Central Statistical Office (CSO)

www.stat.gov.pl

- The Central Statistical Office is the central agency of public administration responsible for statistics and carrying its activities with the support of statistical services;

- The President of the CSO is subordinated to the Prime Minister;

- The organization of the Central Statistical Office shall be specified in the statute passed by the President of the Council of Ministers in the form of a regulation;

- The President of the Central Statistical Office shall be appointed and recalled by the President of the Council of Ministers;

- The term of office of the President of the Central Statistical Office shall last 5 years starting from the day of the appointment. The President of the Central Statistical Office shall perform his/her duties to the day of the appointment of his/her successor;

- The President of the Central Statistical Office shall perform his duties with the help of vice-presidents appointed and recalled by the Prime Minister according to the motion of the President of the Central Statistical Office;

President: Józef Oleński - The work of Central Statistical Office is directed by the President of Central Statistical Office.

Vice-Presidents

President’s General Adviser

CSO General Director

Divisions:

President's Office

Programming and Co-ordination of Statistical Surveys Division

Methodology, Standards and Registers Division

Analyses and Aggregated Studies Division

National Accounts Division

Regional and Environmental Surveys Division

Information Division

Finance Statistics Division

Business and Price Division

Industry Division

Trade and Services Division

Demographic Surveys Division

Social Surveys Division

Labour and Living Conditions Division

Agriculture and Food Economy Division

Personnel and Training Division

Office of the General Director

Administrative and Budgetary Division

Each regional office has identically named departments, specialised centres and branches, which carry out office's tasks in defined area of the voivodship (usually a number of districts). Regional statistical offices maintain also independent work posts: a legal advisor, for issues of confidential information protection and for security matters and work hygiene, which are directly subordinated to the director of the Office.

Central Statistical Office is a body of government administration and according to article 4 of the Law of June 30th, 2005 on public finances (Journal of Laws No 249, position 2104) it belongs to the sector of public finances. Incomes and expenses of public finance sector units are accounted for in state budget, which is passed annually by Polish parliament in, form of the budget Law, for a period of one calendar year.

The multi-annual work programme.
In fact, the Central Statistical Office of Poland does not prepare a multi-annual work programme. Its activities are based on a multi-annual Community Statistical Programme prepared by Eurostat and the programme of methodological works.
The annual work programme.
In accordance with the Law on Official Statistics, the Central Statistical Office prepares in cooperation with others bodies (entitled to carry out statistical surveys) the annual statistical surveys programme of official statistics (PBSSP).
This programme specifies the topical, objective and subjective scope of statistical surveys and responsibilities connected therewith. The PBSSP is a fundamental reference document for getting information on statistical surveys. It is passed on annual basis by the Council of Ministers as a Regulation.
The draft of the programme is prepared by the President of CSO for each year and then the Statistical Council presents the draft of PBSSP to the Council of Ministers not later than by 30 June each year. The programme covers the statistical work of the CSO, Ministries, National Bank of Poland and other Bodies entitled to conduct statistical surveys.
The programme covers all statistical domains and specifies that responses are compulsory in business surveys and voluntary in households and personal surveys. The Council of Ministers ensures that the programme includes surveys that are relevant for the observation of social and economic processes. The statistical programme is issued as an appendix to the Regulation of the Council of Ministers.
The Regulation setting the PBSSP determines for each survey:
- topic and the body conducting the survey,
- type of the survey,
- subjective and objective scope,
- sources of statistical data,
- subjects obliged to provide information and transfer statistical data or voluntarily participating in the survey (subjects of national economy and individuals which do not run business activities),
- form of data transfer,
- frequency and date of data transfer,
- place of statistical data transfer,
- types of final statistical information and forms and dates of dissemination of the final statistical information,
- costs and ways of financing.
The programme covers a vast scope of statistical topics which are divided into 30 statistical domains. They are:
- Environmental protection,
- Organization of the state and local self-government units,
- National defense, internal security, justice,
- Organizations, associations and trade unions,
- Population, demographic developments,
- Religious denominations, ethnic groups,
- Labor market,
- Wages and salaries and social security benefits,
- Living conditions, social welfare,
- Dwellings, municipal infrastructure,
- Education,
- Culture,
- Health and health care,
- Physical education, sport, and recreation,
- Ownership and structural transformations in the economy,
- Science and technology,
- Raw materials, fuel and energy market,
- Agriculture and forestry,
- Industry,
- Construction,
- Transport, communications,
- Trade, accommodation, catering, other non-financial services,
- Insurance and financial services,
- International economic relations,
- Results of non-financial enterprises,
- Results of financial enterprises,
- Prices,
- Public finance,
- Fixed assets and investments,
- National accounts.
A large part of the most important statistical activities is undertaken by the CSO but there are important statistical activities in other Ministries and in the National Bank of Poland. In particular, as in many other countries, the National Bank of Poland provides statistics on Balance of Payments and Foreign Direct Investment. Furthermore, the Ministry of Finance is the source of data on public finances and government expenditures; CSO is responsible for debt and deficit notification (excluding forecast, which is prepared by Ministry of Finance).

Responsibilities of the President of the Central Statistical Office include:

- recognizing the demand for statistical information, as well as, analyzing and preparing on this basis, programmes of statistical surveys of official statistics and submitting them to the Council,

- organizing and conducting statistical surveys and determining their methodology,

- collecting, gathering and generalizing statistical data and analyzing them,

- conducting all kinds of censuses,

- statistical data storing,

- developing classification standards, nomenclatures and definitions of major categories, determining correspondence between them and interpreting them,

- making available and disseminating statistical information including major figures and indicators,

- preparing and announcing demographic forecasts and statistical economic and social forecasts,

- presenting to the President, the Parliament (Sejm and Senate), state administration agencies, the Supreme Chamber of Control (NIK), the National Bank of Poland, units of local authorities and other governmental institutions, the statistical information in the scope, dates and forms specified in the programme of statistical surveys,

- maintaining national official registers: the business register and the register of territorial division of the country,

- conducting statistical surveys and analyses resulting from the international obligations taken by the Republic of Poland,

- conducting statistical international comparisons and announcing their results,

- satisfying the obligation to submit statistical data to international organizations taken by the Republic of Poland,

- co-operating with the specialized in statistics international and regional organizations, as well as, agencies and offices of other countries,

- conducting research and development activities in the field of methodology of statistical surveys, classification standards and the application of mathematical and computing methods in statistics,

- conducting training courses and upgrading knowledge in the field of statistics,

- promoting knowledge on statistics.

1789 - by the resolution of the Four Years’ Sejm of 22 June, the first nationwide population census is carried out in the territory of Poland together with the registration of houses. The census is considered one of the first population and houses censuses in Europe ;

13 July 1918 - The Regency Council of the Kingdom of Poland issues a rescript on establishing and organization of the Central Statistical Office;

21 October 1919 - The Sejm (Polish Parliament) passes the law on the organization of administrative statistics;

30 September 1921 - The first population and housing census is conducted by the CSO;

01 June 1923 - The Sejm passes the law amending the law of 21 October 1919 on the organization of administrative statistics. The Central Statistical Office is incorporated into the Ministry of Internal Affaires;

21-28 August 1929 - The 18th Session of the International Statistical Institute takes place in Warsaw;

12 March 1945 - Reactivation of the CSO after the World War II;

28 March 1952 - The Sejm (Polish Parliament) passes the law on changes in the scope of responsibilities of the supreme state statistics authorities;

15 February 1962 - The Law on organization of state statistics comes into force. It states that the CSO and regional statistical offices (voivodship, city and poviat) are the state statistics bodies;

01-09 September 1975 - The 40th Session of the International Statistical Institute takes place in Warsaw;

26 February 1982 - A new law on the state statistics comes into force;

1991 - Poland becomes a member of the Statistical Commission for the years 1991-1996;

29 June 1995 – The Sejm (Polish Parliament) passes the Law on Official Statistics;

1998 – Official negotiations for the EU membership are launched in which the CSO deals with negotiating the chapter on statistics;

2003 – The Accession Treaty to the EU is signed;

05 January 2004 – The accession of Poland to the EU takes place

Law on Official Statistics of 29 June 1995; The Director General of the Central Statistical Office carries out tasks defined in the Act dated 21 November 2008 on the Civil Service (Journal of Laws No. 227, item 1505.).

The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, the National Bank of Poland, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of State Treasury, the Ministry of Sport, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior and Administration, the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Transport and Construction, the State Inspectorate of Environmental Protection, the Head Office of Land Surveying and Cartography, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority, the Office for Repatriation and Aliens, the Energy Regulatory Authority, the Ministry of National Defense

THE STATISTICAL COUNCIL

is established as the advisory and opinion-making body in the field of official
statistics,

is an advisory body to the Prime Minister

consists of members appointed by the Prime Minister representing: state administration bodies -five persons, local authorities in the Joint Commission of Government and Local Authorities - one person, National Bank of Poland - one person, social organizations, professional and economic self-governmental bodies - three persons, organization of employers representative within the meaning of the Act of 6 July 2001 on Tripartite Commission for Social and Economic Issues and Voivodship Commissions for Social Dialogue (Journal of Laws No 100, item 1080), hereinafter referred to as 'the Act on Tripartite Commission for Social and Economic Issues' - one person from each organization, trade unions representative within the meaning of the Act on Tripartite Commission for Social and Economic Issues - one person from each organization and two experts - one in the field of social and one in the field of economic sciences.

The term of office of the Statistical Council lasts 5 years

The responsibilities of the Council include:

- determination, annually, on the basis of a proposal prepared by the President of the Central Statistical Office, of a draft programme of statistical surveys for every subsequent year,

- submission to the Council of Ministers, not later than on 30 June each year, of a draft programme of statistical surveys of official statistics,

- recommendations on conducting new and cyclic surveys of a broad scope of statistical observation and related to them methodological and preparatory activities, planned for the period of the next ten years,

- evaluation of the implementation of the programme of statistical surveys of official statistics and formulation of opinions on other issues having a considerable significance to the development of official statistics,

- providing opinions on draft budgetary expenses on statistical surveys.

The President of the Central Statistical Office takes part in the Council's sessions.

THE SCIENTIFIC STATISTICAL COUNCIL

operates as an advisory and opinion-making body to the President of the Central Statistical Office in the field of methodology of statistical surveys; the composition and procedures of activities of the Scientific Statistical Council shall be determined by the President of the Central Statistical Office on the basis of the ordinance.

EDITORIAL BOARD

is established at the Central Statistical Office, further referred to as the “Committee”, consists of: President, Editor-in-Chief, 14 members and Secretary

The responsibilities of the Committee are:
- providing opinions on the concepts related to the development of statistical information dissemination system including IT technologies applications,

- providing opinions on the draft of statistical surveys programme of official statistics in the part concerning publishing activity,

- carrying out annual analysis of official statistics publishing activity and formulating recommendations and conclusions in this field,

- providing opinions on general and detailed concepts of major CSO publications, keeping to the editorial plan and printing publications that were off-schedule,

- analyzing and discussing any other issues related to the functioning of dissemination system of statistical information submitted by organizational units of official statistics.

The most recent Polish Population and Housing Census was conducted jointly with the Agricultural Census. The censuses were conducted in the whole country from 21 May to 8 June 2002 (as of 20 May 2002 at midnight) according to the below mentioned laws issued by the Parliament of the Republic of Poland:
- Law on the National Population and Housing Census in 2001 of 2 December 1999 (Journal of Laws No.1, item 1) with later amendments (Journal of Laws No. 93, item 1026),
- Law on the Agricultural Census in 2002 of 9 September 2000 (Journal of Laws No. 99, item 1072),
- Law on Official Statistics of 29 June 1995 (Journal of Laws No. 88, item 439 with later amendments).
The censuses were carried out in a traditional way, i.e. the census questionnaires were filled in by properly selected and trained enumerators during direct interviews (face to face) with the questioned persons.
The objective of the population and housing census 2002 was to obtain directly actual information on the fundamental changes that had taken place after the profound social, economic and systemic transformations in the 90-ties, to create the information base for demographic and socio-economic data on the state and population by age, sex, marital status (legal and de facto), education, sources of maintenance, occupation, disability, citizenship, declared nationality, language spoken at home; private households and family composition; migration (internal and international), etc.
Both the scope of the population and housing census and definitions (classifications) followed international recommendations for the population and housing censuses around 2000 (1997, Geneva).
The Polish Census 2002 covered the following people:
- permanent and temporary residents of dwellings, buildings, structures and rooms (the Census excluded: diplomatic personnel of foreign diplomatic bodies and consulates, representatives of international organizations and bodies, including members of their families, who temporarily reside with them in Poland, dwellings owned by foreigners);
- conventional dwellings and buildings with inhabited or non-inhabited dwellings and inhabited collective living quarters and other inhabited non-conventional buildings, which are not dwellings;
- persons without a place of residence (i.e. homeless).
The subject matter of the 2002 population census was extended with two accompanying surveys, i.e. the first - women fertility survey concerning women aged 16 and more and the second - long-term migration survey of the population moving to and from the territory of Poland in the years 1989-2002.
The Agricultural Census covered:
- private farms exceeding 1 ha of agricultural land,
- private farms with agricultural land from 0.1 ha to 1 ha inclusive,
- natural persons owning livestock, with no agricultural land or with agricultural land less than 0.1 ha,
- other agricultural holdings farmed by legal persons or units without legal personality,
The results of both censuses have been disseminated since 2003.

Access to administrative data was regulated by the Law on Official Statistics issued on 29 June 1995. In accordance with the regulations of the above Law the official statistics has a mandate to collect information from all available sources, specified in detail in the programme of statistical surveys of official statistics or in other laws, and to gather statistical data from and on business entities, other legal entities and entities without legal status and their activities (individual data) and statistical data on natural persons, their life and status (personal data). (Art. 5 of the Law on Official Statistics issued on 29 June 1995).
The state administration bodies and units of local authorities, other governmental agencies, organs maintaining official registers and the National Bank of Poland on the free-of-charge basis shall submit to the official statistical services the stored by them administrative records in the scope, form and time specified each time in the programme of statistical surveys of official statistics, especially in the form of extracts from the registers, copies of: data files, collected declarations, registration documents and other official forms, results of measurements, data on the environment monitoring and shall provide data from their computerized data bases systems. (Art. 13 of the Law on Official Statistics issued on 29 June 1995).
The President of the Central Statistical Office shall be obliged to submit to the state administration bodies, other governmental agencies, organs maintaining official registers and the National Bank of Poland justified motions for the need to supplement collected and stored administrative records so that they could be used directly for the needs of official statistics. (Art. 13 of the Law on Official Statistics issued on 29 June 1995).
At present, data from many administrative registers are used in statistical surveys. In some statistical domains of official statistics administrative data share in the total number of data provided for statistics is considerable, e.g. in the domain of environmental protection the share is 40%. Administrative data are essential source for statistical surveys also for other domains:
- Wages and salaries and social security benefits,
- Agriculture and forestry,
- Transport, communications,
- Results of financial enterprises,
- International economic relations,
- Public finance,
- National accounts.

All data collected during statistical surveys are confidential and protected. (Statistical confidentiality - Law on Official Statistics, art. 10). They are used exclusively for elaborations, comparisons and statistical analyses. Dissemination or use of the above mentioned data for other purposes is forbidden. Data that allow identification of economic units or persons are not published. It means that data showing economic results of economic units (if there are less than 3 units in the aggregation or the share of one unit amounts to three quarters of the total) are not disseminated. Individual data and personal data must not be used as evidence in lawsuits, police or prosecutor investigations, etc.

Monthly release calendar is compiled and published specifying the deadlines included in the programme of statistical surveys of official statistics and available on the CSO’s website (www.stat.gov.pl).

Main publications published by the Central Statistical Office and 16 regional statistical offices.

- STATISTICAL YEARBOOKS:
- GENERAL (e.g. Statistical Yearbook of the Republic of Poland)
- SPECIALIZED (e.g. Statistical Yearbook of Industry, Yearbook of Foreign - Trade Statistics, Demographic Yearbook of Poland)
- REGIONAL (e.g. Statistical Yearbook of the Regions – Poland)
- VOIVODSHIPS (NUTS 2) (e.g. Statistical Yearbook of ……. Voivodship)

- BULLETINS. PERIODICALS. SUMMARY PAPERS:
- GENERAL (e.g. Statistical Bulletin)
- VOIVODSHIPS (NUTS 2) (e.g. Statistical Bulletin of …… Voivodship)

- SPECIALIZED PUBLICATIONS (by the group of topics):
- POPULATION. DEMOGRAPHIC PROCESSES
- LIVING CONDITIONS
- LABOUR. INCOMES OF POPULATION
- ENVIRONMENT. ENERGY
- AGRICULTURE. FORESTRY
- NATIONAL ACCOUNTS. FINANCE
- ECONOMIC ENTITIES. FINANCIAL RESULTS
- BUSINESS AND CONSUMER TENDENCY SURVEYS
- PRICES. TRADE
- TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATION
- PRODUCTION. CONSTRUCTION. FIXED ASSETS
- SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
- NATIONAL CENSUS (POPULATION, HOUSING AND AGRICULTURE)
- LEAFLETS. BROCHURES

Polish, English

In addition to publications (in paper version and CD-ROMs), the most popular form of data dissemination is Internet which gives the users fast access to:
- current information (e.g. announcements, press releases),
- databases such as Regional Data Bank, SDDS
- publications in electronic format,
- CSO continuously improves its website, both with regard to the scope, as well as, the form of dissemination of statistical information.

CSO disseminates microdata for research purposes, inter alia, from:

Household Budget Survey,
Labor Force Survey (LFS),
European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)

In addition to traditional forms of dissemination in the electronic format (e.g. CD-ROM), CSO enables “on the spot” data use, in a specially prepared room via computer terminal.