Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia

http://www.stat.si/eng/

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (SURS) reports to the Prime Minister.

Director-General
Deputy Director-General

General Methodology and Standards
Interviewing of People and Households
General Methodology
Standards

Macroeconomic Statistics
National Accounts
Price Statistics

Business Statistics
Short-term Business Statistics
Structural and Global Business Statistics

Demography and Social Statistics
Labour Statistics
Social Services Statistics
Demography Statistics and Level of Living

Environment Statistics
Environment and Energy Statistics
Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting Statistics
Transport, Tourism and Information Society Statistics

Dissemination of Statistical Data and Methods
Editorial Board and Regional Statistics
User Support
Print Preparation and Printing

Data Collection Data Reception
Enterprise Cooperation

EDP Infrastructure and Technology
Data Input and Editing Support
Statistical Processes Support
Output Processes Support and Internet Technologies
System and Tehnical Support

International Co-operation and European Affairs

Legal and Human Resource Matters

General Matters and Public Tenders

Financial Operations

The Medium-term Programme of Statistical Surveys for 2013-2017 (published on http://www.stat.si/eng/drz_stat_programi.asp) defines the priorities for the next five-year period. It is adopted by the Government and prepared by SURS, in co-operation with authorised producers (a regulation kind of legislation).

The annual programme is determined by the Director General of SURS in agreement with other authorized producers.
In case SURS and the authorized producers do not reach the consent, the Director-General of SURS must inform the Government on the disputed matter and demand a solution. In case consent is not reached with the Bank of Slovenia, the Government informs the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia.
Each May SURS and the authorized producers present their proposals on priorities for regular and development surveys for the next year to the Statistical Council.
The contents of policy for the next year is prepared on the basis of Government’s documents such as the Development Strategy of Slovenia, the National Development Programme, the Annual Statistical Programme prepared by the European Commission for the next year, etc.
Statistical support to the policy (that means planning statistical surveys for the next year) is based on the contents of each policy, the Medium-term Statistical Programme 2013-2017 and on the anticipations of users, which they have presented at the Statistical Council and Statistical Advisory Committees’ meetings.
When this is done, SURS and the authorized producers begin to prepare the draft annual programme for the next year. This draft is discussed by the Statistical Advisory Committees. Their suggestions and supplements are then presented to the Statistical Council by SURS. The decisions of the Director-General of SURS about the annual programme for the next year are based upon all this work.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (SURS) is the main producer and co-ordinator of carrying out programs of statistical surveys. In addition to linking and co-ordinating the statistical system, its most important tasks include international co-operation, determining methodological and classification standards, anticipating users' needs, collection, processing and dissemination of data, and taking care of data confidentiality.

SURS carries out activities of national statistics on the basis of the National Statistics Act (1995, 2001) together with the authorised producers determined by the Medium-term Programme of Statistical Surveys 2013-2017. With the help of the authorised producers, SURS provides to public administration bodies and organisations, the economy and the public data on the status and trends in the economic, demographic and social fields, as well as in the field of environment and natural resources.

On 19 August 1944 the Slovene National Liberation Council established the Statistical Office. Therefore, in 2004 the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia was celebrating the 60th anniversary of establishment of official statistics in Slovenia, which was marked with a celebration and issuing of the anniversary publication with title "60 Years of National Statistics in Slovenia".
In 2014, for the 70th anniversary the publication »70 Years of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia« was published.

The National Statistics Act regulates: fundamental principles of national statistics, organization and status of performing activities of national statistics (Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, authorized producers of activities of national statistics and their functions, head of the Office, statistical council, income, legal acts), programme of statistical surveys, methodological bases of statistical surveys, registers, data collection, data processing and storing, protection, use and dissemination of data, international statistical cooperation, penalty provisions.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia is the main producer and co-ordinator of carrying out programs of statistical surveys. For the implementation of programs of statistical surveys authorised producers determined with medium-term programs are also important. In the current medium-term programs the activity of national statistics is implemented in certain fields of statistics by the following institutions:

- Bank of Slovenia (balance of payments, financial and monetary statistics)
- Ministry of Finance (general government debt and deficit, public finance statistics)
- Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Public and Legal Records and Services (partly business statistics)
- National Institute of Public Health (health statistics)
- Pension and Disability Insurance Institute (pension statistics)
- Employment Service of Slovenia (partly employment and unemployment statistics)


Relation SURS - authorised producers
The setting up and field of work of an individual SAC is determined by the Director-General of SORS, who also determines the institutions which shall, upon a written request made by SORS, nominate their members into the SAC. The President of the SAC can invite representatives of other institutions and other experts to attend and participate at the SAC meetings.The Statistical Advisory Committees hold meetings at least twice per year or respectively when required.
Currently there are 25 advisory committees for different fields of statistics with around 340 outside members and 95 SORS.

National Statistics Act defines the role and co-operation of SURS and authorised producers concerning the organisation, preparation, execution of statistical programmes and reporting about them as well as respect of the fundamental principles, data dissemination and international co-operation. Recent amendments to the National Statistics Act require from authorised producers of national statistics that they organise their statistical activities separately from other activities and full respect of statistical principles of official statistics, especially statistical confidentiality.

Provisions on the users' forums are incorporated in the Slovenian National Statistics Act, namely in the process of determining users' needs/demands for statistics, e.g. in preparing the Medium-term and Annual Programmes of Statistical Surveys. These forums are the Statistical Council of the Republic of Slovenia and the Statistical Advisory Committees. The Rules of Procedure further define the operation.

The Statistical Council of the Republic of Slovenia (SC), established by the Slovenian National Statistics Act, is a professional methodological advisory body for strategic and developmental questions on national statistics.
Among the tasks of the SC are:

- to discuss starting points and guidelines for the Programme of Statistical Surveys and discussions on the report on the implementation of the stated Programme;
- to discuss the contents of the Programme of Statistical Surveys, whereas initiative is given on the appropriate amendments to the Programme;
- to discuss proposals of acts and other regulations from the field of national statistics;
- to propose the methodological bases for statistical surveys of national importance;
- to propose rationalisation and modernization of national statistics;
- to provide initiatives and proposals for international statistical co-operation;
- to propose classifications which shall be used as national standards.

The members of the Council shall be: three representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia, one representative of the National Council of the Republic of Slovenia, two representatives of the Government, one representative of the Bank of Slovenia, one representative of employers and one of employees, one representative of the judiciary, two recognised experts from the field of statistics and two representatives of the Office.
Members of the Council shall be appointed by the institutions stated in paragraph 1 of this Article. One representative of employers and one representative of employees shall be appointed by the Economic and Social Council of the Government, whereas two recognised experts from the field of statistics shall be appointed by the Statistical Society of Slovenia as a professional organisation of the civil society.
Members of the Council shall elect one of them to act as the President of the Council. The Director-General of the Office cannot be President of the Council.
The mandate of the members of the Council shall be four years.

Statistical Advisory Committees (SAC) are established by SURS for individual spheres of national statistics. They are formulated for wider spheres defined under the Programme of Statistical Surveys. The tasks of SACs are as follows:

- To discuss the methodological basis of statistical surveys, to take standpoints on certain issues and to make proposals and acquaint the SURS top management with these proposals
- To expand knowledge on statistical surveys, implemented by national statistics; on the possibilities on acquisition of data, offered to data users; on new solutions how to acquire data and on their dissemination
- To hold discussions on the contents of the Medium-term and Annual Programme of Statistical Surveys, giving proposals on changes and supplements to these Programmes
- To propose rationalization and modernization of national statistics in their field of work
- To propose classifications which could be used as national standards and some other tasks.

The setting up and field of work of an individual SAC is determined by the Director-General of SURS, who also determines the institutions which shall, upon a written request made by SURS, nominate their members into the SAC. The President of the SAC can invite representatives of other institutions and other experts to attend and participate at the SAC meetings.The Statistical Advisory Committees hold meetings at least twice per year or respectively when required.
Currently there are about 25 advisory committees for different fields of statistics with around 300 outside members and under 100 from SURS.

The most recent population census:
31 March 2002.
In 2011 the register-based census was conducted.

The Slovenian National Statistics Act regulates a special provision on the right of access to all administrative data.

Statistical disclosure control is used for all published data.

Release calendar (existence, when and how published)
The Advance Release Calendar is currently applied according to the IMF definition and is available on the SURS web site. The ICT solution was developed to cover the entire releasing of the data in all SURS publications and is in production as of 1st Jan. 2006.
So, different retrievals are possible according to various data series. We provide also information on: releases scheduled for today; tomorrow’s releases, releases this week and releases this month.
In case of the all the publication of SURS, the Advance Release Calendar covers the data for the entire year ahead, staring with 2015.
Moreover: not only the publication itself can be accessed in this manner, but all the released publications since 2002 are easily accessible as well!
The stream of news on the SURS Web site can be followed by using the existing RSS channels which are an alternative way of reading news as they notify users of the news. Updates in release calendar are included as RSS channels.

Stat'o'book
First Release, E-Release, Special Release
Brochures
Statistical Portrait of Slovenia in the EU

Slovenian, English.

All the publications (pdf and e-books) are available on the website. Also data are available (carefully arranged in on-line databases).
The number of printed publications keeps diminishing.

The researchers always have special contracts with the NSO about the use of individual data (use in special conditions, etc.). They get de-anonymised individual data. Such microdata are disseminated exclusively for research – statistical purposes. Detailed protocol about the access to microdata is available on SORS website:
http://www.stat.si/StatWeb/en/mainnavigation/data/for-researchers/general