Statistical reform needs key stakeholder consensus for implementation

livemint.com:

I received an anguished email from a senior Indian Statistical Service (ISS) officer a few weeks ago. The officer believed that his entire career over the past quarter century had been a “waste" since the statistical system does not reward performance. “As the system has been kept highly opaque, it has created a false sense of expertise… such as experts in national accounts or experts in consumer expenditure surveys… creating an impression that they (the deemed experts) are indispensable," the mail said.

“(A) complacent attitude has made ISS officers averse to any change." It is easy to dismiss the gentleman as a disgruntled officer who did not get the positions he fancied. But I have heard such complaints from scores of people associated with the statistical system over the past few years. Senior ISS officers have little training in handling big data, and lack knowledge of modern database management, a National Statistical Commission (NSC) member complained to me.

Another statistician pointed to the inability of the statistics ministry to set up a decent data warehouse as evidence of its decaying capabilities. The declining autonomy of the statistical system and its weakening capabilities may be intertwined in a vicious cycle today. A weakened statistical system is unable to justify the estimates it generates, or explain contradictions between different data-sets.

This in turn allows politicians and politically motivated technocrats to meddle in statistical affairs. Officers who can ‘manage’ political demands end up climbing the career ladder, demoralizing others. The absence of incentives for statistical innovation compounds problems.