Trust and Dissemination in Official Statistics

We discuss the relation between trust and statistical dissemination, drawing on examples from the Netherlands and comparing with other European countries. Dutch citizens have a fair amount of confidence in official statistics, even in the recent period of political and economic upheaval. The most important reason for this seems to be the political culture in the Netherlands, which puts a strong emphasis on rational policy making based on evaluations from scientific councils, committees and official research bureaus. We discuss how this came to be and how this influences the trust in the national statistical institute. and the consequences this has for the dissemination of statistical data.