Australian Commonwealth Government Statistical Clearing House: Vehicle for Reducing Response Load and Improving Survey Quality

The recently constituted Commonwealth Government Statistical Clearing House was set up in response to a small business task force recommendation. It is operated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) as part of that agency's coordination role. Its primary goal is to ensure that surveys impose minimum load on business respondents and that the data collected are fit for their intended uses. Surveys affecting 50 or more businesses conducted by or on behalf of Australian Government departments or agencies, including the ABS itself, are subject to a clearance process. Those that are not approved are not permitted to start or continue. Statistical Clearing House review procedures not only aim to reduce respondent load and promote good design, they also ensure good documentation and facilitate data sharing. Metadata descriptions of all the surveys subject to review are recorded in the Commonwealth Register of Surveys of Businesses, publicly accessible via the Internet. This paper augments and updates previously published material. It outlines the objectives, development and operation of the Statistical Clearing House from the perspective of its contribution to reduction in respondent load and improvement in survey quality. It describes the review criteria and the survey metadata that are required to support the clearance process. It briefly compares and contrasts similar programs at other statistical agencies. Finally, it summarises the first year of operations. The tentative conclusion is that the benefits brought by the program in terms of increased survey taker awareness of respondent load and quality issues outweigh the additional work required by survey managers to comply with the program and the costs of administering it.