Opening note

The mission of the Conselho Superior de Estatística (Statistical Council) is to guide and coordinate the National Statistical System. It is entrusted with powers to define the general guidelines of national statistical activity and relevant priorities, as well as to coordinate the System and its technical improvement.

Its nature as a wider forum of statistical producers and usersallows it to contribute to:

-  Provide an “image” of society at the economic and social level that is accurate, of high quality and up-to-date, as well as supportive of processes for formulating and monitoring public policies in different fields, allowing private entities, in particular enterprises, to access data that foster a more efficient intervention in the respective areas of interest, while providing researchers, analysts and other interested parties with data that enable them to achieve their goals.

- Promote initiatives to ensure that the country’s international commitments are met as regards the availability of official statistics, especially within the framework of the European Union, and to guarantee the national and international comparability of statistics.

- Ensure trust in the National Statistical System.

Hence, it is crucial that the society is acquainted with the mechanisms that ensure that the statistical information produced by INE (Statistics Portugal) and by all entities integrating the National Statistical System is of high quality and abides by the national and international rules that guarantee the comparability of statistics.

Against this background, the wide dissemination of documentation, decisions, recommendations and procedures of the Statistical Council proves itself highly useful and is an important step forward towards deepening the communication of the Statistical System with the Portuguese society, thereby contributing to qualify the Statistical System while complying with the best international practices.