CSO at 75: How data analysis has evolved to tell us more about ourselves

This year the Central Statistics Office (CSO) is celebrating its 75th birthday. For most of the last 50 years, I have been an almost daily user of its output, and benefited hugely from the assistance of the staff, who have produced analyses for me, and given advice on how best to interpret the data.
In Luke’s gospel Martha complained that she had to do the hard work – presumably washing the dishes – while Mary got to enjoy talking to Jesus. I often feel that the CSO is like Martha, doing the essential behind-the-scenes work of assembling and publishing data, while I and other social scientists and policymakers have “fun” using the data as part of our work.
The CSO has operated largely below the radar, but plays an essential role in providing the independent data for policymakers and researchers to underpin economic, social and regional planning, and gain an understanding of how our economy and society are doing.
When the CSO was set up in 1949, it was fortunate to have Roy Geary, Ireland’s greatest statistician, as its first director. As well as guiding the institution in its early days, he had an international reputation in mathematical statistics. In recognition of his expertise, in 1957 he was appointed head of the United Nations Statistics Division’s National Accounts branch in New York.
The CSO has established a strong international reputation, and punches above its weight in Eurostat deliberations and other international statistical forums. In particular, the expertise developed by the CSO in how to measure the activities of multinationals and discern what is going on in the real economy is now being drawn on by the EU, OECD and UN statistical agencies as they work to revise how economic activity is measured in a globalised world.
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From its establishment, the CSO was recognised as being independent of government, although funded via the Department of the Taoiseach. Unlike in some other countries, the role of the office has never been politicised. Statutory independence is enshrined in the 1993 Statistics Act. Official statistics are published to all at the same time – nobody in government gets a sneak preview of results that may prove embarrassing.
Eurostat plays a big role in harmonising statistical data collection across the EU, to enable cross-country comparisons to be readily drawn, and in ensuring statistical quality. About 80 per cent of official statistics produced are now mandated by Eurostat to common templates decided at EU level. The size of the CSO has grown significantly, both to keep pace with the outputs required by Eurostat, and to provide the data needed for policymaking and planning in a rapidly changing society.
From the mid-1980s, widespread computerisation of administrative data opened up new possibilities to collect statistical information. The 1993 Statistics Act, which guarantees strict confidentiality about disclosing data relating to identifiable individuals or enterprises, also gave the CSO the role of co-ordinating all official statistics, and a mandate to use administrative records for statistical purposes. The National Statistics Board, set up in 1986 to advise on the CSO’s strategic direction, has championed the potential of administrative data to complement household and business surveys. It has promoted the use of common identifiers such as the RSI number and the Eircode, to facilitate the anonymised linking of data from different sources.
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The CSO prepares anonymised micro-data files, which combine data from different sources, such as social welfare or Revenue, to allow important research to be undertaken. This work is particularly sensitive because of the need to provide absolute protection for the data of individuals and companies. While it can be frustrating for researchers waiting for a cleaned-up data file to be ready for analysis, the CSO takes extreme care to provide complete protection for individuals’ personal data, and appoints the researchers concerned as officers of statistics, subject to strict rules.
While statistical buffs like myself are probably the biggest users, it’s good to see how dissemination of statistical results to the public at large has improved. You can check the popularity of babies’ names going back to 1960 (John is no longer top of parents’ lists). You can look at a statistical profile of your own town or village, and the profiles of the all-Ireland finalists are displayed prominently. We now know one in 725 Skibbereen residents competed at the Paris Olympics.
The historical census forms from 1901 and 1911 tell a lot about how our great-grandparents lived. We won’t be around to read the “time capsule” messages on the 2022 census forms, but hopefully the CSO will still be going strong in 2122.