Luigi Biggeri Invited discussion on “FORMAL TRAINING”.

1. Italian National Institute of Statistics CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN STATISTICIANS, Paris 13-15 June2006 SEMINAR ON HUMAN RESOURCES AND TRAINING Session I Human resources as a main element of the modern statistical office; vocational training of employees Luigi Biggeri Invited discussion on “FORMAL TRAINING”.

2. The Italian Plan Iron defense, small ideas in midfield, passes to striker..and…Penalty

3. CES PARIS 2006 GENERAL AGREEMENTS ON SOME KEY POINTS HR management and its integration with business planning (In most of the papers) Expenditures for salaries, about 80% of the Institute’s budget (Canada) In Europe both Code of Practice and Quality Declaration of the European Systrem expressely recognise staff, and staff training, as the main asset of a NSO (Spain) Definition of the necessary capabilities and competences in order to define needs for training (Australia) Construction of a “continous learning” environment and learning organisation model (Finland, Canada, Australia, Germany, Ukraina, Sweden) Need for different types and forms of competences’ development, from the formal training to the on job training and so on, up to the well-being of the staff members (Canada and Sweden) Luigi Biggeri, Discussion

4. CES PARIS 2006 FORMAL TRAINING Formal, informal training and everyday learning Swedish paper stressed the relevance of informal, unstructured training and everyday learning; this is important for the improvement of the staff members competencie, because large part of learning occurs in informal situation; BUT Good formal training is an indispensable pre-requisite for training Canada devotes to this about 3% of the budget Planning of training activities All the papers present useful descriptions of the training systems run by themselves or by associated training institutes Luigi Biggeri, Discussion

5. CES PARIS 2006 MANY TYPES OF FORMAL TRAINING Recruitment systems and related new personnel training Training for career starting and promotion Training for creating specialists (at beginning, during the work period) Training for e-learning Training for management Training for statistics And so on …. Luigi Biggeri, Discussion

6. CES PARIS 2006 ORGANISATION OF FORMAL TRAINING • I. In which location • In-house training • In most of the NSIs • Through the Institutes or Schools organised for that purpose • Australia: National Statistical Training Institute (2003) • Canada: Statistics Canada training Institute (1993) • Spain: Public Administration Statistics School (?) • Which kind of courses • Structured and tailored ad hoc courses • Base courses for all • Career-specific training programs (Finland) • III. Programs of the courses • General information from the papers; Example can be found in Australian paper Luigi Biggeri, Discussion

7. CES PARIS 2006 THE CONTEXT OF WORK IN THE NSIs The context in which the NSIs are reorganising and improving their practices of HR management are quite similar through countries Usually Universities do no give courses for Official Statisticians Staff retiring is increasing Demand for specialist skills is increasing Demand for statistics is changing rapidly (international needs) Need for multi-skilled personnel that can be moved to different works ( in the past NSIs develop subject matter specialistsnarrowly focused (Canada) Some demands are in antithesis – How much clever the Official Statisticians must be? Need to balance the demands, but not to easy to manage Luigi Biggeri, Discussion

8. CES PARIS 2006 SOME QUESTIONS NSIs have to take care of statistical training for the cadres of Public Administration staffs? (use for the units and for the management of administrative data and archives) Is it necessary to have a minimum common standard training for official statisticians? Considering the need to partecipate in task forces and working groups at international level How much important is to have a specific Training Institute for the NSIs needs? The implementation of the training is too costly; in which way the NSIs can solve the problem? Especially for a small Institute? Is it important to built-up cooperation among NSIs for formal training? Luigi Biggeri, Discussion