The National Statistics Institute is a legally independent administrative Autonomous institution assigned to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
It is basically governed by Law 12/1989 of 9 May on Public Statistics Function, that regulates statistical activity for state purposes which is the exclusive competence of the State and by the Statute approved by Royal Decree 508/2001 of 11 May and modified by Royal Decree 947/2003 of 18 July and Royal Decree 950/2009 of 5 June.
Statistical Committees
High Council on Statistics It is a consultative organ of the state statistical services and for social participation of the respondents, producers and users of statistics, that represents the trade union and business organisations and other social, economic and academic groups and institutions, alongside the Ministerial Departments and the National Statistics Institute.
Interministerial Statistics Commission It is a participative organ of the statistical services in charge of compiling statistics in the scope of the State Central Administration. It aims to coordinate the activities of different services.
Interterritorial Statistics Committee It safeguards the coordination, cooperation and homogenisation in terms of statistics between the State and the Autonomous Communities.
Statistical Planning
The National Statistics Plan contains the statistics that must be developedi the four year period by the State General Administration's services or any other entity dependent on it It is formulated with the collaboration of Ministerial Departments and the Bank of Spain and approved by the Government.
Strategic lines for 2009-2012
Since 1993 when the first National Statistical Plan was approved, the units which produce statistics for government purposes have come a long way in terms of: raising and improving awareness of the Statistical Function in society and increasing the presence of Spanish statistics in international bodies and forums; the increase of the wider community’s confidence in the integrity and validity of statistical results; the improvement in all aspects of the quality of the production of statistics; the gearing of its performance to users' needs; as great a reduction as possible in inconvenience to respondents; the furtherance of research in methodology and statistical techniques, with particular focus on its impact on statistical production; the coordination of central government statistical services and the cooperation between the central, regional and local statistical services, geared to optimising statistical production and the development of human resources.
The 2009-2012 National Statistical Plan, maintaining these main lines of action and the current statistical production, shall have the following strategic objectives:
To strengthen confidence in the public statistical system.
To define the population as a strategic variable in the statistical process.
To fit statistics according to gender.
To meet new statistical requirements for determining, monitoring and assessing the performance of different public and private, national and EU agents.
