Presentation: Pál Jancsók, Eurostat “IT for statistical production”

1. Is IT rationalisation a way to change service culture?Paper prepared by Pál Jancsók and Mariana Kotzeva Presentation: Pál Jancsók, Eurostat “IT for statistical production” MSIS 2014 Dublin, 14 April 2014

2. Eurostat is: Directorate General of European Commission Central institution of the European Statistical System (ESS) - a network of National Statistical Institutes (NSI) from all EU and EFTA Countries Eurostat's mission: To be the leading provider of high quality statistics on Europe

3. Overview: Commission-wide IT rationalisation Methodology Estimated impact on service culture Eurostat internal IT Rationalisation Methodology Experience so far Future plans Conclusion

4. Commission-wide IT rationalisation • Commission Communication on the Rationalisation of IT resources • Aim: Optimise the cost of IT by • Avoiding duplications in IT system functionalities • Promoting common, reusable and flexible solutions • Streamlining the business / working methods • Work shared among General Directorates and organised in waves

5. IT rationalisation - Domains

6. Eurostat's role: • Leader for the IT rationalisation in the domain "Analysis and databases" • In Eurostat Mariana KOTZEVA (Adviser Hors Classe & acting Director of IT) coordinates the work • Aligns well with the role Eurostat was given in 2012: • Coordinate the statistical activities in the European Commission

7. Methodology • Preliminary assessment and information gathering phase • Available documents • IT Master plans • In-depth review • Visits, Interviews • Flagship projects • Reporting and validation • Regular progress reports • Rationalisation report

8. Information Gathering phase • Administrative information and documents, analysis of the portfolio • The portfolio should be broken down into four smaller clusters, covering: • databases • data processing, analysis and forecasting • data dissemination and • geographic information systems (GIS) applications • Expert groups continued the analysis

9. Analysis results Examples of the results: Data processing, analysis and forecasting (2): IT rationalisation is only feasible in sub-processes like data editing, data visualisation, seasonal adjustments, and statistical disclosure control. Guidelines are provided by GSBPM , GSIM, etc. Data dissemination (3) Eurostat has developed powerful dissemination tools The dissemination chain of Eurostat can be shared with other DGs DG COMP is disseminating the State Aid Scoreboard data using the Eurostat dissemination chain "European statistics" vs. "Other statistics"

10. Estimated impact on service culture Example: Data dissemination cluster Twofold impact: Commission Services using the tool: Harmonisation of business workflows is needed Change may be required in ways of working to take time constraints into account Data to be coded according to harmonised and derived code lists Data production system has to be adapted to produce ready-to-disseminate output files

11. Estimated impact on service culture Impact on Eurostat as the solution provider: Deal with both internal and external clients User requirements (both internal and external) should be collected and matched Additional tasks e.g. trainings are needed Affect IT Governance: Additional Steering Committee members, additional consultation with IT governance bodies in other DGs

12. Overview: Introduction Commission-wide IT rationalisation Methodology Estimated impact on service culture Eurostat internal IT Rationalisation Methodology Experience so far Future plans Conclusion

13. Internal IT rationalisation: • The past: • Several programmes for modernisation and rationalisation • Always built on the achievements of previous programmes • From 2013: • Consolidation of the statistical production IT portfolio started • 5 years objective: reduce the heterogeneity of the statistical software applications: Over the next five years, the number of internal Eurostat IT applications used for statistical business processes is expected to be reduced by 50 %. • Long–term objective: move to a service-oriented architecture

14. Methodology: Inventory of IT tools used for statistical production Analysis and categorisation of these tools Planning and carrying out the rationalisation exercise

15. Categories of the IT applications: • Eurostat Corporate software applications: • Centrally managed: implementation, maintenance and development is centrally organised • Owned by the IT side • Eurostat Non-corporate implementations of software applications: • Centrally supported: the applied technology is supported inside the IT directorate • Owned by the Business side • Other software

16. Inventory of the IT applications • Based on EPMS (Euro Process Metadata Structure) • Documenting Eurostat's 102 statistical production processes • 102 statistical business processes • Extractions of the data to Excel • Automated 'counting' tools allow follow up

17. Planning rationalisation (I) • Applications to be phased out are selected according to some criteria • Degree of alignment of software applications with Eurostat’s overall IT strategy and Enterprise Architecture • Risks tied to the use/phase out of the software applications • Operational factors and costs • A reduction plan is set up iteratively for every year

18. Inventory results: There are overall 97 software applications in use in Eurostat serving 102 production processes.

19. Experience so far The main challenges: Timing of the exercise: change of application when a major revision is necessary anyway Raising awareness about the existence and advantage of the corporate tools Thorough analysis is necessary when a corporate software application is phased out This inventory only considered the applications used in statistical production. It does not provide an accurate picture of end-user computing tools

20. Internal IT rationalisation examples: • Tourism Statistics: • Two existing workflows for macro data • Both in a legacy (to be phased out corporate) system • One workflow has been extended with microdata therefore moved to GSAST • Causes of Death (CoD) statistics: • One workflow used a non-corporate SAS application • It has been extended with microdata therefore moved to GSAST

21. Experience so far The corporate tool had a significant impact on the new micro data workflow: it provided best practice and standard working methods and harmonised workflows Common maintenance reduced burdens on the business team Efficiency gains with the common maintenance

22. Experience with Tourism: Little impact by the corporate tool (already used one) This rationalisation had some impact on the way the business team works: GSAST user interface is SAS Enterprise Guide ->reusable knowledge and experience Testing handled as a learning period and not as a burden

23. Experience with Causes of Death Instead of SAS programming -> document the changes and ask central support for implementation The ‘programmer’ part of the user’s profile is transformed to ‘power user’, leaving more time for the user’s role as ‘statistician’

24. Future plans Several iterations are planned for the IT Rationalisation in Eurostat Moving to a Service Oriented Architecture SOA based user interface for existing corporate systems (IS4STAT) Product Family Management program will help to control IT tools

25. Conclusions IT Rationalisation has impact on the Service Culture There is strong interdependence of business processes in statistical production There is a direct impact on the business users work Involvement of the hierarchy is the key element of success