Definition: European Statistical System Committee (ESSC)

Category: Statistical concept; Peer reviews

The European Statistical System Committee (ESS Committee) provides professional guidance to the European Statistical System (ESS) for developing, producing and disseminating European statistics in line with the statistical principles set out by the Commission (Professional independence, impartiality, objectivity, reliability, confidentiality and cost effectiveness). 

The ESS Committee is composed of representatives of the NSIs who are national specialists for statistics. It is chaired by the Commission (Eurostat).

The ESS Committee is consulted by the Commission in regard to:

(a) the measures which the Commission intends to take for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics, their justification on a cost-effectiveness basis, the means and timetables for achieving them, the response burden on survey respondents;

(b) proposed developments and priorities in the European statistical programme;

(c) initiatives to bring into practice the reprioritisation and reduction of the response burden;

(d) issues concerning statistical confidentiality;

(e) the further development of the Code of Practice; and

(f) any other question, in particular issues of methodology, arising from the establishment or implementation of statistical programmes that are raised by its Chair, either on its own initiative or at the request of a Member State. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:087:0164:0173:EN:PDF