The Central Commission for Statistics (CCS) is an independent administrative body without corporate rights that, under the Act on the Central Bureau of Statistics (Statistics Netherlands) of 2003, is assigned a number of tasks related to the Statistics Netherlands and the provision of official statistics for central government.
The Commission consists of a maximum of eleven members (including the chairman) who are appointed by the Minister of Economic Affairs on recommendations by the Commission. The commission convenes at least four times a year in the presence of the Director-general of Statistics. The Secretary to the commission is an employee of Statistics Netherlands, designated by the Director-general.
Tasks of the CCS
The CCS evaluates and approves the long-term work programme of Statistics Netherlands. In practice this comes down to the evaluation of the coherence and relevance of the intended programme in relation to society’s need for information and the financial and organisational restraints.
The CCS is involved in drawing up the budget and the annual accounts of Statistics Netherlands. The Director-general approves both of these “in agreement with the CCS”. Moreover, the annual report of the Statistics Netherlands must be approved by the CCS.
The CCS also has a number of supervisory tasks with respect to the Statistics Netherlands:
- it supervises work done by Statistics Netherlands for third parties, in order to avoid competition with private providers of similar services which is not desirable from the point of view of free market processes;
- it supervises the collection of information, to make sure that the administrative burden ensuing from this collection is as small as possible for companies and institutions.
- it supervises the Director-general’s authority to make microdatafiles available for the purpose of statistical and other research.
Tasks related to the provision of statistical information to central government include the advancement of official statistics that meet the demands of users for the purposes of practice, policy and science, and the advancement of accuracy and completeness of statistics published by the government.