of a survey to collect data for all data items in the survey questionnaire or from all of the population units designated for data collection, or both, specifically: (a) ‘unit non-response’ is a type of non-response occurring when no data are collected about a population unit designated for data collection; (b) ‘item non-response’ is a type of non-response occurring when no data are collected about a survey variable in relation to a designated population unit; (3) ‘sampling error’ means part of the difference between a population value and an estimate of that value derived from a random sample, arising from the fact that only a subset of the population is enumerated; (4) ‘non-sampling error’ means error in survey estimates that is not attributable to sampling fluctuations; (5) ‘substitution’ with regards to respondents means the replacement of a unit that was originally sampled by another unit, including an inter- or intra-household replacement; (6) ‘eligible units’ means the set of population units selected from the sample frame that are part of the target population; (7) ‘ineligible units’ means units in the sample that are not part of the target population; (8) ‘net sample’, also referred to as ‘achieved sample’, means the set of population units (including substitution units) selected from the sampling frame, from which enough information has been obtained to include the unit in the survey estimations; (9) ‘gross sample’, also referred to as ‘initial sample’, means the set of population units initially selected from the sampling frame. The gross sample comprises the eligible units (the net sample and the non-response units) as well as the ineligible units; (10) ‘imputation’ means a procedure for entering a value for a specific data item where no response is available.

Quality reports shall contain quality-related data and metadata in accordance with the quality criteria and statistical concepts set out in the Annex. These reports shall also refer to any instances in which the appropriate quality criteria were not complied with or statistical concepts have not been correctly applied, or both.

The Commission (Eurostat) shall assess the extent to which the data transmitted by the Member States pursuant to Annex II to the Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 meet precision requirements. Where non-compliance with the precision requirements is detected by the Commission (Eurostat), it shall be assessed according to: its magnitude and frequency and the impact it has on the quality of the key indicators, especially their comparability; whether it can be promptly rectified and whether the Member States make the necessary corrections in an effective manner; whether non-compliance can be indirectly mitigated, particularly through estimation techniques, and whether the Member States are taking appropriate mitigating measures; the extent to which the Member States exercise control over non-compliance, which can arise for reasons beyond their control; the extent to which non-compliance persists during successive rounds of data collection; whether there is a corrective action plan approved by the Commission (Eurostat) and whether it is effectively implemented; assessment of such a plan will take account of the length of time needed to rectify instances of non-compliance, in particular in the case of panel data collections.

1 To support quality management and process documentation, quality reports shall be transmitted in accordance with the technical standards established by the Commission (Eurostat).

2 To allow electronic retrieval of data, quality reports shall be sent to the Commission (Eurostat) through the single entry point.

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