Upload
others
View
4
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Commission européenne, 2920 Luxembourg, LUXEMBOURG - Tel. +352 4301-1
Office: BECH - Tel. direct line +352 4301-37123
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat
EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROSTAT Directorate A: Resources Legal affairs; Document management
REPORT ON THE EUROSTAT 2019 USER SATISFACTION SURVEY
2
Index
1. Background – about the survey .......................................................................................................... 5
2. Main outcomes ................................................................................................................................... 8
3. Results of the USS 2019 .................................................................................................................... 14
3.1 General information.................................................................................................................... 14
3.1.1 Who uses Eurostat's European statistics? ........................................................................... 14
3.1.2 To do what? ......................................................................................................................... 15
3.2 Information on quality aspects ................................................................................................... 20
3.2.1 What are the perceived quality and user friendliness of Eurostat products? ..................... 20
3.2.2 Overall quality ...................................................................................................................... 22
3.2.3 Timeliness ............................................................................................................................ 25
3.2.4 Completeness ....................................................................................................................... 27
3.2.5 Comparability ....................................................................................................................... 29
3.3 Trust in European statistics ......................................................................................................... 31
3.4 Information on dissemination aspects ....................................................................................... 34
3.4.1 Access to and understanding of European statistics on Eurostat Website ......................... 35
3.4.2 Release calendar .................................................................................................................. 43
3.4.3 Metadata and methodological information ........................................................................ 45
3.4.5 User support ........................................................................................................................ 49
3.5 Overall quality of data and services ............................................................................................ 50
3.6 Comparison with previous survey............................................................................................... 51
4. Messages from the users .................................................................................................................. 52
Annex 1 - Statistical areas ................................................................................................................. 53
Annex 2 - Breakdown of respondents by country of work place...................................................... 54
Annex 3 - Example of calculations for the question on overall quality ............................................ 55
3
Index of Charts
Chart 1. Number of survey respondents, 2011 - 2019 ........................................................................... 5
Chart 2. Distribution of respondents by user group, in % ...................................................................... 6
Chart 3. Assessment of overall data quality in 2017 and 2019 .............................................................. 9
Chart 4. Assessment of overall timeliness in 2017 and 2019, in % ....................................................... 10
Chart 5. Assessment of overall completeness in 2017 and 2019, in % ................................................. 10
Chart 6. Assessment of overall comparability in 2017 and 2019 ......................................................... 11
Chart 7. User types, in % ....................................................................................................................... 14
Chart 8. Use of European statistics by statistical domains and user types, in % .................................. 15
Chart 9. Uses of European statistics by user types, in % ...................................................................... 16
Chart 10. Importance of statistics by user types, in % .......................................................................... 16
Chart 11. Importance of statistics for different uses, in % ................................................................... 17
Chart 12. Importance of statistics 2011-2019, in % .............................................................................. 18
Chart 13. Frequency of use by user types, in % .................................................................................... 18
Chart 14. Frequency of use by statistical area, in % ............................................................................. 19
Chart 15. Frequency of use 2011-2019, in % ........................................................................................ 20
Chart 16. Assessment of quality of Eurostat products, in % ................................................................. 21
Chart 17. Assessment of quality of products, 2011-2019, in % ............................................................ 21
Chart 18. Assessment of friendliness of Eurostat products, in % ......................................................... 22
Chart 19. Assessment of overall quality per statistical area, in % ........................................................ 23
Chart 20. Overall data quality 2011-2019, in % .................................................................................... 24
Chart 21. Comparison with other statistical data producers by user types, in % ................................. 24
Chart 22. Assessment of timeliness per statistical area, in % ............................................................... 26
Chart 23. Assessment of overall timeliness in 2011-2019, in % ........................................................... 27
Chart 24. Assessment of completeness of European statistics per statistical area, in % ..................... 28
Chart 25. Assessment of overall completeness in 2011-2019, in % ..................................................... 29
Chart 26. Assessment of comparability of European statistics per statistical area, in % ..................... 30
Chart 27. Assessment of overall comparability in 2011-2019, in % ..................................................... 31
Chart 28. Trust in European statistics by user types, in % .................................................................... 32
Chart 29. Trust in European statistics in 2012-2019, in % .................................................................... 33
Chart 30. Trust in European statistics by importance, in % .................................................................. 33
Chart 31. Assessment of overall quality of European statistics by trust, in % ...................................... 34
Chart 32. User satisfaction with the Eurostat website, in % ................................................................. 35
Chart 33. Assessment of the access to and understanding of European statistics, in % (Is it easy to
access and to understand European statistics?) ................................................................................... 35
Chart 34. Assessment of the Eurostat website content by user types, in % ........................................ 36
Chart 35. Eurostat’s website content 2011-2019, in % ........................................................................ 36
Chart 36. Assessment of technical characteristics of the Eurostat website, in % ................................ 37
Chart 37. Assessment of technical characteristics of Eurostat’s website 2011-2019, in % .................. 38
Chart 38. Assessment of Eurostat’s digital publications and visualisation tools, in % ......................... 39
Chart 39. Users of Eurostat’s digital publications and visualisation tools, in % ................................... 40
Chart 40. Users of Eurostat’s experimental statistics, in % .................................................................. 41
Chart 41. Usefulness of Eurostat’s experimental statistics, in % .......................................................... 42
Chart 42. Assessment of the information on microdata access services on the Eurostat website, in %43
4
Chart 43. Assessment of the information on microdata access services on the Eurostat website in
2016 and 2019, in % .............................................................................................................................. 43
Chart 44. Awareness of the release calendar among user types, in % ................................................. 44
Chart 45. Awareness of release calendar 2011-2019, in % .................................................................. 44
Chart 46. Assessment of sufficiency and relevance of information in the release calendar by user
types, in % ............................................................................................................................................. 45
Chart 47. Sufficiency and relevance of information in the release calendar 2011-2019 ..................... 45
Chart 48. Use of metadata by user types, in % ..................................................................................... 46
Chart 49. Usage of metadata 2011-2019 .............................................................................................. 46
Chart 50. Metadata accessibility, in % .................................................................................................. 47
Chart 51. Easiness of access to metadata 2011-2019, in % .................................................................. 47
Chart 52. Assessment of sufficiency of metadata for the different types of users, in % ..................... 48
Chart 53. Sufficiency of metadata 2011-2019, in % .............................................................................. 48
Chart 54. Satisfaction with user support, in % ...................................................................................... 49
Chart 55. Satisfaction with user support 2011-2019 ............................................................................ 49
Chart 56. Overall satisfaction with the quality of the data and services, in % ..................................... 50
Chart 57. Overall quality of data and services 2012-2019, in % ........................................................... 50
Chart 58. Changes in perception of Eurostat's data and services quality, in % .................................... 51
5
1. Background – about the survey
Eurostat’s mission is to provide high quality statistics on Europe. In order to measure the
degree to which it meets its obligations towards its users, Eurostat carried out a general User
Satisfaction Survey (USS) over the period of April – July 2019. It was based on the agreed
model questionnaire for the European Statistical System and was designed to obtain a better
knowledge about users, their needs and satisfaction with the services provided by Eurostat.
The first survey of this kind was held in 2007 and then repeated in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013,
2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. The USS 2019 is, therefore, the 10th of a general nature.
The present survey covered four main aspects:
information on types of users and uses of European statistics,
quality aspects,
trust in European statistics,
dissemination of statistics.
The survey was carried out online, with a link on Eurostat website. It was launched on 29
April and was open until 9 July. To guarantee a high participation Eurostat used to send an
invitation to all users registered on the Eurostat website. However, due to the entry into force
of the new Regulation 2018/1725 on personal data protection in the EU institutions1, Eurostat
had to clean the list of users that were registered on the Eurostat website and to revise the
way they were contacted. The list of users of Eurostat website now includes only about 24
000 users which could be contacted instead of 172 000 in 2017 and this had a big influence
on the number of responses. More channels to advertise the survey were also used (Facebook,
Collaboration in Research and Methodology for Official Statistics (CROS) portal) but this
could not compensate for the huge reduction of the number of users who could be contacted
directly. Moreover, the invitation was sent to 600 researchers, who are using Eurostat’s
microdata. In the end Eurostat received 1009 replies, compared to the 3000 – 4800 of the
previous editions of the survey.
Chart 1. Number of survey respondents, 2011 - 2019
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32018R1725
4247
3101 3279
48394447
3038
4558
1009
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019
6
The questionnaire was similar to the one used until 2016, allowing for a comparative analysis
over time. The questionnaire used in 2017 was a shorter one, focusing only on the quality of
the data and services provided by Eurostat. Changes were made in the sections where the
situation has evolved since 2016, as in the questions concerning the dissemination products.
However, on top of having far less replies, the distribution of the respondents among different
categories of users was also different from the past, due to the changes in the procedures to
inform them about the survey. The most notable change was a larger share of respondents
working in the European Commission or in other European and international institutions.
This makes the results somewhat less comparable.
Chart 2. Distribution of respondents by user group, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction
surveys
When analysing the results, users were grouped differently than in the past, so results cannot
be compared by user groups but only on an overall level. Such change was implemented to
follow the outcome of the Digital communication, User analytics and Innovative products
(DIGICOM) project2. Users were classified as “light”, “intermediate” or “advanced”. A
similar classification of users was tried in 2017, by distributing the traditional groups of users
in the three categories, but the results were not conclusive. This time users were asked to put
themselves in each category by using the following definitions:
2 The project aims to modernize the communication and dissemination of European statistics, by developing
innovative products and services, based on new technological opportunities, experiences in the European
Statistical System and the concrete needs of users. An in-depth analysis of European statistics users was
conducted in DIGICOM, concluding that it is meaningful to group users based on two predefined criteria –
frequency and complexity of use – resulting in a new proposed grouping of European statistics users.
46
24
18
6 6
46
23
17
86
43
25
19
85
44
25
19
6 6
44
25
19
6 6
45
24
19
7 6
52
18
21
7
2
38
13
24 23
1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Students, academic andprivate users
Business Government EU and internationalorganisations
Others
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019
7
Light user: e.g. use data visualisations, graphs and statistical articles which are easy
to read to get interpreted data; use data to support opinions in discussions, share
data on social media, use data in class or want to explore what is available out of
curiosity; visit the Eurostat website on a weekly to less than monthly basis; medium to
low statistical literacy and computer proficiency.
Intermediate user: e.g. look for raw data / predefined tables or work with existing data
visualisations and ready-to-use interpretations in publications/reports to support
work, for personal interest (e.g. to verify data in news articles) or to get a basic
understanding of what is available for future reference; use Eurostat data on a weekly
to monthly basis; have a medium statistical literacy and computer proficiency.
Advanced user: e.g. use the database to mainly obtain raw data and adjust table and
data to their needs; draw their own conclusions based on specific data for their job;
download data very frequently (even daily); have a high statistical literacy and
computer proficiency.
This new system worked as differences could be consistently noted among the three classes
of users.
A separate specific survey was carried out for press and media users. However, some media
users might have nonetheless responded to the general user satisfaction survey. They might
have identified themselves as belonging to “other users”.
The results presented in this report constitute a summary of the most interesting and
compelling findings, supported by graphs. The report also shows the main differences
compared to the previous survey (2016 or 2017 depending on the question) and an evolution
of the users' opinion since 2011, date of the first comparable survey. Even if comparisons of
the results have to be taken with caution, for the reasons explained above, the majority of the
results show a stability in the opinion of the respondents with small variations in the degree
of satisfaction.
8
2. Main outcomes
General aspects
In 2019 the survey was open on line for about two months getting 1009 replies,
compared to the 3000 – 4800 of the previous editions of the survey.
Looking at the distribution of responses by user groups, a larger share of respondents
was working in the European Commission or in other European and international
institutions, 23.1% compared to 6-8% of the previous surveys. All other groups were
less represented than in the past. Looking at user types, most of the respondents
identified themselves as advanced users (44.2%), followed by intermediate users
(35.6%) and light users (20.2%).
Like in the past, respondents indicated that “Population and social conditions” and
“Economy and finance” were the two areas they used most frequently. The former
received from 16.3% to 18.4% of responses whereas the latter ranged from 15.1% to
17.2% across all user types.
Differently from the past, “monitoring or formulating policy” (31.9%) and “general
background information” (23.5%) were the most common purposes for all users
combined. However, the purposes of statistical data use varied by types of
respondents reflecting different needs of each type.
More than three quarters of participants (77.3%) indicated European statistics to be
either “essential” or “important” for their work, the highest share ever registered.
Accounting for a breakdown by purposes, statistical data was most significant for
“Econometric model building and forecasting”, where it was indicated to be
“essential” by 56.6% of respondents and “important” by 35.1%. "Preparing
legislation", “Monitoring or formulating policy”, “Research” and "Re-dissemination
of statistical data" also got combined shares of "essential" and "important" exceeding
80%.
Around one third of respondents (33.6%) stated they used European statistics in their
daily or weekly activities, 32.8% did so on a monthly basis and the remaining 33.6%
at other intervals.
User assessment of the quality and user friendliness of Eurostat’s products was
generally positive, approaching or exceeding the 60% of "very good/good"
judgements for most products, with Eurostat press releases (65.9%), Digital
publications (65.5%), and the Eurostat database (63.5%) receiving the best scores.
Eurostat was interested to check if users continue to trust European statistics in a
period when European citizens sometimes persist to be sceptic about the role and
functioning of the EU institutions. As in previous years and even more this time,
responses were overwhelmingly positive, with 96.0% of users stating they trusted
European statistics greatly or tended to trust them. Only 3.1% said they did not trust
statistics and 0.9% had no opinion.
9
Trust seems related to the importance and the perceived quality of statistics. Those
respondents, for which the statistics are of value, trust more the statistics than those
for whom statistics are not so important. The respondents who trust more European
statistics are also more convinced of their overall good quality.
Quality aspects
Overall quality
The level of satisfaction with the overall quality of European statistics remained high,
with 58.2% of all users considering the quality to be “very good” or “good” (1.4
percentage points less than in 2017) and 19.9% considering it as “adequate”.
Chart 3. Assessment of overall data quality in 2017 and 2019
Source: Eurostat 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
At a more disaggregated level, “Population and social conditions” received the
highest positive evaluation this time (59.9% of “very good/good” answers).
“Economy and finance” and “Policy indicators” were also close to 60%, with shares
of 59.7% and 59.5%, respectively.
On the other side of the spectrum, "Science, technology and innovation",
“Environment statistics” and “Industry, trade and services" were among the ones with
lowest share of positive views on overall quality, with 53.0%, 53.2% and 54.2%,
respectively. Nevertheless, the differences between all statistical domains (excluding
“other statistics”) were the smallest registered since the survey started.
When analysed by user types, intermediate and advanced users were more satisfied
(60.4% and 58.0% of “very good” and “good” answers) compared to light users
(53.7%).
The quality of Eurostat’s data fares very well compared with other statistical data
producers. The majority of participants perceived the quality as better or same,
resulting in a combined share of 66.8%. Among other positive sides of Eurostat, users
highlighted better quality and reliability of the data provided; more complete, more
timely and harmonised data; better coverage and comparability; better metadata;
friendly and easier to use interface; and the independence from national politics.
59.6
58.2
20.7
19.9
15.2
16.2
4.6
5.7
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
2017
2019Very good/Good
Adequate
Poor/Very poor
No opinion
10
Timeliness
On average 52.5% of users saw timeliness of European statistics as “very good” or
“good”, 24.1% as “adequate” and 18.4% as “poor” or “very poor”, shares very close
to those of 2017.
Chart 4. Assessment of overall timeliness in 2017 and 2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
From a statistical domain perspective, “Economy and finance” was again rated as
having the best timeliness across all areas, followed this time by “Policy indicators”
and “Fishery statistics”, accounting for 57.4%, 56.1% and 55.6% of “very good/good”
responses, respectively.
Looking at the user types, as for all quality dimensions intermediate and advanced
users are quite more satisfied than light users. The share of “very good” and “good”
responses from intermediate users was 54.8%, from advanced users a similar 54.1%
and from light users only 42.6 %.
Completeness
On average for all areas, 50.1% of users saw data completeness as “very good” or
“good”, 24.1% thought it was “adequate” and 18.9% perceived it as “poor” or “very
poor”, values that are again close to those of 2017.
Chart 5. Assessment of overall completeness in 2017 and 2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
“Economy and finance” once again stood out as the best rated domain, followed by
“Policy indicators” and "Population and social conditions" (54.5%, 54.1% and 51.3%
of “very good/good” replies, respectively). The least performing area is this time
“Transport statistics” with 39.8% of “very good” or “good”.
52.4
52.5
24.4
24.1
16.7
18.4
6.6
5.1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
2017
2019 Very good/Good
Adequate
Poor/Very poor
No opinion
51.0
50.1
25.4
24.1
17.0
18.9
6.5
6.9
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
2017
2019 Very good/Good
Adequate
Poor/Very poor
No opinion
11
From the user type perspective, there is again a notable difference when comparing
advanced and intermediate users with light users (51.5%, 51.0% and 44.1% of “very
good/good” ratings, respectively).
Comparability
Comparability was the single quality dimension with the best score this time. The
average of “very good/good” responses across all areas was 53.1%, 18.9% saw
comparability as “adequate” and 15.7% did not feel positive about it. Comparability
was the quality dimension that saw the most notable variation compared to 2017, with
an increase of 4.2 percentage points in the shares of “very good” and “good”
responses. That makes the satisfaction share for 2019 the highest ever registered
Chart 6. Assessment of overall comparability in 2017 and 2019
Source: Eurostat 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
“Economy and finance”, “Fishery statistics” and "Policy indicators" were the three
domains with more than 55% of the respondents being satisfied, getting shares of
55.8%, 55.6% and 55.2% of “very good” and “good”, respectively. For this quality
dimension, the differences among the domains were smaller than for other
dimensions, "Regional statistics" having still 47.2% of satisfied respondents.
Once more intermediate and advanced users were more positive than light users.
54.1% and 54.0% of respondents from the first two types judged comparability as
“very good” or “good”, versus 48.4% of those identifying themselves as light users.
Dissemination aspects
The overall satisfaction with the Eurostat website, not counting the respondents not
giving an opinion, is 58.1% with another 34.9% being partly satisfied. The values are
similar to those of 2016 but with 2.2 percentage points less of satisfied users. The
share of those not giving an opinion is now of 5.5%.
On the Eurostat website, the respondents identifying themselves as advanced users are
the least satisfied (57.0%) even if the shares are almost equal for the three groups,
with 58.5% for the light users and 59.2% for the intermediate users.
More than half of the respondents (53.0%) found it easy to access and to understand
the statistics on the Eurostat website and more than another third (35.4%) partly easy.
8.0% were not satisfied while the remaining 3.6% did not express an opinion. The
results are practically identical to the ones of 2016.
48.9
53.1
24.0
18.9
15.8
15.7
11.4
12.3
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
2017
2019 Very good/Good
Adequate
Poor/Very poor
No opinion
12
As in previous years, respondents were very positive about the content of Eurostat
website. On average 67.7% of all respondents were satisfied with the content, which
is 2.9 percentage points more than in 2016 and almost the highest value ever
registered.
Intermediate and advanced users were more satisfied that light users when accessing
and understanding the statistics and advanced users were quite more satisfied with the
content of the website (71.5%) than those from the other two types (65.2% for the
intermediate users and 63.7% for the light users).
Respondents were less positive on the website’s technical characteristics; results are
slightly worse than in 2016 and uneven. Some technical characteristics, like clarity of
information and performance and speed, get more than half of "very good/good"
judgements (53.3% and 53.0% respectively) while for others like the help texts and
facilities or the search facilities, the share of satisfied users does not reach 40% and
even without taking into account those not giving an opinion, it would not reach 50%.
User assessment of Eurostat's digital publications and visualisation tools was rather
positive, with well more than 60% of respondents, who expressed an opinion, judging
the tools as “very good/good”, up to the 71.1% of the digital publication on “Air
traffic in the European Union”. 30.1% to 58.9% of the survey respondents used the
different publications and tools but the percentage of those who actually gave their
opinion was about 9 - 12% points smaller.
On an overall level, once again respondents from advanced users giving an opinion
are more satisfied with the publications and tools (71.6%), compared to intermediate
users (65.2%) and light users (63.0%).
A new question was added this year, on the usefulness of Eurostat’s experimental
statistics, a domain that Eurostat has recently started to develop and that did not exist
in 2016. The shares of those who gave an opinion was around 10% - 20% of the
respondents, from 11.6% (117 respondents) for “World heritage sites statistics” to
21.8% (220 respondents) for “Statistics on the joint distribution of income,
consumption and wealth” and “Income and consumption: comparing social surveys
and national accounts”. The majority of those who gave an opinion found
experimental statistics useful. The shares of “very good/good” answers went from
55.8% for the Quality Adjusted Labour Input (QALI) to 66.4% for the Labour market
transitions statistics.
On an overall level, also for this question respondents from advanced users giving an
opinion are more satisfied (65.1% of “very good/good”), compared to intermediate
users (56.9%) and light users (63.2%).
Users were asked for the second time this year to rate the information on microdata
access services on the Eurostat website. Almost half of the respondents (47.0%) gave
an opinion, so showing that they use the microdata. The share was higher, as it could
be expected, for the respondents from advanced users (52.7%) than for intermediate
users (44.8%) and light users (38.2%). However, advanced users seem to be also more
13
exigent for this kind of services, as their satisfaction (54.9% of “very good/good”)
was in this case lower than for intermediate users (60.9%) and light users (59.0%).
Compared to 2016, the share of those considering the information on microdata access
services as least good registered an increase of 2.8 percentage points. In their
comments respondents seemed to consider not only the information on microdata
access but also the access procedure and the set of microdata available.
Users’ awareness of Eurostat’s release calendar, which provides information on the
dates and times of Euro indicators’ releases and other news releases and publications,
increased by 3.3 percentage points compared to 2016 to reach 34.6% of the
respondents. Among user types, advanced and intermediate users, with respective
shares of 38.8% and 36.2% were much more aware than light users (22.5%), which
could be expected.
A large part of the users who are aware of the release calendar, are satisfied with its
content (67.3%), and another 18.6% said the calendar satisfied their needs partly.
Metadata was used by more than half of the respondents (57.6%), well more than in
2016 (48.5%), with a big difference among the three types of users. Only 30.4% of
light users declared to use metadata, versus 56.0% of intermediate users and 71.3% of
advanced users.
The share of metadata users who find it easily accessible went slightly down to less
than a half (48.4%) this year and 45.2% found metadata sufficient for their purposes.
This is 8.9 percentage points less than in 2016 and the largest registered decrease of
all questions. Another 40.8% of users found metadata partly sufficient and 7.2%
stated that metadata was not sufficient.
Looking at user types, intermediate users were surprisingly a bit more satisfied with
the metadata accessibility and sufficiency (51.2% and 45.7%) than advanced users
(48.4% and 45.6%), while light users were the least happy (38.7% and 41.7%).
Leaving out those with no opinion or not aware of the user support function, the
degree of satisfaction with it remains the highest of all services, with 75.0% of the
respondents saying that they were either “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the
support service provided by Eurostat, the highest value ever reached. All types of
users were very satisfied, advanced users (76.5%) a bit more than light users (74.0%)
and intermediate users (73.5%).
The level of overall satisfaction with Eurostat’s data and services was very high with
70.1% of all respondents evaluating data and services as “very good” or “good”,
19.5% as “adequate” and only 3.3% as “poor” or “very poor”. The small difference
with the highest value ever reached in 2017 is only due to a larger number of
respondents not giving an opinion. Advanced users were again more satisfied (72.9%)
than intermediate (68.5%) and light users (66.7%).
14
3. Results of the USS 2019
3.1 General information
3.1.1 Who uses Eurostat's European statistics?
Looking at the distribution of responses by user types (Chart 7), a bit less than half of the
respondents identified themselves as advanced users, a bit more than one third as
intermediate users and only a fifth as light users.
Chart 7. User types, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
As in previous years, geographical distribution of European statistics’ users remained
strongly tilted towards the EU countries with 87.0% of respondents coming from the 28
Member States and remaining 13.0% from non-EU countries. On a country level, the biggest
proportion came from Belgium (17.7%), which was followed by Italy (9.7%), Germany
(8.1%) and Spain (7.1%). It is worth noting that the high percentage of users coming from
Belgium can be explained by their relationship to the European institutions based in Brussels.
Participants were also asked to specify which statistics they used most frequently and given
an option to pick more than one answer. As seen from Chart 8, “Population and social
conditions” and “Economy and finance” remained the two dominating areas across all user
types. The former domain received from 16.3% to 18.4% of responses whereas the latter
ranged from 15.1% to 17.2% across user types.
The least utilised statistics were “Digital economy and society”, “Transport statistics” and
“Fishery statistics”, with approximate average shares below 4%. When compared to the
results of previous years, the order remained roughly the same.
20.2
35.6
44.2
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Light users Intermediate users Advanced users
15
Chart 8. Use of European statistics by statistical domains and user types, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
3.1.2 To do what?
The users of European statistics were also asked to indicate the purpose of their interest in it.
Multiple responses were available. As shown in Chart 9, “monitoring or formulating policy”
(31.9%) and “general background information” (23.5%) were the most common purposes for
all users combined. A bigger share than in the past of institutional users can justify the high
share of use for monitoring or formulating policy. However, a closer look at the purposes
reveals a different nature of statistical data use by types of respondents.
For advanced users the second purpose is “econometric model building and forecasting”
(22.0%) and “research” is also more mentioned (14.8%) while “general background
information” less (16.4%) than for the other types of users. On the contrary, for light users
“general background information” is the most common use (35.3%), which is normal.
17.1
16.3
16.0
18.4
15.7
17.2
15.1
15.6
10.3
11.5
10.0
10.2
9.3
10.2
8.8
9.5
8.5
9.4
8.9
7.8
6.8
4.6
7.5
7.1
5.9
4.1
7.0
5.8
5.6
5.7
6.1
5.2
5.1
5.9
4.5
5.4
5.0
4.3
5.0
5.3
3.9
4.3
3.9
3.8
3.8
3.9
3.9
3.8
1.4
1.1
1.5
1.4
1.3
1.7
1.8
0.8
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediate users
Advanced users
Population and social conditions Economy and finance
Policy indicators Industry, trade andservices
International trade statistics Regional statistics
Environment statistics Energy statistics
Science, technology and innovation Agriculture statistics
Digital economy and society Transport statistics
Fishery statistics Other
16
Chart 9. Uses of European statistics by user types, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
3.1.2.1 How important are the statistics?
Looking at the importance of European statistics, more than three quarters of participants
(77.3%) indicated them to be either “essential” or “important” for their work (Chart 10).
As it could be expected, statistics are more important for advanced users, 91% of their
respondents declaring them as essential or important, compared to the intermediate users
(76.8%) and to the light users (47.5%).
Chart 10. Importance of statistics by user types, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Accounting for a breakdown by purposes, statistical data was most significant for
“Econometric model building and forecasting”, where it was indicated to be “essential” by
24.0
33.1
34.5
31.9
35.3
25.6
16.4
23.5
5.4
10.9
22.0
14.7
7.4
12.0
14.8
12.3
7.4
5.0
2.7
4.5
3.4
4.2
3.6
3.8
6.4
3.9
2.5
3.8
2.9
1.1
1.6
1.7
2.5
1.1
1.1
1.4
3.4
1.7
0.2
1.4
2.0
1.4
0.7
1.2
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Light users
Intermediateusers
Advancedusers
All users
Monitoring or formulating policy General background informationEconometric model building and forecasting ResearchMarket analysis Re-dissemination of statistical dataOther NegotiationsPreparing legislation Decision-making in businessMedia use
13.7
33.1
54.5
38.7
33.8
43.7
36.5
38.6
52.5
23.1
9.0
22.8
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Light users
Intermediateusers
Advancedusers
All users
Essential
Important
less important
17
56.6% of respondents and “important” by 35.1%. "Preparing legislation", “Monitoring or
formulating policy”, “Research” and "Re-dissemination of statistical data" also got combined
shares of "essential" and "important" exceeding 80%.
European statistics were considered least essential for “market analysis” and “general
background information” (34.6% and 33.4% share of responses, respectively).
Chart 11. Importance of statistics for different uses, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Chart 12 below shows the importance of statistics over time, throughout the period between
2011 and 2019. The importance of statistics has increased this year, with more than three
quarters of participants (77.3%) reporting them to be either “essential” or “important” for
their work, reaching its highest value ever.
43.1
56.6
52.6
52.3
44.9
44.1
39.7
36.9
35.4
34.6
33.6
31.7
37.0
35.1
34.6
35.0
37.7
41.7
34.9
33.3
38.5
41.7
35.0
38.1
19.9
8.4
12.8
12.7
17.4
14.2
25.4
29.8
26.2
23.7
31.4
30.2
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
All purposes
Econometric model building and forecasting
Preparing legislation
Monitoring or formulating policy
Research
Re-dissemination of statistical data
Decision-making in business
Negotiations
Media use
Market analysis
General background information
Other
Essential
Important
Less important
18
Chart 12. Importance of statistics 2011-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
3.1.2.2 How often are European statistics used?
Knowing the purpose of use and importance of statistical information, it is interesting to see
how frequently statistics were used. As Chart 13 shows, almost one third of users (33.6%)
stated they used European statistics in their daily or weekly activities, 32.8% did so on a
monthly basis and the remaining 33.6% at other intervals. When compared to the results of
the survey carried out for media users, statistical information was used more frequently by
press and media representatives, with a percentage of daily and weekly usage exceeding 70%.
Advanced users are the most frequent users of European statistics with 48.6% using them
daily or weekly.
Chart 13. Frequency of use by user types, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
The frequency also differed by statistical domains (Chart 14). Highest daily use was found in
the areas of “Policy indicators” (16.8%), “Economy and finance” (16.2%) and “Regional
statistics” (15.6%). On the opposite, least frequently utilised domains contained “Fishery
62.9%67.3% 67.5% 66.4% 66.5%
69.5%
77.3%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019
1.5
5.0
17.0
9.6
11.3
21.7
31.6
24.0
32.4
42.3
25.3
32.8
54.9
30.9
26.0
33.6
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Light users
Intermediateusers
Advancedusers
All users
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
At other intervals
19
statistics”, “Agriculture statistics” and “Environment statistics”. The differences, however,
were rather small.
Chart 14. Frequency of use by statistical area, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Chart 15 illustrates the trend of the frequency of use between 2011 and 2019. More
specifically, it shows the percentage of respondents who use Eurostat's statistics on daily,
weekly or monthly basis. Overall, the use of the statistics has increased (66.4%), reaching
almost the peak of 2012 and 2013 when two thirds of respondents (66.6% - 66.9%) used
statistics at least on a monthly basis.
14.3
16.8
16.2
15.6
15.4
15.2
12.5
11.8
11.4
10.4
10.0
9.5
9.5
9.4
8.9
27.3
27.1
27.7
26.1
28.9
24.8
25.9
26.1
26.8
25.6
26.1
23.8
24.7
30.0
26.7
30.1
30.7
29.6
26.1
28.4
36.0
33.3
30.9
31.7
26.2
32.2
28.6
33.2
31.9
33.3
16.5
15.9
15.1
20.2
16.1
14.4
18.6
18.4
18.7
20.1
17.2
11.9
18.4
13.8
6.7
5.7
3.6
5.8
6.9
6.2
2.4
2.9
6.3
4.9
8.5
6.7
14.3
6.8
7.5
11.1
6.1
5.9
5.6
5.0
5.0
7.2
6.8
6.6
6.5
9.1
7.8
11.9
7.4
7.5
13.3
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Average for all areas
Policy indicators
Economy and finance
Regional statistics
Population and social conditions
Digital economy and society
Industry, trade and services
International trade statistics
Transport statistics
Science, technology andinnovation
Energy statistics
Other
Environment statistics
Agriculture statistics
Fishery statistics
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Quarterly
Annually
Otherintervals
20
Chart 15. Frequency of use 2011-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
3.2 Information on quality aspects
In accordance with Eurostat’s mission statement, quality considerations play a central role in
both its corporate management and day-to-day statistical operations. It is thus important to
find out how users assess the quality of the European statistics produced and disseminated by
Eurostat and of the products released by Eurostat. In addition to the overall data quality, the
survey looked at three different aspects of data quality that are considered as the most
important for Eurostat - timeliness, completeness and comparability.
3.2.1 What are the perceived quality and user friendliness of Eurostat products?
Respondents were asked to assess the quality and friendliness of Eurostat products.
As for quality, the highest evaluations were received by Eurostat press releases (65.9%) and
Digital publications (65.5%), followed this year by the Eurostat database (63.5%). For all the
other tools the rate of "very good/good" replies were also at around 55% or above.
65.0% 66.6% 66.9%63.9% 62.9% 62.9%
66.4%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019
21
Chart 16. Assessment of quality of Eurostat products, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Looking at the evolution over time of the assessment of the quality of products in Chart 17, a
substantial stability can be observed with small variations each year for the two products
released during the overall period of observation.
Chart 17. Assessment of quality of products, 2011-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
The perceived quality of Press releases in 2019 for the respondents in the USS 2019 has
increased by 6.1 percentage points since 2016, up to 65.9%, which is now in line with the
opinion reported in the survey for media users (68.1%), whereas in the past this difference
was much wider.
53.6
55.2
56.4
58.4
62.2
63.1
63.5
65.5
65.9
67.0
33.0
23.5
23.4
21.9
16.5
19.0
16.3
16.0
15.5
18.6
13.4
21.3
20.2
19.7
21.4
17.9
20.2
18.6
18.7
14.5
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Other products
Eurostat social media channels
Eurostat visualisation tools
Eurostat micro data
Statistics Explained
"What's New" articles
Eurostat database
Digital publications
Eurostat press releases
Other Eurostat publications
Very good/Good
Adequate
Very poor/Poor
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
90.0%
100.0%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019
Statistics Explained
Press releases
22
As for the user friendliness of products, the highest evaluations were received by Digital
publications (63.2%), followed by Eurostat press releases (63.1%) and “What’s New” articles
(61.4%). For all the other products the rate of "very good/good" replies were also above
50%.
Chart 18. Assessment of friendliness of Eurostat products, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Respondents could also give comments on the quality of the products. Only few did so. A
couple pointed to the difficulty to find the the data used for the statistics explained. It was
also suggested to publish more info on social media.
3.2.2 Overall data quality
As in the past, this year evaluations were generally positive with close to six out of 10
respondents viewing the overall quality of statistics as “very good” or “good”. As can be seen
from Chart 19, the level of satisfaction with the overall quality of European statistics
remained high, with 58.2% of all respondents considering the quality to be “very good” or
“good” and 19.9% considering it as “adequate".
51.0
51.1
53.8
56.3
57.9
58.7
59.7
61.4
63.1
63.2
26.6
25.4
31.1
23.4
22.0
19.7
24.6
19.5
18.7
18.8
22.3
23.4
15.1
20.3
20.1
21.6
15.7
19.2
18.1
18.0
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Eurostat micro data
Eurostat database
Other products
Eurostat visualisation tools
Eurostat social media channels
Statistics Explained
Other Eurostat publications
"What's New" articles
Eurostat press releases
Digital publications
Very good/Good
Adequate
Very poor/Poor
23
Chart 19. Assessment of overall quality per statistical area, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
At a more disaggregated level, “Population and social conditions” received the highest
positive evaluation (59.9% of “very good/good” answers). “Economy and finance” and
“Policy indicators” were also close to 60%, with shares of 59.7% and 59.5%, respectively.
“Population and social conditions” was for once the highest rated area by overtaking
“Economy and finance”, which continues to get the best scores for the other quality
dimensions. Given the interest in economic, financial and social developments in Europe
during the recent years and the fact that these domains are used most frequently, high
evaluations represent positive views of European statistics users. A more detailed analysis of
the two domains revealed that “Government finance statistics”, “Living conditions and social
protection” and “Population” came to the top of the list receiving 65.9%, 62.8% and 62.0%,
respectively, of “very good/good” assessments.
On the other side of the spectrum, "Science, technology and innovation", “Environment
statistics” and “Industry, trade and services" were among the ones with lowest share of
positive views on overall quality, with 53.0%, 53.2% and 54.2%, respectively. Nevertheless,
53.0
53.2
54.2
55.6
56.1
56.3
57.4
57.8
57.8
58.4
59.5
59.7
59.9
61.9
58.2
27.4
24.2
19.7
22.8
26.0
20.6
21.3
17.8
21.6
24.0
19.8
16.0
19.8
11.9
19.9
14.0
18.9
18.4
16.1
12.2
20.0
18.4
13.3
16.1
12.0
14.6
17.9
15.0
7.1
16.2
5.5
3.7
7.7
5.6
5.7
3.1
2.9
11.1
4.6
5.6
6.1
6.3
5.3
19.0
5.7
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Science and technology andinnovation
Environment statistics
Industry, trade and services
Energy statistics
Transport statistics
Agriculture statistics
International trade statistics
Fishery statistics
Regional statistics
Digital economy and society
Policy indicators
Economy and finances
Population and social conditions
Other
Average for all areas
Very good/Good
Adequate
Poor/Very poor
No opinion
24
the differences between all statistical domains (excluding “other statistics”) were the smallest
registered since the survey started.
When analysed by user types, intermediate and advanced users were more satisfied (60.4%
and 58.0% of “very good” and “good” answers) compared to light users (53.7%).
Compared to 2017, the share of those considering the overall quality at least good registered a
small decrease of 1.4 percentage points. Chart 20 shows that there has not been a lot of
difference with the overall data assessment in the period from 2011 to 2019, with similar
values for all years.
Chart 20. Overall data quality 2011-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction
surveys
Given that there are several producers of European statistics, respondents were also asked to
compare the quality of Eurostat’s data with that of national statistical institutes (NSIs) and
other international organisations. The results are presented in Chart 21.
Chart 21. Comparison with other statistical data producers by user types, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
57.3 58 57.6 59.656.6 59.2 59.6 58.2
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Better Same Worse No opinion
All users
Light users
Intermediateusers
Advancedusers
25
As can be seen, the majority of participants consider the quality to be better or the same,
resulting in a combined share of 66.8%. Among other positive sides of Eurostat, users
highlighted better quality and reliability of the data provided, more complete, more timely
and harmonised data, better coverage and comparability, better metadata, friendly and easier
to use interface, and the independence from national politics.
Only few respondents (6.1%) considered Eurostat’s data of a worse quality when compared
to other sources. Respondents mentioned shorter time series, data changes not signalled,
limited coverage of non-EU sources, data timeliness, missing data and a worse website as
major drawbacks due to which they may prefer other data sources. It is interesting to note that
on topics like data timeliness and the quality of the website, users may have contradictory
opinions.
It is also worth noting that more than a quarter (27.1%) of the respondents did not have an
opinion on the issue, suggesting that a relatively large share of Eurostat statistics' users either
do not use other data sources or find it hard to formulate such comparisons.
3.2.3 Timeliness
The aspect of information timeliness reflects the length of time between its availability and
the event or phenomenon it describes. According to the results, which are presented in Chart
22, on average 52.5% of users saw timeliness of European statistics as “very good” or
“good”, 24.1% as “adequate” and 18.4% as “poor” or “very poor. Timeliness this time is not
the quality dimension, of the three investigated, with the best performance as in the past,
because respondents judged comparability slightly better.
From a statistical domain perspective, “Economy and finance” was again rated as having the
best timeliness across all areas, followed this time by “Policy indicators” and “Fishery
statistics”, accounting for 57.4%, 56.1% and 55.6% of “very good/good” responses,
respectively.
26
Chart 22. Assessment of timeliness per statistical area, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Looking at the user types, as for all quality dimensions intermediate and advanced users are
quite more satisfied than light users. The share of “very good” and “good” responses from
intermediate users was 54.8%, from advanced users a similar 54.1% and from light users only
42.6%.
The assessment of the overall timeliness this year is almost the same as in the previous survey
in 2017. In fact, as Chart 23 demonstrates, there have been very limited variations during the
entire period of observations.
44.9
45.2
45.5
47.2
48.9
50.5
50.6
51.7
53.1
53.6
54.0
55.6
56.1
57.4
52.5
28.1
19.0
33.3
27.8
26.3
26.6
25.0
23.0
26.3
25.6
23.2
26.7
24.3
20.5
24.1
20.9
9.5
16.3
18.9
21.1
19.7
20.1
20.5
18.8
16.0
18.4
8.9
13.9
17.1
18.4
6.1
26.2
4.9
6.1
3.7
3.2
4.3
4.8
1.9
4.8
4.4
8.9
5.7
5.0
5.1
0 20 40 60 80 100
Industry, trade and services
Other
Transport statistics
Energy statistics
Environment statistics
Regional statistics
Science and technology and…
Population and social…
Agriculture statistics
Digital economy and society
International trade statistics
Fishery statistics
Policy indicators
Economy and finances
Average for all areas
Very good/Good
Adequate
Poor/Very poor
No opinion
27
Chart 23. Assessment of overall timeliness in 2011-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction
surveys
3.2.4 Completeness
Completeness is the extent to which all statistics that are needed are available. It is usually
described as a measure of the amount of available data from a statistical system compared to
the amount that was expected to be obtained. Chart 24 presents the results of user views on
data completeness in 2019.
On average for all areas, 50.1% of users saw data completeness as “very good” or “good”,
24.1% thought it was “adequate” and 18.9% perceived it as “poor” or “very poor”. “Economy
and finance” once again stood out as the best rated domain, followed by “Policy indicators”
and "Population and social conditions" (54.5%, 54.1% and 51.3% of “very good/good”
replies, respectively). The least performing area is this time “Transport statistics” with 39.8%
of “very good” or “good”.
53.2 51.3 50.953.7
51.4 53.2 52.4 52.5
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019
28
Chart 24. Assessment of completeness of European statistics per statistical area, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
From the user type perspective, there is again a notable difference when comparing advanced
and intermediate users with light users (51.5%, 51.0% and 44.1% of “very good/good”
ratings, respectively).
As Chart 25 shows, compared to 2017 there was a very small decrease (0.9 percentage
points) in the “very good” and “good” assessments of data completeness this year, which
makes completeness the quality dimension with the lowest overall score. Again, as can be
seen in Chart 25, the differences in the user satisfaction with this indicator in the last nine
years were quite small.
38.1
39.8
43.9
44.5
44.8
45.6
45.8
47.0
47.5
48.9
50.7
51.3
54.1
54.5
50.1
28.6
30.9
23.3
28.9
31.2
25.9
24.7
24.4
25.6
22.2
24.6
25.3
20.9
20.2
24.1
16.7
23.6
21.7
21.6
17.6
20.9
23.7
22.6
21.3
15.6
18.0
17.0
18.0
18.3
18.9
16.7
5.7
11.1
5.0
6.4
7.7
5.8
6.1
5.6
13.3
6.6
6.4
7.0
7.0
6.9
0 20 40 60 80 100
Other
Transport statistics
Energy statistics
Regional statistics
Digital economy and society
Industry, trade and services
Environment statistics
Science and technology and…
Agriculture statistics
Fishery statistics
International trade statistics
Population and social…
Policy indicators
Economy and finances
Average for all areas
Very good/Good
Adequate
Poor/Very poor
No opinion
29
Chart 25. Assessment of overall completeness in 2011-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction
surveys
3.2.5 Comparability
Comparability is the extent to which differences between statistics from different
geographical areas, non-geographic domains or over time can be attributed to differences
between the true values of statistics.
As seen from Chart 26, comparability was the single quality dimension with the best score
this time. The average of “very good/good” responses across all areas was 53.1%, 18.9% saw
comparability as “adequate” and 15.7% did not feel positive about it. In this case “Economy
and finance”, “Fishery statistics” and "Policy indicators" were the three domains with more
than 55% of the respondents being satisfied, getting shares of 55.8%, 55.6% and 55.2% of
“very good” and “good”, respectively. For this quality dimension, the differences among the
domains were smaller than for other dimensions, "Regional statistics" having still 47.2% of
satisfied respondents.
For comparability, once more intermediate and advanced users were more positive than light
users. 54.1% and 54.0% of respondents from the first two types judged comparability as
“very good” or “good”, versus 48.4% of those identifying themselves as light users.
51.4 49.6 49.9 50.9 49.352.2 51 50.1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019
30
Chart 26. Assessment of comparability of European statistics per statistical area, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Comparability was the quality dimension that saw the most notable variation compared to
2017, with an increase of 4.2 percentage points in the shares of “very good” and “good”
responses. That makes the satisfaction share for 2019 the highest ever registered.
42.9
47.2
47.6
48.0
50.6
51.2
51.2
51.7
52.1
52.2
54.1
55.2
55.6
55.8
53.1
21.4
22.9
22.0
24.4
24.4
22.4
19.5
18.3
18.9
18.4
19.6
17.5
20.0
15.2
18.9
9.5
18.3
17.1
13.0
15.0
12.8
16.6
13.3
16.8
17.3
15.1
14.6
6.7
17.1
15.7
26.2
11.5
13.4
14.6
10.0
13.6
12.7
16.7
12.1
12.1
11.3
12.7
17.8
11.9
12.3
0 20 40 60 80 100
Other
Regional statistics
Science and technology and…
Transport statistics
Agriculture statistics
Digital economy and society
Industry, trade and services
Energy statistics
Environment statistics
International trade statistics
Population and social…
Policy indicators
Fishery statistics
Economy and finances
Average for all areas
Very good/Good
Adequate
Poor/Very poor
No opinion
31
Chart 27. Assessment of overall comparability in 2011-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
Some respondents gave also some general comments on the quality of European statistics,
even if a specific request for such comments was not in the questionnaire, mostly adding
them in the general comments. The majority of the comments referred to the necessity to
improve the data timeliness, especially for those data which a have a delay of one year or
more. However, some users recognised that timeliness had improved for some data compared
to 2017. Eurostat should also try to minimise the number of missing data, due to lack of
figures for some countries and to confidentiality. Data inconsistencies were also mentioned,
over time, among regions and in mirror statistics. When the methodology changes users
would like to have this reflected also in past data for comparability reasons.
3.3 Trust in European statistics
In a period when European citizens sometimes persist to be sceptic about the role and
functioning of the EU institutions, it was interesting to check if users continue to trust the
statistics produced by Eurostat. Results are presented in Chart 28.
As in previous years, responses were overwhelmingly positive, with 96.0% of users stating
they trusted European statistics greatly or tended to trust them. Only 3.1% said they did not
trust statistics and 0.9% had no opinion. When looking at the distribution of responses by
user types, the share of respondents trusting European statistics is very similar for all types,
none going below 93.6% and with a peak at 98.0% for advanced users.
48.1 47.5 48.9 50.3 49.5 50.5 48.953.1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019
32
Chart 28. Trust in European statistics by user types, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Despite the potential bias that comes from the fact that Eurostat's data users should generally
trust the data they use, the constantly high rate of positive answers over time demonstrates a
very good and encouraging sign on the confidence of users in the statistics disseminated by
Eurostat.
Looking at the responses, some of the reasons while people trust the statistics are that they
are based on harmonised methodology and subject to quality standards and thorough
validations. The fact that Eurostat is professional and is not politically influenced also helped
to gain user trust.
As in past years, the most recurrent comment of those few who tend not to trust European
statistics is because they depend on national statistics. Some then pointed out discrepancies
with national data and reported implausible data and errors. Few also felt the lack of a clear
source for the original data.
Users were also explicitly asked to suggest ways to improve trust. Common suggestions
included more checks on the data provided by the countries and more transparency in the
methodology used, including a better harmonisation of the methodology used by the
countries. Few also suggested giving information on changes and updates in the data and
explaining abnormal data and outliers. In one case, the peer reviews were mentioned as an
important instrument to improve the quality and trust in European statistics.
Between 2012 and 2016 there had been a continuous but very small decrease in trust in
European statistics, whereas the survey 2019 shows an increase in this indicator, up to an
overall 96.0%, the highest result ever (Chart 29).
96.0
93.6
95.0
98.0
3.1
4.9
3.9
1.6
0.9
1.5
1.1
0.4
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediate users
Advanced users
Trust them greatly/ Tend to trustthem
Tend not to trustthem / Distrustthem greatly
No opinion
33
Chart 29. Trust in European statistics in 2012-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
To deepen our analysis on the trust in statistics, we have checked whether there is some
relation between importance, trust and perceived quality of statistics. As can be seen in Chart
30 the degree of trust in European statistics depends on the importance that the statistics have
for the users. Those respondents, for which the statistics are of greater value, trust more the
statistics than those for whom statistics are not so important, who tend more often not to
express an opinion.
Chart 30. Trust in European statistics by importance, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
The respondents who trust more European statistics are also more convinced of their overall
good quality, as it appears in Chart 31. In particular, those respondents who trust European
statistics greatly are 11.4% points more satisfied with the data quality than the average of all
users, while the few respondents who tend not to trust or distrust greatly the statistics, are also
much more critical towards their quality.
95.3% 94.9% 94.4% 94.2% 93.8% 96.0%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019
97.7
95.1
96.2
90.5
66.7
96.0
2.1
3.9
2.7
7.1
0.0
3.1
0.3
1.0
1.1
2.4
33.3
0.9
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
They are essential
They are important
They are of value asbackground information
They are of minor importance
They are of no use
Average
Trust them greatly/ tend to trustthem
Tend not to trustthem / distrustthem greatly
No opinion
34
Chart 31. Assessment of overall quality of European statistics by trust, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
3.4 Information on dissemination aspects
This section covers a number of aspects concerning dissemination of European statistics
(content and characteristics of the Eurostat website; access to the European statistics; release
calendar; metadata; visualisation tools; experimental statistics; access to microdata and user
support provided by Eurostat).
Various aspect of the Eurostat website are investigated, starting with a general question on
the satisfaction with the "Eurostat website" which is targeted to assess the more global level
of satisfaction of the overall Eurostat dissemination offer. Indeed, for consumers of European
statistics the term "Eurostat website" groups the various dissemination products and tools
Eurostat publishes via the website. The degree of satisfaction expressed by those who gave an
opinion is 58.1% satisfied and 34.9% partly satisfied, as presented in Chart 32. The rate of the
respondents who declared to be satisfied went slightly down by 2.2 percentage points
compared to 2016. This might indicate that the users would wish to get a more modern
version of the website, which is, even with some improvements, still the one introduced in
2014, and indeed Eurostat is preparing a new website to be released soon. Furthermore, it is
interesting to note that in the question on the "changes in perception of the overall quality of
data and services provided by Eurostat", the website was the single item with the highest
share of respondents (20.7%) perceiving that it had improved compared to the time of the
previous survey. This could confirm that although users admit that the website has improved
they would like to get a new one.
In this case, the respondents identifying themselves as advanced users are the least satisfied
(57.0%) even if the shares are almost equal for the three groups, with 58.5% for the light
58.2
69.6
47.8
19.8
14.3
0.0
19.9
10.8
29.6
29.7
14.3
33.3
16.2
14.9
16.1
46.5
71.4
16.7
5.7
4.7
6.5
4.0
0.0
50.0
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Average all users
Trust them greatly
Tend to trust them
Tend not to trust them
Distrust them greatly
No opinion
Very Good/Good
Adequate
Poor/Very poor
No opinion
35
users and 59.2% for the intermediate users. It might be that advanced users are also more
exigent with the website.
Chart 32. User satisfaction with the Eurostat website, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
3.4.1 Access to and understanding of European statistics on the Eurostat Website
More than half of the respondents (53.0%) found it easy to access and to understand the
statistics on the Eurostat website and more than another third (35.4%) partly easy. 8.0% were
not satisfied while the remaining 3.6% did not express an opinion. The results are practically
identical to the ones of 2016.
Here again intermediate and advanced users are more satisfied that light users. This is
normal, as they should know better how to navigate the website and extract the statistics they
need.
Chart 33. Assessment of the access to and understanding of European statistics, in % (Is
it easy to access and to understand European statistics?)
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
58.1
58.5
59.2
57.0
34.9
35.0
33.5
36.0
7.0
6.6
7.3
7.0
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediate users
Advanced users
YesPartlyNo
53.0
49.5
53.5
54.3
35.4
33.8
36.2
35.4
8.0
9.3
7.8
7.6
3.6
7.4
2.5
2.7
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediate users
Advanced users
Yes
Partly
No
36
Users were also asked to evaluate the content of the Eurostat database. As in previous years,
responses were very positive (Chart 34). On average 67.7% of all respondents were satisfied
with the content, which is 2.9 percentage points more than in 2016 and almost the highest
value ever registered (Chart 35).
Advanced users were quite more satisfied with the content of the website (71.5% of “Very
Good/Good”) than those from the other two types (65.2% for the intermediate users and
63.7% for the light users).
Chart 34. Assessment of the Eurostat website content by user types, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Chart 35. Eurostat’s website content 2011-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
In another question, users were requested to judge its technical characteristics (Chart 36).
Results are slightly worse than in 2016 and uneven. Some technical characteristics, like
clarity of information and performance and speed get more than half of "very good/good"
67.7
63.7
65.2
71.5
24.1
25.5
27.0
21.1
5.6
3.9
6.7
5.6
2.6
6.9
1.1
1.8
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediate users
Advanced users
Very good / Good Adequate Poor / Very poor No opinion
63.8% 68.0%63.8% 63.0%
65.3% 64.8%67.7%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019
37
judgements (53.3% and 53.0% respectively) while for others like the help texts and facilities
or the search facilities, the share of satisfied users does not reach 40% and even without
taking into account those not giving an opinion, it would not reach 50%. It can be deduced
that these attributes still require further attention and improvements. In the case of the alert
and notification mechanisms almost half (49.8%) of the respondents did not give an opinion
as many do not use or do not need this service.
Chart 36. Assessment of technical characteristics of the Eurostat website, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Chart 37 shows that the results have not changed much over time but going down this time,
another sign of the necessity to renovate the website.
53.3
53.0
48.6
46.6
38.8
36.7
26.1
24.3
24.1
22.8
26.5
27.8
27.2
14.7
18.0
17.9
20.6
22.5
18.2
24.4
9.5
4.4
5.0
8.0
4.5
15.3
11.8
49.8
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Clarity of information
Performance / Speed
Database extraction tools
Navigation to required info
Help texts / Help facilities
Search facilities
Alert and notification
Very good / Good
Adequate
Poor / Very poor
No opinion
38
Chart 37. Assessment of technical characteristics of Eurostat’s website 2011-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
The following questions were to rate Eurostat's digital publications and visualisation tools.
The satisfaction is presented in the Chart 38, and is generally very positive, with well more
than 60% of respondents, who expressed an opinion, judging the tools as “very good/good”,
up to the 71.1% of the digital publication on “Air traffic in the European Union”.
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
90.0%
100.0%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019
Performance/speed
Database extraction tools
Navigation
Search facilities
Help
Alert and notification
39
Chart 38. Assessment of Eurostat’s digital publications and visualisation tools, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
It is worth noting that there is a considerable difference between all the survey respondents,
the respondents who used Eurostat's digital publications and visualisation tools, and the
respondents who used them and chose to express an opinion. As demonstrated in Chart 39,
30.1% to 58.9% of the survey respondents used the different publications and tools, “Key
figures on Europe” being the most widely used, followed at distance by “Digital economy &
society in the EU” (41.1%). However, as it can be seen in the same chart, the percentage of
users who actually gave their opinion in the question concerned was about 9 - 12% points
smaller than the number of users for each of the publications and tools. This means that in the
case of “Air traffic in the European Union” the assessment was given by only 20% of users
who filled in the survey, but which represents still a significant absolute number of 204
respondents.
On an overall level, respondents from advanced users giving an opinion are again more
satisfied with the publications and tools (71.6% of “very good/good”), compared to
intermediate users (65.2%) and light users (63.0%).
A comparison with the past surveys is not possible for this question as the tools and
publications are almost all different from 3 years ago, a sign that Eurostat varies them
according to the importance of the topics and to the interest of the users over time.
71.1
69.4
68.8
68.1
67.6
65.2
63.8
63.1
18.1
18.6
14.3
20.0
17.8
18.8
24.9
24.3
10.8
12.0
16.9
11.9
14.6
16.0
11.3
12.5
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Air traffic in the EuropeanUnion
Women and men inEurope
Key figures on Europe
The EU economy since thestart of the millennium
Shedding light on energyin Europe
Digital economy & societyin the EU
SDGs & me
Themes in the spotlight
Very good/ Good
Adequate
Poor / Very poor
40
Chart 39. Users of Eurostat’s digital publications and visualisation tools, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
The Eurostat website was, as usual, the section of the questionnaire that received the largest
amount of comments, confirming the need to revise the website. Many respondents still
found it rather difficult to find data, especially for new users or those who do not use the
webpage frequently. Some felt that a clear overview was missing and that titles, definitions
and units were not always clear. The size of the database and the high level of detail of data
were also seen as a drawback by some users who found it hard to find the specific data they
needed. The navigation tree was also criticised by some users who would like to have it
organised differently. An index of all statistics was felt useful. This time several users also
referred to the website and its interface as old-fashioned, with a too heavy front page, and not
intuitive.
Regarding data search, there were users dissatisfied with the search engine, some of whom
would have preferred to a search targeted exclusively to databases rather than the whole
website. Others complained about the downloading facilities, especially for big amount of
data, which sometimes fail in the middle of the process. Several respondents suggested
adding the possibility to customise the data extraction, using parameters, and allowing saving
them.
Other recurrent comments referred to the difficulty to find old data. Several users reported
then problems with the changes in the database, which are not always clearly explained and
on which users are not informed. Some asked if it was possible to add an alert mechanism on
a set of data. Finally, some similar comments were made also on the specific database for
49.9%
31.0% 29.8% 29.0%26.1% 25.8% 25.1%
20.2%
58.9%
41.1%39.1% 38.7% 38.0%
35.7% 34.7%30.1%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Key
fig
ure
s o
nEu
rop
e
Dig
ital
eco
no
my
&so
ciet
y in
th
e E
U
Wo
me
n a
nd
men
in E
uro
pe
SDG
s &
me
Them
es
in t
he
spo
tlig
ht
The
EU e
con
om
ysi
nce
de
sta
rt o
fth
e m
ille
nn
ium
Shed
din
g lig
ht
on
ener
gy in
Eu
rop
e
Air
tra
ffic
in t
he
Euro
pe
an U
nio
n
Users expressing anopinion
Users expressing anopinion + Users withno opinion
41
international trade statistics, COMEXT. One user also questioned why it was different from
the rest of the database.
It must considered that although the website attracted many negative comments, there were
also users who described it in very positive terms, some considering it very user friendly and
efficient and better than those of other similar organisations.
A new question was added this year to the section of the survey on the website, on the
usefulness of Eurostat’s experimental statistics, a domain that Eurostat has recently started to
develop and that did not exist in 2016. As it was expected that only a minority of respondents
had used at least some of the experimental statistics, in this case respondents could skip the
question, declare that they had never used some experimental statistics or also that they had
no opinion on their usefulness. In the end the shares of those who gave an opinion was
around 10% - 20% of the respondents, from 11.6% (117 respondents) for “World heritage
sites statistics” to 21.8% (220 respondents) for “Statistics on the joint distribution of income,
consumption and wealth” and “Income and consumption: comparing social surveys and
national accounts” (Chart 40).
Chart 40. Users of Eurostat’s experimental statistics, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
The majority of those who gave an opinion on experimental statistics found them useful. The
shares of “very good/good” answers went from 55.8% for the Quality Adjusted Labour Input
(QALI) to 66.4% for the Labour market transitions statistics (Chart 41).
21.8% 21.8% 21.2% 20.0%16.6% 16.1% 13.7% 13.5% 12.1% 11.9% 11.6%
28.8% 28.1% 29.0% 27.5%24.4% 23.1% 21.0% 20.6% 19.7% 19.2% 18.9%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Stat
isti
cs o
n t
he
join
td
istr
ibu
tio
n o
f in
com
e,…
Inco
me
and
co
nsu
mp
tio
n:
com
par
ing
soci
al s
urv
eys
an
d…
Lab
ou
r m
arke
t tr
ansi
tio
ns
stat
isti
cs
Flas
h e
stim
ate
s o
f in
com
ein
equ
alit
y an
d p
ove
rty
ind
icat
ors
Skill
s m
ism
atch
es s
tati
stic
s
Foo
d p
rice
mo
nit
ori
ng:
Pri
cetr
ansm
issi
on
alo
ng
the
foo
d…
Qu
alit
y A
dju
sted
Lab
ou
r In
pu
t(Q
ALI
)
Mu
ltin
atio
nal
en
terp
rise
gro
up
san
d t
he
ir s
tru
ctu
re
Serv
ice
Trad
e b
y En
terp
rise
Ch
arac
teri
stic
s (S
TEC
)
Full
Inte
rnat
ion
al a
nd
Glo
bal
Acc
ou
nts
fo
r R
esea
rch
In…
Wo
rld
he
rita
ge s
ite
s st
atis
tics
Users expressing anopinion
Users expressing anopinion + Users withno opinion
42
Chart 41. Usefulness of Eurostat’s experimental statistics, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
On an overall level, also for this question respondents from advanced users giving an opinion
are more satisfied (65.1% of “very good/good”), compared to intermediate users (56.9%) and
light users (63.2%).
In their comments, users confirmed that they found experimental statistics quite interesting
and useful and would like to get more of them in future. Some pointed out that they were not
very visible and a few respondents said that they had discovered them thanks to the survey.
To complete the section of the survey on the website, users were asked for the second time
this year to rate the information on microdata access services on the Eurostat website. Almost
half of the respondents (47.0%) gave an opinion, so showing that they use the microdata. The
share was higher, as it could be expected, for the respondents from advanced users (52.7%)
than for intermediate users (44.8%) and light users (38.2%). However, advanced users seem
to be also more exigent for this kind of services, as their satisfaction (54.9% of “very
good/good”) was in this case lower than for intermediate users (60.9%) and light users
(59.0%) (Chart 42).
66.4
65.3
63.5
63.2
63.2
60.5
59.5
59.2
58.2
56.2
55.8
19.2
20.3
24.0
20.5
25.7
22.3
24.5
23.3
28.7
30.2
29.7
14.5
14.4
12.6
16.2
11.0
17.3
15.9
17.5
13.1
13.6
14.5
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Labour market transitions statistics
Flash estimates of income inequalityand poverty indicators
Skills mismatches statistics
World heritage sites statistics
Multinational enterprise groups andtheir structure
Statistics on the joint distribution ofincome, consumption and wealth
Income and consumption: comparingsocial surveys and national accounts
Full International and GlobalAccounts for Research In Input-…
Service Trade by EnterpriseCharacteristics (STEC)
Food price monitoring: Pricetransmission along the food supply…
Quality Adjusted Labour Input (QALI)
Very good/Good
Adequate
Poor / Verypoor
43
Chart 42. Assessment of the information on microdata access services on the Eurostat
website, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Compared to 2016, the share of those considering the information on microdata access
services as least good registered an increase of 2.8 percentage points (Chart 43).
Chart 43. Assessment of the information on microdata access services on the Eurostat
website in 2016 and 2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
In their comments respondents considered not only the information on microdata access but
also the access procedure and the set of microdata available. They declared to appreciate the
service and the availability of microdata. However, several pointed out that it is difficult to
receive an answer when asking for microdata and the procedure for getting access is too
complicate and long. On this, it can be noted that when getting a request Eurostat has to
verify the criteria laid down in the applicable Regulation, which usually takes about one
week. A few respondents said that they would like to get microdata also for other topics than
those available and that they would appreciate more options to access the microdata.
3.4.2 Release calendar
When asked about their awareness of Eurostat’s release calendar (Chart 44), which provides
information on the dates and times of Euro indicators’ releases and other news releases and
publications, a bit more than a third of the respondents seemed to be aware of it (34.6%), with
a share increasing by 3.3 percentage points compared to 2016. Among user types, advanced
and intermediate users, with respective shares of 38.8% and 36.2% were much more aware
than light users (22.5%), which could be expected.
57.6
59.0
60.9
54.9
32.3
35.9
31.7
31.5
10.1
5.1
7.5
13.6
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediate users
Advanced users
Very good/ Good
Adequate
Poor /Very poor
54.8
57.6
35.3
32.3
9.9
10.1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
2016
2019 Very good / Good
Adequate
Poor / Very poor
44
Chart 44. Awareness of the release calendar among user types, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Within the entire surveying period, 2019 is the year with the highest degree of awareness.
Chart 45. Awareness of release calendar 2011-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
Those who were aware of the calendar were also asked to assess whether the release calendar
had sufficient and relevant information to fulfil their needs (Chart 46). About two thirds of
the respondents (67.3%), a share close to 2016, gave positive opinions, indicating that
Eurostat release calendar continues to be of great value for those who are aware of it and use
it for their needs. 18.6% of respondents said the calendar satisfied their needs partly.
34.6
22.5
36.2
38.8
65.4
77.5
63.8
61.2
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediate users
Advanced users
Aware
Not aware
26.6% 30.9% 29.7% 29.2% 28.3%31.3%
34.6%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019
45
Chart 46. Assessment of sufficiency and relevance of information in the release calendar
by user types, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
For once, there were limited differences among the three user types, with the light users this
time more satisfied (69.6%) than intermediate (67.7%) and advanced users (66.5%).
In their comments, users expressed the wish to have more topics covered by the release
calendar (social and environment statistics were mentioned), to include in the calendar the list
of all data for which updates or releases are expected, and to respect the publications dates.
After growing steadily until 2015, user satisfaction with the sufficiency and relevance of
information in the release calendar seem to have stabilised (Chart 47).
Chart 47. Sufficiency and relevance of information in the release calendar 2011-2019
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
3.4.3 Metadata and methodological information
Eurostat publishes metadata in order to provide better background information about the data
(definitions, methodology, classifications, nomenclature, etc.) and to explain their limitations.
67.3
69.6
67.7
66.5
18.6
21.7
16.2
19.7
2.6
0.0
0.8
4.6
11.5
8.7
15.4
9.2
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediate users
Advanced users
Yes
Partly
No
56.5% 58.4%62.8% 64.2%
67.6% 66.4% 67.3%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019
46
Users were asked to indicate whether they used metadata provided by Eurostat. As seen from
Chart 48, metadata was used by more than half of the respondents (57.6%), well more than in
2016 (48.5%). When asking about metadata usage there is a big difference among the three
types of users. Only 30.4% of light users declared to use metadata, versus 56.0% of
intermediate users and 71.3% of advanced users.
Chart 48. Use of metadata by user types, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
With the biggest increase since 2011, in 2019 the share of the respondents using metadata is
the highest ever registered.
Chart 49. Usage of metadata 2011-2019
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
Metadata users were also asked about their accessibility. Results of Chart 50 reveal that this
year the share of respondents who find it easily accessible is slightly less than a half (48.4%).
A share of 40.1% thought it was partly easy to find and 11.5% experienced difficulties.
57.6
30.4
56.0
71.3
42.4
69.6
44.0
28.7
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediate users
Advanced users
Yes
No
43.5%
50.9%48.9% 48.0% 47.4% 48.5%
57.6%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019
47
Chart 50. Metadata accessibility, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Intermediate users were surprisingly a bit more satisfied with the metadata accessibility
(51.2%) than advanced users (48.4%), while light users were the least happy (38.7%).
As can be seen from Chart 51, after the peak registered in 2015, which could have been due
to the new website, user satisfaction with this aspect of the metadata has been slightly
decreasing.
Chart 51. Easiness of access to metadata 2011-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
A bit less than half of the metadata users (45.2%) were also satisfied with its sufficiency
(Chart 52). On average 45.2% found metadata sufficient for their purposes. This is 8.9
percentage points less than in 2016 and the largest registered decrease of all questions.
Another 40.8% of users found metadata partly sufficient and 7.2% stated that metadata was
not sufficient. In this case, the shares of intermediate and advanced users who were satisfied
were almost identical (45.7% and 45.6%), while the one of light users was lower (41.7%).
48.4
38.7
51.2
48.4
40.1
48.4
41.3
37.7
11.5
12.9
7.5
13.8
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediate users
Advanced users
Yes
Partly
No
45.3% 49.6% 50.9%47.4%
52.8% 51.7%48.4%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019
48
Chart 52. Assessment of sufficiency of metadata for the different types of users, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
While some users reaffirmed in their comments that metadata are clear, complete and better
than those of other data providers, have improved, others still found them not easy to access,
not clear enough, too long or too technical. The main suggested further improvements
included to provide some more basic metadata, easy to understand and in plain language for
non-specialists, to provide metadata at more detailed level and for all indicators, and to give
clearer and more complete definitions of all codes. Other respondents wished to get more
information on the production of statistics and the used methodology, also to understand
more easily the differences among countries. Finally, metadata should be consistent over time
and among different statistics and always updated in case of changes in the methodology.
As Chart 53 shows, 2019 proved to be the year when users were the least satisfied with this
criterion after a period of stability.
Chart 53. Sufficiency of metadata 2011-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
45.2
41.7
45.7
45.6
47.6
51.7
50.3
45.3
7.2
6.7
4.1
9.2
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediate users
Advanced users
Yes
Partly
No
55.2%54.9%
57.2% 55.4% 55.3% 54.1%
45.2%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019
49
3.4.5 User support
In the survey, users also had the opportunity to express their opinion on the support services
offered by Eurostat. Results are presented in Chart 54.
Leaving out those with no opinion or not aware of the user support function, the degree of
satisfaction remains the highest of all services with 75.0% of the respondents saying that they
were either “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the support service provided by Eurostat. The
share of unsatisfied users was 5.5% this year. All types of users were very satisfied. –
Advanced users were the most satisfied (76.5%), a bit more than light users (74.0%) and
intermediate users (73.5%).
Chart 54. Satisfaction with user support, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
Between 2011 and 2019, overall satisfaction with user support has always been very high,
reaching its highest value this year, as shown in Chart 55.
Chart 55. Satisfaction with user support 2011-2019
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
75.0
74.0
73.5
76.5
19.5
21.1
21.7
17.2
5.5
4.9
4.8
6.3
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediateusers
Advanced users
Very satisfied /Satisfied
Neithersatisfied notunsatisfiedUnsatisfied /Veryunsatisfied
72.4%70.4%
72.7% 71.9%74.4% 72.5%
75.0%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2019
50
Users’ comments confirmed that they judge the service very good and the people really
helpful. However, a few pointed out that the procedure to get the support can be problematic
with the necessity to create an account.
3.5 Overall quality of data and services
Users were also asked to express their views on the overall quality of the data and services
provided by Eurostat. As can be seen from Chart 56, the level of overall satisfaction remained
quite high with 70.1% of all respondents evaluating data and services as “very good” or
“good”, 19.5% as “adequate” and only 3.3% as “poor” or “very poor”. This share of “very
good/good” was once again the highest for the advanced users (72.9%) compared to
intermediate users (68.5%) and light users (66.7%).
Chart 56. Overall satisfaction with the quality of the data and services, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
As Chart 57 demonstrates, the assessment of the overall quality of data and services was the
second highest since 2012 and the difference with 2017 was only due to the largest share of
respondents not giving an opinion (7.1% in 2019 versus 2.5% in 2017).
Chart 57. Overall quality of data and services 2012-2019, in %
Source: Eurostat 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2019 user satisfaction surveys
70.1
66.7
68.5
72.9
19.5
19.1
22.0
17.7
3.3
2.5
3.9
3.1
7.1
11.8
5.6
6.3
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
All users
Light users
Intermediate users
Advanced users
Very good /GoodAdequate
Poor / VerypoorNo opinion
66.966.1 66.5 67 65.3
7370.1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2019
51
3.6 Comparison with previous survey
It is interesting to note that more positive feedback came again, as in the past, from the
comparison of overall evaluation of Eurostat’s data, products or services with those at the
time of the previous survey (Chart 58).
Contrary to what was expressed in response to some other questions, a number of
respondents stated that they saw data quality components and services as “better” than in
2017 when looking at the bigger picture. The most striking evaluation is for the website,
which was considered better than in 2017 by 20.7% of respondents, even if the judgement on
its quality went slightly down when asked directly about it. This phenomenon might also be
explained by a potential continuous increase in quality standards that users expect from
Eurostat. Users may see improved data or service quality from previous years, but are not
necessarily more satisfied with it.
A high percentage of “no opinion” responses remained, even more than in the past, which can
be partly explained by the fact that some users did not take part in the previous survey, did
not recall their responses or simply did not have experience with the services.
Chart 58. Changes in perception of Eurostat's data and services quality, in %
Source: Eurostat 2019 user satisfaction survey
At the end users could add more comments of a general nature. Many of them just repeated
what already said in responding to the previous questions. What several users added is their
wish to get more statistics, in particular more regional statistics, at different levels, and more
disaggregated data. In particular, of all themes, transport statistics, waste statistics and
statistics on migration were mentioned more than once for an increased coverage. Another
recurrent wish is to have Eurostat’s website and publications in more languages.
20.9
20.7
20.4
19.4
16.9
13.8
12.0
30.8
28.9
30.0
31.6
33.6
28.7
27.4
0.7
1.7
1.1
1.3
0.6
0.6
0.8
47.6
48.7
48.5
47.7
48.9
56.9
59.9
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Overall
Website
Timeliness of data
Completeness of data
Comparability of data
Metadata
Support services
Better
Same
Worse
No opinion
52
4. Messages from the users
A list of suggestions for improvement was drawn taking into account both the quantitative
analysis of the answers to different questions and the recurrent comments that respondents
could give as a free text. Most of them have already been mentioned in the previous reports.
To further improve the quality of statistical data especially by improving timeliness
and reducing data gaps due to confidentiality and late sending of data for some
countries.
To provide data at a more disaggregated level and at a more detailed regional level.
To correct data inconsistencies and provide explanations for abnormal data and
outliers.
To provide more microdata and to make microdata more easy to access for the users.
To revise the Eurostat website, making it more modern, performant and user friendly,
easier to navigate also for non-expert users.
To improve the search engine, data extraction and download facilities.
To provide an alert system when data are modified.
To expand the geographical coverage of provided data on non-EU countries.
To improve metadata by: (i) giving clear, easy to understand and less technical
explanations, trying to avoid specialist language, (ii) providing metadata at a more
detailed level, (iii) providing always definitions for all codes and explanations of
methodology, (iv) regularly updating metadata (e.g. when the methodology changes).
To have more topics covered by the release calendar and to include all expected
updates.
To lighten the procedure to get user support.
To have Eurostat’s website and publications in more languages.
53
Annex 1 - Statistical areas
1. Economy and finance, composed of:
1.1. National accounts (including GDP, main aggregates, input-output tables and
European sector accounts)
1.2. Price statistics
1.3. Government finance statistics
1.4. Balance of payments
1.5. Financial accounts and monetary indicators
2. Population and social conditions, composed of:
2.1. Labour market (including labour force survey)
2.2. Population
2.3. Health
2.4. Education and training
2.5. Living conditions and social protection
3. Industry, trade and services, composed of
3.1. Structural business statistics
3.2. Short-term business statistics
3.3. Tourism
4. International trade statistics
5. Environment statistics
6. Agriculture statistics
7. Fishery statistics
8. Energy statistics
9. Transport statistics
10. Digital economy and society
11. Regional statistics
12. Policy indicators, composed of
12.1. Europe 2020 indicators
12.2. Sustainable Development indicators
12.3. Euro indicators / PEEIs (Principal European Economic Indicators)
12.4. Globalisation indicators
12.5. MIP (Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure) indicators
13. Other
54
Annex 2 - Breakdown of respondents by country of work place
17.7
9.7
8.1
7.1
4.7
3.3
3.2
3.1
3.0
2.9
2.9
2.8
2.5
2.4
1.8
1.5
1.5
1.5
1.3
1.3
1.0
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.3
0.1
13.0
0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 14.0 16.0 18.0
Belgium
Italy
Germany
Spain
France
Portugal
Netherlands
United Kingdom
Poland
Greece
Luxembourg
Austria
Romania
Denmark
Czechia
Bulgaria
Ireland
Croatia
Hungary
Sweden
Lithuania
Slovenia
Finland
Latvia
Slovakia
Cyprus
Estonia
Malta
Other (non-EU)
55
Annex 3 - Example of calculations for the question on overall quality
Step 1. Detailed results for all statistical areas
Q_10: How do you rate the overall quality of European statistics?
Overall Quality Very
good
Good Adeq. Poor Very
poor
No
opin.
Total
National accounts (including GDP,
main aggregates, input-output
tables and European sector
accounts)
103 150 63 55 27 27 425
Price statistics 48 75 41 30 13 19 226
Government finance statistics 46 64 26 13 10 8 167
Balance of payments 30 50 21 19 6 6 132
Financial accounts and monetary
indicators 22 38 17 11 4 6 98
Structural business statistics 36 79 43 32 9 17 216
Short-term business statistics 26 52 23 18 5 8 132
Tourism 20 26 21 12 5 9 93
Labour market (including labour
force survey) 78 137 68 35 16 21 355
Population 86 118 55 33 20 17 329
Health 38 57 42 14 9 9 169
Education and training 44 79 47 24 15 13 222
Living conditions and social
protection 62 100 52 22 12 10 258
International trade statistics 55 101 58 32 18 8 272
Environment statistics 33 68 46 29 7 7 190
Agriculture statistics 24 66 33 24 8 5 160
Fishery statistics 9 17 8 4 2 5 45
Energy statistics 37 63 41 21 8 10 180
Transport statistics 22 47 32 11 4 7 123
Science and technology and
innovation 38 49 45 17 6 9 164
Digital economy and society 29 44 30 8 7 7 125
Regional statistics 46 80 47 26 9 10 218
Europe 2020 indicators 43 64 29 19 9 12 176
Sustainable development indicators 42 55 40 14 7 7 165
Euro indicators / PEEIs (Principal
European Economic Indicators) 22 27 20 5 4 8 86
Globalisation indicators 18 29 11 9 7 4 78
MIP (Macroeconomic Imbalances
Procedure) indicators 17 16 11 5 3 3 55
Your other European statistics as
specified under Question 1 10 16 5 2 1 8 42
Step 2. Results are aggregated under bigger areas
56
Overall Quality Very
good Good Adequate Poor
Very
poor
No
opinion Total
Economy and finances 249 377 168 128 60 66 1048
Industry, trade and services 82 157 87 62 19 34 441
Population and social
conditions 308 491 264 128 72 70 1333
International trade statistics 55 101 58 32 18 8 272
Environment statistics 33 68 46 29 7 7 190
Agriculture statistics 24 66 33 24 8 5 160
Fishery statistics 9 17 8 4 2 5 45
Energy statistics 37 63 41 21 8 10 180
Transport statistics 22 47 32 11 4 7 123
Science and technology and
innovation 38 49 45 17 6 9 164
Digital economy and society 29 44 30 8 7 7 125
Regional statistics 46 80 47 26 9 10 218
Policy indicators 142 191 111 52 30 34 560
Other 10 16 5 2 1 8 42
Total 1084 1767 975 544 251 280 4901
Step 3. "Very good" and "Good" and "Very poor" and "Poor" are merged
Overall Quality
Very
good /
Good
Adequate Poor /
Very poor No opinion Total
Economy and finances 626 168 188 66 1048
Industry, trade and services 239 87 81 34 441
Population and social
conditions 799 264 200 70 1333
International trade statistics 156 58 50 8 272
Environment statistics 101 46 36 7 190
Agriculture statistics 90 33 32 5 160
Fishery statistics 26 8 6 5 45
Energy statistics 100 41 29 10 180
Transport statistics 69 32 15 7 123
Science and technology and
innovation 87 45 23 9 164
Digital economy and society 73 30 15 7 125
Regional statistics 126 47 35 10 218
Policy indicators 333 111 82 34 560
Other 26 5 3 8 42
Average for all areas 2851 975 795 280 4901
Step 4. Final table with calculated percentages
57
Overall Quality Very
good/Good Adequate
Poor/Very
poor No opinion
Economy and finances 59,7% 16,0% 17,9% 6,3%
Industry, trade and services 54,2% 19,7% 18,4% 7,7%
Population and social
conditions 59,9% 19,8% 15,0% 5,3%
International trade statistics 57,4% 21,3% 18,4% 2,9%
Environment statistics 53,2% 24,2% 18,9% 3,7%
Agriculture statistics 56,3% 20,6% 20,0% 3,1%
Fishery statistics 57,8% 17,8% 13,3% 11,1%
Energy statistics 55,6% 22,8% 16,1% 5,6%
Transport statistics 56,1% 26,0% 12,2% 5,7%
Science and technology and
innovation 53,0% 27,4% 14,0% 5,5%
Digital economy and society 58,4% 24,0% 12,0% 5,6%
Regional statistics 57,8% 21,6% 16,1% 4,6%
Policy indicators 59,5% 19,8% 14,6% 6,1%
Other 61,9% 11,9% 7,1% 19,0%
Average for all areas 58,2% 19,9% 16,2% 5,7%