National Statistical Institute of Portugal (INE-PT)

Transcription

1 INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE ESTATÍSTICA Portugal National Statistical Institute of Portugal (INE-PT) QUALINEST INE-PT s Quality Management System Eng. Carlos Corrêa Gago Chairman of the National Statistical Institute of Portugal

2 1. Organisational Overview 1.1. Basic description of the organisation INE-PT was created by specific legislation in 1935, when the basic principles of the National Statistical System were established. The Institute is responsible for producing and disseminating official statistical information. In order to perform this public service, Parliament enacted a law granting it complete technical independence to choose its ways and means, as well as the necessary authority to carry out its surveys and activities; INE-PT was granted a legal personality, its own assets and administrative and financial autonomy. INE-PT exercises its activities on the whole national territory, with its head office in Lisbon and 5 regional directorates (North, Center, Lisbon and Tagus Valley, Alentejo and Algarve). In the autonomous regions of Madeira and Azores, INE-PT is technically responsible for nation-wide statistical operations. Main user groups cover national, regional and international entities, namely: Central and Local Administration European Union and other international organisations Business firms Universities Students Public in general INE-PT s highest governing body, the Board of Directors, is composed by up to 7 elements, three of them executive members. The Chairman of INE presides over the Board of Directors and the executive committee. The organisational structure relies on different types of departments: The offices and departments whose function is to provide support to management and to operational areas of the organisation: in finance and administration, human resources, planning and quality, international relations and public relations; The technical departments which produce statistics; The technical bureaus which study and analyse economic, demographic and social statistics; A department whose functions are to co-ordinate and integrate the other departments information, to prepare the economic accounts and to ensure the centralisation of standardised nomenclatures and classifications; The department responsible for the organisation of the information systems, covering data processing and communications; The five regional directorates which guarantee the coverage of the whole territory and reflect its activities in the following areas: 2/5

3 - Production of statistical information at a regional level and contribution to the national information; - Dissemination of national and regional statistical information, at a local level; - Local promotion of INE-PT s activities and products. The organisation has at the moment about 900 persons Customer and market requirements The information provided concerns all socio-economic areas. Most of the statistical products are determined by European Community obligations, other by national legislation. However, statistical production is also oriented by other customers needs, mostly defined by contract. 2. QUALINEST INE-PT s Quality Management System 2.1. Quality definition Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product that bears on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs of customers ( ISO 8402). This is the Quality definition adopted by INE Portugal. INE s Quality Program is focussed on customers satisfaction, both external and internal: on the one hand, the users of the satistics and studies we produce; on the other hand, the customers (units) that exist inside the organization, whose relationships can be seen as a customer/supplier relation. It is important to properly satisfy the needs of both external and internal customers Quality management and efforts undertaken The organisation started its quality program in January 1996, after a reorganization, when a small staff unit reporting directly to the top management of INE, was charged to prepare procedures and tools to seek quality improvement, according to the quality policy and specific objectives defined by the Management. INE-PT s Quality Policy and a description of its Quality System Quality organization and documentation, were included in the Quality Handbook and was distributed to all employees, in A Total Quality Management (TQM) approach is in implementation, and the main purpose is the continuous improvement of the quality of the statistical products, and of the services we render to our customers and users, involving all employees in this challenge. 3/5

4 The small team responsible for the implementation of the Quality System is supported by 23 so called Quality Poles, one in each unit/department or regional directorate, appointed by the heads of the units, on a voluntary basis, to work on the continuous quality improvement within their unit. They are the Quality animators. A Permanent Quality Committee, whose members are the three executive Directors, some Heads of Departments and Experts was created in This Committee meets several times a year, to evaluate and approve quality documents, and to discuss some quality problems in statistical production. The basic conditions for a successful quality program are the management leadership and commitment, and the motivation of all the personnel to improve quality in their working processes and environment. This is the reason why some actions involving everyone at the organization were launched. These actions were undertaken with the support of the Government s Secretariat for Administrative Modernisation. The three main objectives of QUALINEST are to improve continuously the quality of: The products the millions of figures we produce and the economic and social studies we undertake; The services rendered to our customers; The work and relations, at all levels of the organization. For each of these fields INE-PT has, or is preparing, standardized procedures. Starting with the products, there are defined procedures for each phase of the statistical production process, whose application is compulsory for everyone working in production. These procedures are included in the Statistical Production Procedures Handbook, prepared and distributed in Standardized Procedures for production quality control, and also for the information system and dissemination are being prepared. An internal quality auditors team was selected and received special training on quality audits. Regarding the services rendered to customers, there are specific procedures described in our Quality Chart, where clear commitments of the organization to its customers and information suppliers are defined. Following up the Quality Chart, several boxes for suggestions/complaints located at the halls of our buildings were brought into use, and a quarterly Quality Indicators Panel was implemented, with indicators concerning suggestions/complaints received, services rendered (offers, demands and supplies of statistical data), and timeliness of the dissemination of statistical information, for which quality standards were defined. 4/5

5 These indicators measure the deviation between the actual date of dissemination and the quality standard previously defined. Specific surveys to all the users of our libraries were launched and a small questionnaire to assess the quality of published information is inserted in all our publications. Related to the TQM approach, INE-PT intends to launch a survey on the opinion of our main customers and information users, in order to evaluate the relevance and usefullness of the statistics we produce. The third area for quality improvement is management. There is a Handbook of Procedures for Planning and Management Control; procedures for financial and human ressources are being concluded. In 1997 we launched a survey to evaluate the degree of satisfaction of all our employees as for their tasks, working conditions, training and other items related to management. INE-PT has a program for ongoing activities which include: Internal Quality Audits, focused on the statistical production process; The consolidation and revision of quality documentation; The implementation of quality reports for some statistical produts, according to the methods proposed by Eurostat; Quality training; Production of quality performance indicators on a quarterly basis. INE-PT won the Quality Award For Public Services in 1998, and had the opportunity to participate in the 2 nd Benchmarking on Public Services , sharing its experience with other Public Services. INE-PT s Quality Management System stands within the framework of the European Statistical System based on the European Foundation for Quality Management Model (EFQM). 5/5