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Towards an integrated model of management and
quality control for population and housing
censuses, at the local administrative level
Fernando Casimiro, INE/NSI - Portugal E-mail
fernando.casimiro_at_ine.pt

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Main historic features

• Modern set since 1864, almost every ten years
• 2 censuses at the same time since 1970, with a
  larger content on housing
• Specific legislation for every one of them with
  special emphasis on the local governments
  involvement
• Model of traditional census
• Growing concern with quality assurance and
  demonstration, mostly in the recent decades.

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Why the role of local governments?

• Since 1976 local governments restarted to be
  elected on political elections every 4 years
• Main source of funding of local governments is
  the transfer of funds made by central government
  and census data play a key role on it
• Municipal Directive Plans (PDMs) constitute the
  most important instrument on planning and
  management for their territory
• More and more the local authorities are very
  concerned about their population and territory
  management either because they are losing
  population or they need to increase the
  investment attraction of their territory on the
  basis of sustainability
• And census data still remain the most important
  source of statistical data at the local level.

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Fieldwork organization/Territory and statistical
areas

• Portugal (92.090 km2)
• NUTS I 3 regions (Mainland- 88.967 km2 Azores-
  2.322 km2 Madeira- 801 km2)
• NUTS II 7 regions
• NUTS III 30 regions
• NUTS IV/LAU1 308 municipalities
• NUTS V/LAU2 4.241 parishes
• Statistical section (it corresponds to the
  working area for an enumerator, containing about
  300 housing units) 16094
• Statistical subsection 177.893
• Locality 26.898

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Fieldwork organization/Census

• National, assured by INE-Census Department
• Regional, assured by Regional Directorates (7)
• Local/Municipalities assured by Municipal
  Delegates (450)
• Local/Parishes assured by Parish
  Coordinators(4.241)
• Enumerators- Statistical Section (16.094)

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Quality Assurance and Control Programme

• Basic assumption If we control the quality at
  the lower levels, results at the upper levels are
  much more consistent
• Control of the execution process
• Selection, training and technical evaluation of
  the regional and local participants
• Delivery and collection of questionnaires
• Analysis of indexes and alternative data sources
• Contribution to the Alert System
• Post Enumeration Survey (PES), as source of
  final results on the quality.

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Quality control on delivery and collection of
questionnaires

• Permanent control throughout the building cover
  sheet
• Systematic sample of 5 with some core questions
  (occupancy status and number of rooms in the
  housing units and number of resident persons in
  the private household) and linked to specific
  payment
• Alert system, installed in the laptop of the
  municipal delegate.

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Alert System results on improving additional
controls

• About 74 of the parishes had additional
  chekings
• 457 (11) parishes whose results, on population
  and housing units, were outside the estimated
  interval
• 1.259 (30) parishes whose results, on population
  only, were outside the estimated interval
• 1.434 (33) parishes whose results, on housing
  units only, were outside the estimated interval.

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Monitoring system for management and quality
control

• Integration on the basis of
• Physical results achieved and checked
• Payments connected and depending on physical
  results
• Software available (AOCTC) at the local level (
  Laptops of Municipal Delegates) and connected to
  the upper levels
• Obligation to explain the reasons why such
  deviations occur.

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Main results and conclusions

• Main results and conclusions
• Net coverage rates very well accepted by the
  users
• Final assessment, very positive, made by Local
  Governments
• For the first time, final results of PES on
  coverage and content analysis, disseminated on an
  autonomous publication.

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Appointments for 2011

• Keeping and improving the role of local
  governments
• Alert system with more updated and better
  weighted indicators in order to reduce
  substantially the control burden, using several
  and more precise intervals to decide additional
  checks
• Internet response must be incorporated into the
  local alert system as soon as it arrives to the
  central system
• User friendly software is being evaluated in
  order to turn the AOCTC even more friendly and
  reliable on data transmission
• Final data quality indicators must be produced
  and kept at the NUTS II level.

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• Thank you very much for your attention!