1.1 Statistisches Bundesamt (statistical PSI DE objective A)

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1 1.1 Statistisches Bundesamt (statistical PSI DE objective A) Key message This case study demonstrates how the German Federal Statistical Office gradually moved to a pricing model where all data sets are available free of charge and without registration. This new pricing approach which has led to a substantial increase in PSI downloads has enabled the Statistical Office to better achieve its public task to widely disseminate its information within society. Also, the data is now easily accessible for commercial re-users. The drivers for change were mainly of contextual nature including the U-turn in Eurostat s pricing approach and the changing legal framework. Yet, internal factors such as high administrative costs for invoicing and licensing as well as the recognition that most citizens were not willing to pay for statistical PSI thus endangering the public task of wide dissemination played an important role in the transition to the zero cost model Key economic indicators Indicator Year 2004 Year 2010 PSB Employees Budget Pricing model Online publications GENESIS-Online Turnover from PSI sales Online publications GENESIS-Online Cost recovery rate Re-use Downloaded tables Standard accounts Premium accounts 2, M EUR Pay per use 0 EUR for selected products 50 EUR standard account 500 EUR premium account Discounts for educational area 110,000 EUR (2003) 78,000 EUR (estimated) (Discounts for universities etc. are subtracted from this estimation.) < 0.1% 130,300 1, , M EUR Free of charge 0 EUR for all products 50 EUR standard account 500 EUR premium account Discounts for educational area 0 EUR 152,000 EUR < 0.1% 1,093,000 3,

2 1.1.3 Introduction The German Federal Statistical Office ( Statistisches Bundesamt ) is an independent public administration within the sphere of the Federal Ministry of the Interior ( Bundesministerium des Innern ). In the last two decades, the Statistical Office s PSI distribution and pricing model has been modified several times, mainly due to contextual changes. Gradually, the public sector body shifted to a model where all PSI can be downloaded free of charge and without registration. The free provision of PSI, but also the continuous improvements (with regard to technical features and scope) of the PSI database GENESIS-Online have led to a substantially increase re-use thereby better achieving the Statistical Office s public task to widely disseminate its information. This case study falls under objective A of the study because the German Federal Statistical Office has moved to a zero-cost regime. Statistical PSI falls into the POPSIS category of other PSI sectors Organization, governmental structure, tasks The Federal Statistical Office s public task is to provide and disseminate statistical information, which is objective, independent and of high quality. This information is made available to everybody: politicians, government, public administration, businessmen and citizens. The Federal Law on Statistics ( Bundesstatistikgesetz BstatG ) specifies the duties and responsibilities of the Federal Statistical Office. The Statistical Office carries out its tasks independently within the sphere of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. In line with the federal structure of the Germany, federation-wide surveys of official statistics ( Bundestatistik ) are implemented in cooperation between the Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the 16 federal states ( Länder ). That means that in most cases federal statistical surveys are organized in a decentralized manner. This often implies a division of labor where the statistical offices at the level of the Länder collect and process the data in their territory and where the main function of the Federal Statistical Office is the coordination and compilation of Länder-level data sets. In 2010, the German Federal Statistical Office employed some 2,689 persons for the collection, processing, presentation and analysis statistical information in its central office in Wiesbaden as well as in its branches in Bonn and Berlin. There have been substantial efforts to reduce the workforce by more than 10% within the last decade. 2

3 The Federal Statistical Office is fully funded by the federal state budget. The total budget has been steadily growing in recent years (see figure below). Due to severe budget constraints, the federal government has stopped this trend fixing the Statistical Office s target budget for 2011 at M EUR. Labor costs amounted to 71% of the Statistical Office s total budget in The Statistical Office does not specifically measure its re-use facilitation costs. There is currently one FTE involved in the operation of a re-user helpdesk and in invoicing activities. Figure 1: Estimated total budget of the Federal Statistical Office ( ) The Federal Statistical Office had estimated revenue of 1.2 M EUR in 2010, mainly from customized services for other public sector bodies, fines, sales of paper publications as well as from fees for the PSI database GENESIS-Online. In 2010, the revenues from GENESIS- Online fees reached 152,000 EUR, i.e. less than 0.1% of the total budget The Statistical Office s pricing history Before the emergence of the internet, the Federal Statistical Office distributed its data via print publications. In 1996, the public sector body then launched its web portal End of that decade, in a context of a strongly emerging e-commerce sector, the Federal Statistical Office decided to follow the example of Eurostat launching its own a data shop. Re-users could purchase pdf-versions of print publications as well as raw data in xls-format on a pay-per-use basis. The ordering of print publications was also possible. However, only a selection of products was available in this first online shop. The demand was relatively modest: In the years 2000 till ,000 purchase orders were registered yielding a total turnover of 425,000 EUR 205,000 EUR from sales of electronic products and the rest from print publications. In 2003, the online shop had a total turnover of 110,000 EUR. The customers were mainly companies; citizens were often not willing to 3

4 pay for statistical information. All sales revenues from the online shop were kept at federal level, i.e. not redistributed to the statistical offices at Länder level. The revenues were used to cover costs for printing and distribution of print publications and the maintenance of the online-shop platform. In April 2004, the Statistical Office concluded a contract with the private service provider SFG-Servicecenter Fachverlage for the data distribution via a new professionalized online data shop. The new shop now contained all publications of the Statistical Office, including approximately 350 online publications provided free of charge, as well as new searching functions. Recognizing the low willingness to pay for statistical information, more and more publications were put online free of charge. In 2005, already 2,600 documents were freely available generating 356,000 downloads. In the same year, 15,000 customers had registered and purchased a product in the online shop Drivers for change In the mid 2000s, several contextual and internal drivers have led to a change in the Federal Statistical Office s charging policy: Already in October 2004, Eurostat made a U-turn in its dissemination policy abandoning the data shops and adopting free dissemination. With that reorientation in Eurostat s pricing policy, the marketing concepts of the national statistical institutes largely lost their importance. Indeed, data sold by national statistical offices was at the same time available free of charge at Eurostat. Consequently, the Federal Statistical Office had to change its pricing policy. The political and legislative framework in Germany became more and more favourable for the provision of easy access to PSI, potentially at no cost for re-users. o In 2006, the German federal government launched the so-called egovernment programme 2.0 which inter alia aimed at abolishing access barriers and creating additional incentives to increase re-use of public data. o With the Re-use of Information Act ( Informationsweiterverwendungsgesetz IWG ) of 13 th December 2006, Germany transposed the EU Directive 2003/98/EC into national law. o A budgetary note submitted by the Federal Ministry of the Interior for the 2008 budget clearly permitted the distribution of publications and other information material at reduced fees or free of charge. 4

5 Internally, the Statistical Office recognized that the sales revenues from the online shop could only cover the administrative costs for licensing, invoicing and accounting. The shop did not generate any significant profit that could have been reinvested in the quality of the Statistical Office s services. Recognizing the low willingness of citizens to pay for statistical information, it became clear that charging for statistical information somewhat prevented the Statistical Office from its public task to ensure a wide dissemination of its data. Indeed, the Federal Statistics Law includes the public task to make results of federal statistics available to all parts of the society. By 2006, internet had become the no. 1 dissemination channel; print publications were rapidly losing in importance. Thus, the Statistical Office had to rethink its dissemination strategy. In 2006, the Federal Statistical Office put in place a new communication strategy for 2012, which inter alia re-oriented the public sector body s PSI charging policy. The new pricing model which is in place today is presented in the next two sections The Statistical Office s new pricing model In 2006, all downloads in the online shop of the Federal Statistical Office that was subsequently renamed publications service were made available free of charge. The Statistical Office s dissemination and communication strategy now focused on the internet as main data distribution channel. The portfolio of print publications was drastically reduced to approximately ten publications a year which have to generate sufficient demand to guarantee cost recovery. The free provision of online publications aimed at a widest possible dissemination of statistical information, notably reaching new target groups such as pupils or students that were unwilling to pay for the data and therefore did not access it in the old pricing regime. The barrier to re-use was further lowered by a liberalization of the copyright. Indeed, since 2006 the reproduction and free distribution of the Statistical Office s are permitted provided source is mentioned. The new pricing model also foresees that all statistical data provided via the PSI web portal GENESIS-Online is accessible free of charge. The portal and its pricing model are further assessed in the following section. In addition to the provision of online/print publications and raw data, the Federal Statistical Office also offers on specific request customized data services ( Sonderaufbereitungen ) 5

6 to public and private customers. These services are charged for on a cost recovery basis with no profit for the Statistical Office. Typically, the Statistical Office employs temporary staff to fulfil the requested data services. All costs are recovered from the client. These customized data services are mainly used by ministries and large companies that are looking for very specific data mash-ups or analyses The GENESIS-Online database The internet portal of the Federal Statistical Office has become a reference for statistical information in Germany with approximately six million views per month (2010). Since July 2002, the Statistical Office s website offers a database service for statistical raw data, the so-called GENESIS-Online database ( Users can search for statistical data and design statistical tables according to their needs. In January 2004, the Statistical Office introduced a first pricing model for GENESIS-Online. Users that wanted to access the entire database needed to pay a yearly fee of 50 EUR (customers from the educational area got a 50% discount). For 500 EUR a year, a premium account was available which gave access to additional functionalities such as the processing of statistical data in own databases. A guest login at no charge was still available, however not all datasets were freely accessible with a guest status. End of 2004, 1,801 standard accounts at 50 EUR p.a. and 36 premium accounts at 500 EUR p.a. had been sold yielding total turnover of approximately 78,000 EUR 1. In the same year, 130,271 statistical tables were downloaded from GENESIS-Online (including free downloads by guest users ). The functionalities and scope of GENESIS-Online were continuously improved. In 2004, the PSI database already contained approximately 100 statistics. In 2006, the metadata offering was improved and reports on quality and methodology of statistics were added. Also, users having purchased a standard or premium account could now automate their PSI downloads via software systems. In October 2008, a new version of GENESIS-Online was launched. Several measures have improved the user-friendliness of the database: In addition to new navigation and search features, it was now possible to visualize results in charts and regionally structured tables as well as on a map of Germany. In total, GENESIS-Online now provided 90 M values from 175 statistics. Further improvements in 2009 included the linkage of thematic pages and of press 1 Due to discounts for example for universities the total sales revenues are a little lower. 6

7 releases with the GENESIS-Online database. Also, Web Services making certain GENESIS- Online functions accessible for automated processing were introduced for registered customers. Registered users could now use a WSDL service to integrate the relevant interfaces into their own applications and to use, under program control, the services offered by the Statistical Office. End of 2010, 200 M values from 184 statistics were available on GENESIS-Online. Figure 2: GENESIS-Online database In October 2008, the GENESIS-Online pricing model was adjusted introducing the new principle that any statistical information (GENESIS tables) should be available free of charge. That means that all users now access the same data stock; paying registered users do not get more or other data. Users have to register only if they want to benefit from additional personalized services, such as permanent storage of table structures for retrieval, retrieval of large volumes of data, or web services. Those services are available on a chargeable basis only. The two account offers a standard account at 50 EUR and a premium account at 500 EUR have been maintained. Educational institutions receive a 50% discount. For registered clients with a standard account, GENESIS-Online provides the following additional services: Time series-oriented tabular presentation of data cubes Storing frequently required and individually adjusted table structures / time series specifications in the user s own directory ( My tables / My time series ) Retrieval of comprehensive tables (in batch mode) Individual setting options for using the database 7

8 Using the Webservice (automated data retrieval) For registered clients with a premium account, GENESIS-Online additionally provides: Download of data cubes in a linearized export format. 10 user-ids. The premium access is primarily intended for business and institutions that process the data of the Statistical Office in their own systems for their own purposes. The fees for the standard and premium accounts (total revenues 2010: 152,000 EUR) cover the re-use facilitation costs incurred by the Statistical Office for the additional service offering. As depicted below, the free availability of all statistical PSI has led to a substantial increase in data downloads, thereby achieving the Statistical Office s public task of a wide dissemination of its information. The yearly table downloads increased from 130,271 in 2004 to 1,092,938 in Figure 3: GENESIS-Online: table downloads per quarter ( ) Clearly, the bulk of the additional demand for statistical PSI comes from re-users that download the data for free without purchasing a standard or premium account. The number of guest visits has also strongly increased from 135,379 in 2004 to 2,473,546 in However, these figures are somewhat distorted by visits of search engine robots that regularly screen the website since no registration is required (October 2008). 8

9 On the other hand, the number of customers holding a standard account à 50 EUR p.a. could be kept relatively constant. End of 2007, there were 3,390 standard accounts, while end of ,955 customers held a standard account of the GENESIS-Online database. Figure 4: GENESIS-Online: Standard customers ( ) The number of premium customers paying a yearly fee of 500 EUR has even increased from 55 end of 2007 to 69 end of Figure 5: GENESIS-Online: Premium customers ( ) The re-use of the statistical PSI The GENESIS-Online database allows for free and easy access to statistical PSI and thereby for innovative re-use. End of 2010, there were 2,955 entities paying for a standard GENESIS account and 69 entities holding a premium account. 9

10 A 2009 user survey showed that 24% of the Statistical Office s customers and users served by the public sector body s information services were private companies (see figure below). Figure 6: Customers of all information services in total (2009) The structure of the registered GENESIS-Online users is depicted in the following figure. Figure 7: Registered GENESIS-Online users (2011) 64% of all GENESIS-Online accounts belong to businesses, 2% to media and 3% to information service providers. It is, however, unclear how many of these companies re-use 10

11 and re-distribute the PSI commercially. Indeed, the Statistical Office does not track the reuse of its PSI and has no clear picture of the re-use market. One of the Statistical Office s commercial re-users is Feri EuroRating Services AG, a European rating agency specialized in investment market and product ratings. The Bad Homburg based company is also active in the field of economic research and forecasting. With its 50 employees the German SME serves about 1,000 clients worldwide with a focus on Germany, France and the UK. Statistical information being a major input for Feri EuroRating Services AG, the company benefits of the German Statistical Office s progressive PSI policy. The German Open Data community also welcomes the Statistical Office s PSI policy change as well as the broad functionalities of the GENESIS-Online database. Community members underline that the Statistical Office is one of the most advanced public sector bodies in Germany in terms of Open Data. Statistical PSI is regularly used as an input for data mashups for various applications. 11