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The Government today (January 10) announced the establishment of an Investigation Task Force on Statistical Data Quality Assurance to examine the authenticity of statistical data and the existing data quality assurance mechanism.
The chairperson of the Task Force is the Commissioner for Census and Statistics, Mrs Lily Ou-Yang.
Other members include two serving members of the Statistics Advisory Board, Professor Chan Ngai-hang and Mr Tse Kam-keung, as well as a former member, Mr Vincent Kwan, and a representative of the Government Economist.
Professor Chan is the Choh-Ming Li Chair Professor of Statistics of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Mr Tse is the former chairman of Oxfam Hong Kong, and Mr Kwan is the Director and General Manager of Hang Seng Indexes Company Limited.
"The Task Force, comprising a renowned academic in statistics, an experienced senior management executive and an expert in compiling financial indexes, will ensure an impartial and professional investigation. It is expected that the Task Force will complete the investigation within six weeks and then report the findings to the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury," the Government spokesman said.
The Terms of Reference of the Task Force are as follows:
1. To examine the authenticity of data collected by field officers in the General Household Survey and related surveys;
2. To examine and assess the existing quality assurance mechanism in survey data collection, and to make recommendations on improvement measures; and
3. To make recommendations for improving the fieldwork management system of surveys.
Ends/Thursday, January 10, 2013
Issued at HKT 17:49
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