SISTEMA DE COSTOS POR ACTIVIDADES (A.B.C.)

40. The National Statistics Committee (NSC), territorial statistical bodies and other subsidiary bodies are funded from the national budget within the amounts allocated for the implementation of activities of the annual statistical programme, including staff salaries. The NSC reviews annually its resources to establish the budget for the next year according to the programme of work and taking into account expected income from payments for specific statistical services and additional financial resources from bilateral or multilateral donors in the framework of capacity building activities.

41. Table 1: total annual state budget for statistics including staff and administrative costs (in 1000 KGS):

Year Regular Budget Budget for Population census Total External Funding 2007 102,990 8,804 111,794 10,861 2008 151,354 57,219 208,573 10,549 2009 173,026 117,866 290,892 24,679 2010 169,972 2,274 172,246 26,221

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42. The NSC is constantly reviewing the effectiveness of the State Statistics in order to minimise the costs for the implementation of the annual work programme. Nevertheless, the state budget can cover only 80-90% of the required funds, which corresponds to regular production activities. Therefore, strategic development activities, renewal of IT infrastructure and ad-hoc surveys are mainly financed by international donors. This situation is of course hardly sustainable for the NSC since financial capacity of bilateral and multilateral donors is at present affected by the economic crises and severe cuts in their budget for cooperation programmes could be expected.

43. During the coming years, the NSC should not count on a significant increase of financial support from any sources and it appears that the financing of further statistical capacity development will have to be made through measures of rationalisation and streamlining of the current statistical production. Unfortunately, this might not be sufficient for a sustainable development of the statistical capacity of the Kyrgyz Republic.

3.2.2. Information and communication technologies

44. In recent years, the government and business sector in Kyrgyzstan has achieved significant progress in the development of information and communication technologies and infrastructure. Government organisations and private enterprises are running their own web sites and the public gradually have access to the internet. Cities and towns are now part of the world information community whereas in rural areas, the need for catching up is obviously necessary.

45. Currently, the NSC and its subordinated bodies are equipped with about 900 personal computers; out of them, 300 of which are located on the premises of the NSC in Bishkek and combined in a local network. The other 600 workstations are shared by around 700 people working for territorial statistical bodies, the Training Centre (TC) and the Institute of Statistical Research (ISR). If the number of workstations seems to be adequate, the main problem is the heterogeneity of the equipment, with modern software not running or only at very low speed on more than 50% of the computers. Mainly regional and local statistical offices are concerned with dated IT equipment and most of them are connected to the MCC and the NSC in Bishkek through low capacity dial-up communication lines. 46. Application software for data processing, automatic quality check, storage and

dissemination are currently developed by the MCC. For this purpose, the NSC and territorial statistical entities send detailed specification requests for programme development and maintenance to the MCC in Bishkek.

47. Modern information technologies are one of the most important tools and conditions that would support effectiveness and efficiency of the statistical system. The NSC is currently working on an ambitious but necessary project to introduce ADSL modems for faster and more reliable information transfer among all entities of the State Statistics and integrate all statistical bodies into a single network. In this respect, it is necessary to establish clear rules on the access for employees of the NSC and subordinated bodies to confidential data. Not all employees need to have access to all confidential information.

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48. Introducing modern computers and new communication technologies is not sufficient to streamline production processes. The NSC management is aware that the implementation and maintenance of information and communication technology within the State Statistics must be properly addressed in order to avoid unnecessary heavy investment without the corresponding organisation efficiency gains.

3.2.3. Staff, recruitment and training

49. In 2011, 1268 people were employed by the State Statistics, 854 of which are women: a) NSC: 158 employees, 103 of which are women (75%)

b) Territorial entities: 899 employees, 589 of which are women (66%)

c) Main Computing Centre (MCC): 175 employees, 141 of which are women (80%) d) Institute for Statistical Research (ISR): 17 employees, 8 of which are women (47%) e) Training Institute: 19 employees, 13 of which are women (68%)

50. Employees from the NSC and the territorial statistical bodies, except for interviewers involved in the conduction of integrate household budget and labour force survey, are civil servants. The NSC chairman is appointed and dismissed from his position by the President. The Law does not mention the mandate of the chairman nor foresees the rules for his appointment and dismissal. The deputies of the chairman are also appointed by the President of the Kyrgyz Republic upon presentation by the chairman. For the other staff members and in accordance with the Law of the Kyrgyz Republic on Public Service, recruitment is carried out on a competitive basis. The announcement for a specific vacant post is published in the media and posted on the website of the NSC and the State Personnel Service. Candidates are selected by a certifying-competitive commission of the NSC and a representative of the State Personnel Service of the Kyrgyz Republic. The competition consists of three stages: first a test on constitutional, normative and legal framework of the KR, the Law on “Civil Service”, record management etc, the second stage is a written examination on substance and then an interview with the candidates. Following completion of the competition and based on the recommendations provided by the certifying-competitive commission, the NSC chairman decides on the appointment of a candidate. More than 75% of the staff at regional and local level has higher education, mainly in the field of economics. If salaries in the NSC are similar or slightly lower than those offered in other public sectors, remunerations for comparable jobs in the private business is notably higher and makes it difficult for the NSC to attract and keep the best professionals, and in particular promising junior experts.

51. Employees from the subordinated bodies (MCC, ISR and Training Institute) do not have the status of civil servants. They are employed on a contractual basis. This gives these bodies a greater flexibility in the recruitment and management of human resources but in counterpart, staff members of these institutions do not benefit from the same employment

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conditions. For an IT specialist working for the MCC, it is expected that the private economy will gradually offer much better working conditions, including higher salaries. 52. The Training Centre is responsible for the organisation of a training programme on

computer skills for the employees of the State Statistics. Seminars are regularly organised on methods for data collection (sampling surveys), international statistical methodology, standards and nomenclatures, and use of modern information technologies in processing and disseminating statistical information. Systematic English language training is conducted to increase employees’ ability to read and understand international documents. 53. It is difficult to evaluate the outcome of the training programme and the employees from

the NSC gave the impression to be motivated people, committed and adequately qualified. However, the knowledge of English is rather poor among staff members, and, during the assessment mission, only few of them were able to use electronic presentation tools (e.g.: PowerPoint). The ability to present a short contribution in international meetings using PowerPoint and to read documents and follow discussions in English should be a prerequisite for NSC professionals.

54. According to the figures on “distribution of civil servants according to length of service”, there is a high turnover of staff among junior specialists. At the central apparatus, 4% of the employees have less than one-year seniority and 6 % at regional and district level. In the overall State Statistics more than 18% of the staff members have less than 3 years seniority. This phenomenon is not specific to the Kyrgyz Republic and can be observed, though at a lower level, in many countries. It seems that after a very careful selection procedure, national statistical agencies offer valuable on-the-job-training to young graduated, increasing their value on the labour market. There are of course no ready- made solutions to retain junior staff in statistics but it seems that young statisticians are not only looking for higher salary but also for recognition of achievement, interesting work content and opportunities for further training and development.

55. Staff mobility across the divisions within the NSC and territorial statistical bodies is not encouraged. Currently, employees can change departments either via promotion or by participating in an open competition for a vacant post. Promoting internal staff mobility in the State Statistics would be an excellent policy for sharing good practices and developing a strong corporate identity. Unfortunately, this would be very difficult since it requires an amendment of the Law on Civil Service.

3.2.4. Assessment

56. Increasing demand for timely and quality statistics with stagnant financial resources might be a challenge for the further development of the State Statistics in the next few years. It is therefore important for the NSC to reconsider the structural organisation and distribution of tasks among bodies of the State Statistics in order to further streamline production processes. As mentioned in chapter 3.1, the benefit of having 2 territorial layers should be carefully reconsidered. The implementation of new data collection methods and the improvement of IT infrastructure at territorial level could be an opportunity to simplify gradually the territorial structure of the State Statistics

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57. ICT is one of the tools rather than the solution for organisational transformation. Indeed, ICT can create opportunities for changes in order to support accurately the production of timely and quality statistical information. It seems that the NSC could further automate production processes and integrate modern IT systems and infrastructure into its business architecture. It is essential to create a centralised and comprehensive technological platform that would allow statistical registers and data bases to be routinely updated. Nevertheless, future investment for the development and maintenance of information technologies and infrastructure should go along with the modernisation of the business architecture of the State Statistics. The organisational structure of the MCC, which is the main link providing technical and software provisions to the entire system should be reviewed and if possibly further integrated into the NSC.

58. Extensive measures for staff training and development have been implemented. However, the NSC and its subordinated bodies might benefit from the development of strategic guidelines for human resources management and training. Staff mobility should be encouraged, especially among junior statisticians. Existing training programmes should also be supplemented by non-technical competences such as project management, quality management and communication skills.

59. The level of linguistic knowledge of the employees of the State Statistics should be further developed. All staff members should have perfect spoken and written command in Russian and improve their knowledge of English.