Is globalisation a threat to official statistics?

Globalisation of economic processes, technological revolution and cultural change must be considered together to identify how the world is changing and how this change can impact on the “statistical function” (not just the production of statistical figures) carried out by national statistical offices (systems) and international/supranational organisations. Therefore, throughout this paper we will be using the term “globalisation” in a broad sense, to refer to all these aspects. In the second section of this paper we will discuss where the value added of statistics is coming from, while the third section we will look at how globalisation can affect the way in which this value added is created. The fourth section will deal with the issue of trust in official statistics and the fifth with the way in which globalisation is changing how information is spread in society. In the sixth section, we will discuss why statistics should be relevant for all citizens. Finally, the last two sections deal with the risks for official statistics due to globalisation and the need for national statistical offices to be more innovative and to transform themselves from “information providers” into “knowledge builders”.