Statistics Division Home
Overview
Fundamental Principles
Implementation
Country Practices
Publications
Reference Materials and Links
Sign in

Ordinance Concerning the Organization of the Public Statistics

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STATISTICS AND ECONOMIC STUDIES N.I.S.E.S.

ORGANISATION OF THE OFFICIAL STATISTICS
(up-dated text based on the Government Ordinance no. 9/1992 republished, amended and completed by Government Ordinance no. 83/1999 and Government Ordinance no. 111/2000)
BUCURE@TI

2000


Chapter I

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Art. 1

(1) The systematic activity regarding the collecting, processing, analysing, dissemination and compiling of the time series of official demographic, social, economic, financial, juridical statistical data, required to develop and evaluate the economic and social policies, to address the public at large, to carry out scientific research, to make forecasts and strategies for development, to support the decision-making by the government and the economic units, to submit statistical data to the international bodies, in accordance with the obligations assumed by the Romanian state and to other categories of internal and external users shall be organised considering the stipulations of the current Ordinance.

(2) The Ordinance regarding the official statistics Organisation applies to all natural and legal persons who carry out their activity on the Romanian territory.

Art. 2

(1) In Romania, the official statistics is organised and coordinated by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, a specialised body of the central public administration subordinated to the Government and financed by the state budget.

(2) The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies is headed by a president assisted by two vice-presidents, civil servants, assimilated with the positions of secretary general, deputy secretary general respectively, within ministries and other bodies of the specialised central public administration.

(3) The Regional General Directions of Statistics operating as decentralised public services, financed by the state budget, as well as the publishing-house "Romanian Statistical Review" and the National Centre for Training in Statistics, both financed from extra-budgetary funds, are subordinated to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies.

(4) In the sense of the present Ordinance, the official statistical services concern: the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies and its Regional General Directions of Statistics, as well as the statistical divisions within public administration bodies, coordinated from the methodological point of view by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies.


Art. 3

(1) With a view to continuously training the personnel employed in the official statistics services as well as to promoting a statistical culture in the central and local public administration, in national companies and societies, autonomous authorities, commercial companies, in other legal units of public or private law, the National Centre for Training in Statistics, subordinated to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, financed by extra-budgetary funds is set up.

(2) The objectives of the National Centre for Training in Statistics are: the Organisation and promotion of the continuous professional training in statistics, demography, economics, econometrics, quantitative sociology and information technology, thus contributing to a wider dissemination of scientific and technical knowledge from these fields.

(3) The National Centre for Training in Statistics may issue, according to the law, educational diplomas or graduation certificates, as required, emphasising the capabilities acquired, with national validity.

(4) The continuous professional training through the National Centre for Training in Statistics is provided by trainers, specialists in the fields mentioned in paragraph (2) from public administration or by national or foreign collaborators, paid according to the concerned legislation.


Art. 4

The Organisation and functioning of the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies and of the National Centre for Training in Statistics are approved through Government Decision.

Art. 5

(1) The Organisation of the official statistics is based on the following principles: statistical autonomy, confidentiality, transparency, relevance, proportionality, statistical deontology and cost-efficiency.

(2) According to the autonomy principle, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies is authorised to establish, in an impartial and independent manner, free from any pressure from the Government political parties, ethnic groups, trade unions, employers organisations and other organizations or natural persons, the systems of indicators, nomenclatures, classifications, methodologies, processing and registering techniques, to publish and disseminate statistical data and information. This principle implies the compulsory nature of disseminating official statistics. (data and information) to all users, without any restriction and on an equal basis, as regards the quality and timelines.

(3) According to the confidentiality principle, the official statistical services and the statistical staff are obliged to adopt and to ensure over the entire period of a statistical survey - from registration to publication - data safety measures referring to individual statistical subjects (natural and legal persons), data obtained directly from statistical surveys or indirectly from administrative sources or otherwise.

(4) According to the transparency principle, the official statistical services are obliged to observe and to ensure the rights of statistical data suppliers, users or other categories of natural and legal persons, interested in having access to the legal basis and scope of the statistical surveys, to the methodologies, techniques and methods used in compiling statistical information, to the protective measures adopted and to the means and the dissemination deadlines of statistical data and information.

(5) According to the relevance principle, the official statistical services are obliged to produce data and statistical information in accordance with the fields, deadlines and detail degree of the statistical data, established depending on the continuous development of demographic, economic, social and environmental phenomena.

(6) According to the proportionality principle, the official statistical services have the obligation to ensure a correlation between the quantity of required individual information and the processed information which is supplied to the users.

(7) According to the statistical deontology principle, the official statistical services must implement and use scientific criteria for the selection of sources, methods and procedures for the statistical surveys and disseminate, in a most accessible way, the data sources coverage, methodologies and results accuracy.

(8) According to the cost-efficiency principle, the official statistical services must restrict the volume of the statistical data collected from the statistical subjects to the level that would justify the statistical surveys purpose and under the conditions of an optimum use of available -resources.


Art. 6

(1) In order to ensure the objective, transparent and scientific character of the methodologies, indicators, nomenclatures and classifications used in the Statistical Activity, The Council of Coordinating the Statistical Activity is established as an advisory body which mainly aims to analyse and approve the general development strategy of the national statistical system, the work reports of National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies and the annual Programme of statistical surveys and economic studies.

(2) The Council of Coordinating the Statistical Activity is composed of:

- 2 representatives of the Romanian Academy;
- 4 representatives of the specialised higher education system and research;
- 6 representatives of ministeries and/or other specialised bodies subordinated to the Government;
- 1 representative of Romanian National Bank;
- 3 representatives of trade-unions;
- 3 representatives of employers associations;
- 3 representatives of the media;
- 2 representatives of professional associations.

The President of the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies is a member by right.

(3) The members of the Council of Coordinating the Statistical Activity are appointed by the Prime Minister at the proposal made by the bodies and the institutions stipulated in paragraph (2), for a two years period.

(4) The members of the Council of Coordinating the Statistical Activity are granted an allowance for meeting attendance equivalent to the national minimum gross wages.

(5) The Council of Coordinating the Statistical Activity meets quarterly or whenever necessary and it can set up its own working groups by statistical fields, in accordance with its prerogatives.

(6) The Council of Coordinating the Statistical Activity works out and approves its own functioning rules.


Chapter II

STATISTICAL SURVEYS

Art. 7

(1) To ensure the necessary data and information for compiling the time series of statistical data, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies draws up annual programs of statistical surveys and economic studies at national, development regions, county and other territorial structures level.

(2) The Annual Programme of Statistical Surveys and Economic Studies represents the framework for drawing up, producing and disseminating official statistics in Romania.

(3) The Annual Programme of Statistical Surveys and Economic Studies will cover data and information necessary for the observation, measurement and analysis of economic, social, demographic and environmental phenomena, taking into account the cost-efficiency principle.

(4) The Annual Programme of Statistical Surveys and Economic Studies stipulates the coverage, periodicity and variables for each statistical survey and study.

A rt. 8

The statistical surveys are carried out monthly, quarterly, yearly or with another periodicity depending on the information usefulness, the indicators nature and the Organisation and carrying out possibilities; the periodicity is correlated with the international statistical practice.

A rt. 9

The Annual Programme of Statistical Surveys and Economic Studies, after being approved by the Council of Coordinating the Statistical Activity, is endorsed through Government Decision and afterwards published.


Chapter III

STATISTICAL DATA COLLECTION

Art. 10

The official statistical services are authorised, on the basis and with due observance of the present Ordinance, to ask for and to receive free of charge statistical data and information from all the natural and legal persons who are located, hold any kind of capital or carry out any type of activity on the Romanian territory.

Art. 11

(1) The legal persons - autonomous authorities, national companies and societies, commercial companies, whatever their ownership, institutions of the central or local public administration, political parties, trade-unions, employers organisations, nongovernmental and other organisations - are obliged to supply at no charge to the official statistical services, within the required deadlines, periodicity and form, the statistical data and information according to the methodology comprised within the guidelines issued by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies based on the present Ordinance.

(2) The official statistical services are authorised to carry out statistical surveys by directly collecting statistical data, the legal persons of public or private law being obliged to allow access of the statistical staff to the respective units and to their primary data accounts, observing the stipulations of the present Ordinance.

(3) In order to ensure the quality of the statistical data supplied to official statistical services, their staff is entitled to verify the computation procedure -of the transmitted data, and their compliance with the registers of the primary data holders; in case failures are discovered, they are obliged to write official reports ascertaining the contravention and to apply the provisions of the chapter VI of the present Ordinance.

(4) The natural persons must supply official statistical services with personal data and with those concerning the household and economic activity, required to carry out of the censuses and statistical surveys. Personal data as those concerning the ideological beliefs, the political membership, the identification record, health and the intimate life can be collected and processed only with the consent of the concerned persons, observing the stipulations of the present Ordinance regarding the statistical data confidentiality.

(5) In order to use personal data for statistical, scientific or historical purposes, the official statistical services are obliged to ensure their storage under safe conditions.

(6) In pursuing its prerogatives and activities, the official statistical services are authorised to use, as collaborators, statistical interviewers and to contract services for data collecting from households and from legal persons included in statistical surveys.

Art. 12

(1) The research of the economic, social, demographic and environmental phenomena and processes is performed, according to the circumstances, through: censuses, micro-censuses; statistical monographs; sampling surveys and other statistical surveys.


(2) In order to complete the requested data and to minimise the response burden of statistical subjects, the official statistical services have access to the primary data of the administrative records of central and local public administration institutions (balance sheets, tax documents, agricultural registers, commercial registers, population registers, and others) including the individual identification data, observing the principle of statistical confidentiality. The confidential data from the administrative sources will be used for statistical purposes only, without affecting the reason they were originally collected for.


A rt. 13

The exhaustive statistical surveys of national interest as the censuses of population, housing, buildings, agricultural holdings and animals, businesses, patrimony are approved through Government Decision or by law, as the case may be.

Art. 14

(1) In order to meet the need for statistical data and information of public administration institutions, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies will take care of their specific requirements in establishing the Annual Programme of Statistical Surveys and Economic Studies.

(2) The statistical surveys carried out by statistical departments within specialised bodies of public administration shall be endorsed by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies.

A rt. 15

For specific domains of statistical research under the competence of the ministries and other public administration bodies as: judiciary statistics, health statistics, education statistics, financial statistics, unemployment statistics, environment statistics and other statistics, the respective authorities have the obligation to transmit to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies their statistical data and information which are to be included in the series of statistical data and in the statistical publications or to be dispatched to the international bodies.


Chapter IV

CONFIDENTIALITATEA DATELOR STATISTICE

Art. 16.

(1) The statistical data and information used by official statistical services are considered to be confidential when they allow statistical subjects to be identified, either directly or indirectly, thereby disclosing individual information. To determine whether a statistical subject is identifiable, account shall be taken of all the means that might be used by a third party to identify the respective statistical subject.

(2) The confidential statistical data and information can neither be used as evidence in courts of law nor to establish certain rights or obligations for the statistical subjects they are referring to.

(3) By derogation from paragraph (1), the individual data referring to legal units, such as: name, address, activity's type, social capital, turnover and employees number, data which will preserve their public nature, should not be considered confidential.

Art. 17

(1) The confidential data collected by the official statistical services can be used exclusively for statistical purposes.

(2) The statistical data resulted from individual data processing could only be published or disseminated if, directly or indirectly, the identification of the natural or legal persons is not possible.

Art. 18.

(1) The official statistical services are obliged to adopt administrative, organisational and technical measures to ensure the protection of confidentiality of individual statistical data, to ensure that no authorised access to information shall occur, to prevent its distorted dissemination and deliberately or unauthorised destruction.

(2) The personnel employed in the official statistical services, who, according to the law, has access to statistical data is bound to observe their confidentiality. This is referring also to the persons temporarily employed for statistical data and information collection and processing, who shall be subject to compliance with such confidentiality, even after the cessation of their activities.


Chapter V

ACCESS TO THE STATISTICAL DATA

Art. 19.

(1) The statistical information and data represent a national asset, made available to the Parliament, Presidency, Government, local and central public administration institutions, political parties, trade-unions, employers organisations, non- governmental organisations, media, scientific research and educational units, businesses and other legal persons, teachers, researchers, students and other categories of population, observing the confidentiality.

(2) The statistical data and information resulted in the frame of programmes of statistical surveys and economic studies of official statistical services will be disseminated, within the limits of available financial resources, free of charge to the Parliament, Presidency, Government, ministries and to other specialised bodies subordinated to the Government or the ministries and will be issued in the largest possible volumes and structures, in order to satisfy the information needs of the users of statistical data and of the population.

Art. 20.

The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies disseminates, against payment, statistical data and information to other categories of users, through publications on paper or an electronic support and through direct access to the statistical surveys results stored in statistical data bases, with due observance of statistical data safety and confidentiality.

Art. 21.

(1) The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies is authorised to carry out statistical surveys besides those included in the approved Annual Programme following some domestic or external users requests, against payment, on a contract basis. Equally, based on the statistical surveys results covered by the Annual Programmes of Statistical Surveys and economic Studies, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies can elaborate studies, issue and supply publications, statistical data and information from statistical data bases.

(2) The incomes from statistical surveys or studies, obtained in accordance with the provisions of the paragraph (1), as well as those related to statistical publications and to statistical information and data provided on paper or magnetic support or through direct access to data bases, are at the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies' disposal and they are administrated in extra-budgetary system.

(3) The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies can use the extra-budgetary amounts thus created for overhead and capital expenditures; the balance at the end of the year will be carried over the next year to the same purposes.

Art. 22.

Legal persons are obliged to organise their activity accounts in such a way as to allow the compilation and the transmission of data to the official statistical services, in the form and within the deadlines established through rules issued based on the present Ordinance.


Chapter VI

OBLIGATIONS AND SANCTIONS

Art. 23.

(1) The following are considered to be contraventions if, according to -the penal law, they are not infringements:
a) the refusal or the delay, by guilt, of transmitting the statistical data required according to the approved Programme of statistical surveys and economic studies programme;
b) the refusal to hand over to the statistical control authorities the documents and registers necessary to check out the statistical data;
c) the communication of biased or incomplete data;
d) the non-application of the measures prescribed by the official statistical services,
e) the nonobservance by the official statistical services staff of the legal provisions regarding the confidentiality of individual statistical data and information according to the confidentiality principle and to the regulations stipulated in Chapter IV of the present Ordinance.

(2) The contraventions foreseen in paragraph (1) are sanctioned by fines ranging from 10.000.000 to 50.000.000 lei.

(3) The finding of the contraventions foreseen in paragraph (1) and the penalisation are made by staff designed by the official statistical offices.

(4) The measures concerning the contraventions stipulated in the present item will be completed with the provision of the Law no. 32/1968 on the contraventions establishing and sanctioning, with subsequent changes and additions.

Chapter VII

FINAL PROVISIONS

Art. 24.

(1) The public statistical services staff and statistical interviewers used for carrying out the censuses and other statistical surveys, benefit during this whole period of fulfilling this activity by the protection of the law, being considered as executing a function involving the state authority exercise.

(2) The present Ordinance comes into force within 30 days from the date of publishing in the Official Gazette. On the same date, the Decree no. 152/1970 with all its further amendments, as well as, any other adverse dispositions are abrogated.


Back to top | Statistics Division Home | Contact Us | Search | Site Map
Copyright © United Nations, 2014