Federal Government, is interested in the quality of the information which is used to make policy determinations. A few years ago the Subcommittee on Economic Statistics was organized. It is chaired by a member of the Council of Economic Advisers. The purpose of this Subcommittee is to examine various important data series which are used for macroeconomic policy determinations and to make recommendations for the improvement of those series. Major areas of concern to the Subcommittee have included statistics on prices, employment, inventories, corporate profits, and agricultural production. The Subcommittee is composed of data users and data producers. The members include the Council of Economic Advisers, the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve Board, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as data users; and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Department of Agriculture as data producers.

The Subcommittee operates by making recommendations to the various data-producing agencies concerning improvements in their programs, by participating with the OMB in reviewing agency budget submissions, and in the final analysis by making recommendations to the Economic Policy Group, itself, for improved statistical programs. The Subcommittee works very closely with the Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards in identifying issues and areas of concern and in evaluating alternative solutions.

The Federal Agency Council on Demographic
Censuses

In 1974, the Statistical Policy Division of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in conjunction with the Bureau of the Census, established an interagency committee to review plans for the 1980 census. When the statistical policy functions of OMB were transferred to the Department of Commerce responsibility for this Council was also shifted. Over 90 agencies serve on the Council, which was converted in mid-1978 to a standing Council to advise on both the decennial and mid-decade censuses.

The Council is not a policymaking body, but serves to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas. It provides a formal mechanism for all interested agencies to express their views on content, program data needs, geographic area requirements, reliability requirements, and so forth. While all agency needs cannot be met by the 1980 decennial census, this mechanism will give the Office of Federal Statistical

Policy and Standards a better idea of priority data needs over the next several years.

The Council as a whole meets infrequently, but there is a substructure of ten subject matter committees which work on expressed areas of concern. The ten committees cover the following: general demography, disability, health, education, race and ethnicity, income, housing, transportation, labor force, and occupational classification.

The Education Data Acquisition Council

At present, the Education Data Acquisition Council (EDAC), which was instituted in 1975, is the only permanent mechanism within the Education Division of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for the review of activities and concerns related to education data acquisition. EDAC advises the Assistant Secretary for Education on educational data policy. Development of the Annual Data Plan for the Education Division is its major operational task for each fiscal year. EDAC serves as a forum for detecting possible areas of duplication or even conflict among agencies or agency components regarding data acquisition. It recommends the inclusion or exclusion of data surveys or reporting systems in the Plan, and develops criteria and standards for approval of studies.

Component units of the Education Division, including the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Education, the National Center for Education Statistics, the Office of Education, and the National Institute of Education, as well as the DHEW Office for Civil Rights, are members. In addition, the Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards, and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation/Education in DHEW, participate in the EDAC policy council.

The Health Data Policy Committee

The Assistant Secretary for Health in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare established the Health Data Policy Committee in March 1974 to assist in obtaining policy guidance and in coordination of departmental health data requirements. In 1977, when the creation of the Health Care Financing Administration realigned the health care functions within the Department with HCFA reporting directly to the Office of the Secretary of HEW, the major coordinative function of the Committee ceased to exist. The Department is presently planning to replace this Committee with a Departmental Health Data Advisory Committee, whose function will be to coordinate statistical

activities within the Department and to advise the Secretary of HEW on crosscutting issues in health and health related statistics. A Health Statistics Coordinating Committee has also been established, within PHS, to assist the Assistant Secretary for Health in technical and operational coordination among the PHS agencies.

At the time this edition of the Framework goes to press, the new Departmental Committee has not been established. Since the function is very important, the balance of this description relates to the standing (but inactive) Health Data Policy Committee, which produced the Department's annual Health Statistics Plan. The Committee's charter emphasized the need for policies that would result in coordinated activities, complementary statistics, and minimized burden. The Committee addressed topics for which departmental policies and decisions were being formulated.

The Committee was co-chaired by the Director, Office of Policy Development and Planning and the Director of the National Center for Health Statistics. When active it met approximately once each month. All six Public Health Service agencies, the Social Security Administration, the Health Care Financing Administration, and other units of the Department were members, with the Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards, the Veterans Administration, and the Department of Defense as invited observers.

The Committee advised the Assistant Secretary for Health on specific data needed for current and long term planning and management, and provided a locus within the Department for liaison on matters dealing with health data.

The Advisory Council on Education Statistics

The Advisory Council on Education Statistics, mandated by P.L 93-380 and formally established on June 28, 1975, represents the first broad-based external committee to assist in the planning of Federal education statistics. It is advisory to both the Secretary and the Assistant Secretary for Education in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. It is composed of seven appointed members and four ex officio members (the Commissioner of Education, the Director of the National Institute of Education, the Director of the Bureau of the Census, and the Commissioner of Labor Statistics). The Assistant Secretary for Education is the presiding official and a nonvoting member. The seven appointed members are representatives of the public, from the educational and the statistical communities. The Council must meet at least four times a year. In

addition, it must submit a report on its activities to Congress in March of each year.

The Council reviews general policies for the operation of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and is responsible for establishing standards to ensure that the statistics and analyses disseminated by NCES are of high quality and are not subject to political influence.

The U.S. National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics

The U.S. National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics was originally established in 1949. In 1975, under P.L. 93-353, it was reconstituted. This Committee is advisory to the Assistant Secretary for Health in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and through him to the Secretary of the Department. There are 15 members on the Committee including representatives of the following disciplines: health statistics, epidemiology, and the provision of health services. The Committee is largely composed of members from the public. It is required to meet at least twice a year, but usually meets three or four times a year.

The Committee's charter states that it shall assist and advise the Secretary and Assistant Secretary to delineate statistical problems bearing on health and health services which are of national or international interest; to stimulate studies of such problems or to make investigations of such problems through subcommittees; to determine, approve, and revise the terms, definitions, classifications and guidelines for assessing health status and health services, their distribution and cost; to issue an annual report on the state of the Nation's health, its health services, their cost and distribution; and to make proposals for the improvement of the Nation's health statistics and health information systems.

The Executive Secretary of the Committee is an official of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), and the Committee's budget is included in that of NCHS.

The Federal Interagency Council on Energy
Information

The Federal Interagency Council on Energy Information is the principal interagency organization for energy statistics. Its main role is to improve the quality of Federal information on various aspects of energy-related data including reserves, resources and exploration, production, transportation, consumption, and industrial organization. The Interagency Council operates with the use of

specialized task forces which examine various aspects of the statistical system. Subjects discussed in the task forces have included the development of standard energy terminology, the development of a data element dictionary identifying data collected by the various agencies, and improvements in energy consumption data.

The Council is composed of the major energy statistics user and producer agencies. These include, among others, the Energy Information Administration in the Department of Energy, the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Mines, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Environmental Protection. Agency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards. The General Accounting Office participates as an observer in this group. At present, the Council is not separately funded, but relies upon a voluntary dedication of time by the members and member agencies.

In its setting of standard definitions and bringing together of data element dictionaries, and its updating of the Federal Energy Information Locator System, the Council serves an important coordination role. As the sponsor of studies in particular areas, e.g., energy consumption in the industrial sector, the Council provides a forum for discussing emerging concerns and making recommendations to particular agencies concerning improvements in their data systems so as to facilitate the needs of all users.

Collection Agencies

The agencies described as Core Multipurpose Collection agencies are those whose primary mission is the collection of statistics of broad interest both across departments and across subject areas, each of them being responsible for the regular collection, and publication of data in specified subject areas. In some cases extensive analysis of the data is also provided; hence there is an overlap with the analysis agencies in certain areas. As a group, the collection agencies account for a large proportion of the statistical activities of government agencies.

The agencies described as Subject Matter Multipurpose Collection agencies are those whose primary mission is the actual collection of statistics or the sponsorship of the collection of statistics of general interest, i.e., across departments, in one or two particular subject areas. There are seven agencies which do the collection and three which are primarily sponsors.

Core Multipurpose Collection Agencies Statistics Units, Economics, Statistics and Cooperatives Service, Department of Agriculture

Within the Economics, Statistics and Cooperatives Service (ESCS) of the Department of Agriculture (USDA), Statistics Units (formerly the Statistical Reporting Service) function as the principal statistical collection groups and consultants on statistical methods. These units collect a wide variety of current agricultural data for other USDA agencies on a reimbursable basis. Frequently these data are collected on a continuing basis. Formal cooperative agreements are maintained with 48 States through State departments of agriculture, universities, and

similar agencies that provide their own financing required for collecting and publishing data for substate geographic areas.

The ESCS also performs data collection on a reimbursable basis for Federal agencies outside USDA, but this type of work is dominated by two surveys for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the farm labor and hired workers surveys. ESCS plays a minor role as a data processing agent for State departments of agriculture.

Mission. The principal mission of the Statistics Units in ESCS is serving as suppliers of current general-purpose agricultural statistics at the national and State levels. In particular, ESCS is the supplier of the official national estimates of acreage, yield, and production of crops; stocks and value of farm commodities; and numbers and inventory of livestock. A secondary mission is developing statistical methodology and statistical standards with particular reference to agricultural statistics. In addition to the impact on the ESCS statistics, this activity takes the form of reimbursable work for the Agency for International Development in technical assistance and training.

Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce

The Bureau of the Census (Census) is one of the 12 independent operating units of the Department of Commerce. By almost any measure, Census is the most significant agency in the U.S. Federal Statistical System. Its most important activity, the decennial census of population, is specified in the Constitution and is the only program in the Federal Government which, in principle, attempts to contact every inhabitant of the country. (The Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration also collect information from a large proportion of the population.) Census has broad program authorization in Title 13, United States Code (the "Census Code"). Its budget ($94.9 million in 1977) and staff (4,444 permanent positions) are the largest among the statistical agencies.

Census officially serves as a consultant in the design of statistical undertakings of all Commerce agencies. In addition, Census performs special surveys, tabulations, and a variety of other statistical services for other Commerce agencies on a reimbursable basis such as special tabulations of export data for the Industry and Trade Administration. The most important statistical relationship within Commerce is the bilateral one between Census as a producer and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) as a consumer of statistics. This involves continual liaison relating to BEA needs in preparing and

interpreting the economic accounts of the United States in relation to the Census responsibility for planning of economic statistics programs.

A major additional portion of work done by Census is performed on a reimbursable basis for Federal agencies outside Commerce. The estimated cost of such work in 1977 was $62 million. Some projects require developing and conducting an individual survey; other projects use existing surveys as a vehicle for collecting additional data or for preparing special tabulations. The projects of most significant scale include the Health Interview Survey for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Annual Housing Survey for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Survey of Crime Victimization for the Department of Justice, longitudinal manpower data and labor force data from the Current Population Survey for the Department of Labor, and the National Travel Survey for the Department of Transportation. The Bureau prepares population estimates and projections for other agencies such as the Agency for International Development (AID) and the Department of State, and operates an international statistical training center funded by AID.

In addition, Census has numerous ties to State and local governments and the private sector. One example of this is the series of intergovernmental seminars on accessing statistical resources held for State and local government officials and representatives of university research services, chambers of commerce, and others. Another is the network of public advisory committees of experts on particular topics (such as small area data) or representing cognizant professional groups (such as the American Statistical Association). A third is the Federal/State cooperative program for population estimates and projections.

Mission. The primary Census mission is that of a general-purpose statistical collection agency meeting a very wide range of needs for data. Significant secondary missions derive from the Bureau's primary mission, and include demographic analysis; extensive research in statistical methodology, data processing techniques, and equipment; and programs to improve access and utilization of statistical information.

Census collects and publishes basic statistics concerning the population and the economy of the Nation in order to assist the Congress, the executive branch, and the general public in the development and evaluation of economic and social programs. Periodic censuses include the Census of Population and Housing which is taken at 10-year intervals and

the census of agriculture, the census of governments, and the economic censuses which are taken at 5-year intervals. Current surveys and programs are conducted to collect data on various economic activities and demographic changes. Data are collected and published on foreign trade, housing, construction, governments, certain agricultural commodities, industrial output, retail and wholesale trade, and transportation. The Current Population Survey provides data and reports on a variety of demographic characteristics as well as providing employment and unemployment data to the Bureau. of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor

Within the Department of Labor, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is the agency to which the Secretary of Labor's responsibility for collecting and analyzing data on labor and price statistics has been delegated. Labor statistics are defined in a very broad fashion and hence BLS has a clear mandate to produce general-purpose statistics and related analyses in this field.

BLS is also the principal statistical collection agency serving the statistical needs of other agencies within the Department of Labor. In particular, BLS functions as the collection agent for:

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration for its major survey of occupational safety and health, and

The Employment Standards Administration for surveys in connection with the Service Contract Act and Fair Labor Standards Act.

The BLS relationship to the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is more complex, but BLS provides statistical support for programs administered by ETA. In addition, ETA provides BLS funds for analytic work in conjunction with the development of the matrix of occupational employment by industry.

BLS also does reimbursable work for other agencies-particularly data collection. Generally, this occurs in cases where a requirement exists which is closely related to the BLS general-purpose program.

The BLS itself relies on other agencies for the collection of some of the data integral to its program. For example, the Census Bureau is the collecting agent for the Current Population Survey (which has funding from both BLS and Census). Furthermore, monthly and quarterly employment and earnings data and local area unemployment statistics, which

are compiled and published by the BLS, depend upon Federal-State program relationships. In specialized areas, such as farm labor, the BLS does not duplicate the activities of other agencies such as ESCS in USDA, which has the required specialization, in order to round out the basic labor statistics program.

In addition to programs for collecting employment and earnings data, the Occupational Employment Survey to obtain State level intercensal data is a significant Federal-State cooperative program. Participating States share in the financing and also in the design of optional detail for the individual States. BLS retains technical oversight and is the collection agent. Finally, BLS does intermittent data collection on a reimbursable basis for local government and private industry.

Mission. The primary BLS mission is to be the statistical collection agency for labor statistics, including price statistics. Its secondary missions, which are substantial, derive from the primary one.

One secondary mission is to be an analytic agency. A major analytic program is the Family Budget Studies, which makes use of data from many sources; these data are updated annually. Results of special analytic studies are published regularly by BLS in the Monthly Labor Review.

Simultaneously, BLS is the collection agency for the major program agencies of the Department of Labor. Through the Professional, Administrative, Technical, and Clerical (PATC) surveys, it is also a collection agency for the Civil Service Commission and the Office of Management and Budget, acting jointly as the President's pay agent.

The subject matter areas in which the BLS operates are generally those which fit logically within the broad category of labor statistics, i.e., employment, unemployment, occupational health and safety, employee compensation, wages, productivity and labor relations. In addition, prices (wholesale, retail, and export and import), while not usually classified as labor statistics, are clearly general-purpose statistics.

Subject Matter Multipurpose Collection Agencies

Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy

Prior to the Energy Organization Act of 1977, there were approximately 50 government agencies involved in the collection and/or analysis of energy data. That Act combined energy data collection and