Statistics South Africa

South Africa is a young democracy, with its first full election held in 1994. The new government faced immense challenges and was under immediate pressure to start delivering services to the South African people. To do this, government ministries and departments needed information about the country’s socio-economic make up, so they naturally turned to Statistics South Africa, the predominate provider of statistics to the government.

In 1996 Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) ran the first Population Census to enumerate the entire South African population. Logistically it was a huge undertaking and its importance in terms of government policy direction and resource allocation could not be overstated.

Stats SA had clear goals for the census:

• Make the census as accurate and useful as possible.
• Share as much data as possible with as many people as possible.
• Provide users with the tools they need to be able to easily access and analyze data.
• Make Stats SA the preferred supplier of quality statistics.

As the nation, its people, and the economy were going through transformational change, so was Stats SA. This was an opportunity for them to take advantage of the technology boom and become a world-class statistical office. It was the perfect time for them to make the most of new opportunities.

Collaboration a key turning point

With a clear plan on how to move forward, Stats SA looked worldwide for a partner with the same data sharing and analysis goals, and a software solution to match. Their search led them to Space-Time Research, a supplier of tabulation and dissemination solutions for the producers of statistics, whose goals perfectly matched their own.

John Ellenberger, Vice President of Statistical Solutions for Space-Time Research, said, “‘The 1996 South African Population Census was a challenging and immensely rewarding project. Space-Time Research is very pleased to have been involved and greatly values its long-term partnership with Statistics South Africa.”

He continued, “Our mission was, and still is, to develop statistical tabulation and dissemination solutions for the providers of official statistics enabling them to better service their end users.”

In close collaboration Space-Time Research and Stats SA tackled and overcame various data collection and analysis challenges in South Africa, two of which are outlined below.

The challenge of moving boundaries and dwellings

For both the 1996 and 2001 censuses, one of the biggest challenges was the actual count—what to count and how to count it. One difficulty Stats SA encountered was that the geographic boundaries were always changing; another was that not all dwellings and households had a unique identifier. As a result, one dwelling counted in one census was not necessarily there the next time the census was taken, making data accuracy a concern.

To bridge the gap between censuses, Stats SA undertakes community surveys. Survey data helps them to maintain demographic and socio-economic data at municipal level, and to assist government and private sector in planning, evaluation and monitoring of programs and policies. The latest survey was in 2007, where Stats SA collected information on the trends and level on demographic and socio-economic data; the extent of poor households; access to facilities and services; and levels of employment/unemployment.

A survey has many of the same challenges as a census, and it is imperative that the resulting data for both is accurate, especially data at detailed geographical levels. Stats SA use SuperCROSSä, Space-Time Research’s desktop client for fast, flexible tabulation and analytics, to easily handle, manipulate and analyze the census and survey data.

“SuperSTAR allows us the freedom to do almost any cross-tabulations, which means that we are better able to meet the data requirements of our stakeholders.”
Tracy Daniels, Acting Executive Manager at Statistics South Africa

“For people who have never seen SuperCROSS and who aren’t confident PC users, it still only takes three to four hours of training to get them comfortable with using the product. For users who are comfortable with electronic tables, it takes only 30 minutes to train them .”
Ms Nireen Naidoo, Former Executive Manager: Stakeholder Relations and Marketing at Statistics South Africa

The challenge of publishing data for demanding public and private users

Since their first census, the demands on Stats SA about what they can and what they do deliver have increased exponentially. For the 1991 partial census they distributed about 100 paper copies, comprising 26 volumes, of their dataset (electronic distribution didn’t start until 1996). By 2001 they distributed 20,000 copies. In March 2008, when the results of the 2007 community survey were released, even more people and other entities contacted them for the information. “The increase in demand has been huge,” said Ms Naidoo.

Stats SA employ two online methods of meeting this demand. One is using SuperCROSSä to create cubes, which they disseminate via SuperTABLE™. Cubes provide users with the flexibility to run any query they want based on those cubes.
Stats SA also uses SuperWEB™ to publish cubes online. SuperWEB™ is one of Space-Time Research’s web clients for ad hoc tabulation, and it is used by both the public and private sectors for more detailed data for their individual analytics. SuperWEB™ enables users to quickly and easily create any census or community survey query they want, and then access the information online.

Reliable confidentiality a reality

The Statistics Act (No 6 of 1999) has strict rules about the confidentiality of data. No unit record data (that is, data on individuals or individual units of data collection) can be disseminated unless permission has been given by the necessary parties. Stats SA keeps this information from being disclosed by using random rounding and cross tabulation to run queries without identifying an individual record.

To ensure the confidentiality of an individual’s census record, Stats SA again uses SuperCROSS. Its querying and cross tabulation functionality is important to keep individual records from being identified while millions of records are processed for an accurate census count.

At one time, Stats SA were having problems with discrepancies in totals caused by different random rounding approaches implemented in different data dissemination products. SuperCROSS was instrumental in overcoming these problems, and is now Stats SA’s preferred product for disseminating lower-level data, for example data about municipalities, magisterial districts, and electoral wards.

“SuperSTAR makes it easy to cross tabulate. The system is easy to manipulate, and it is also very fast.”
Ms Nireen Naidoo, Former Executive Manager: Stakeholder Relations and Marketing at Statistics South Africa

Conclusion

Prior to using SuperSTAR it was virtually impossible for Stats SA to give their stakeholders all of the information they needed, especially at small geographical levels. The 1991 census was published in 26 volumes, with it being almost impossible to extract data other than what was in those volumes. No wonder the data was seriously under-utilized.

Now with SuperSTAR products at the core of their toolset, Stats SA has the freedom to do almost any cross-tabulation and is infinitely better able to meet the data requirements of their stakeholders. Data accuracy and confidentiality is assured, and both CD and online dissemination means anyone can access the data they need.

With their successes under their belt, Stats SA is now playing an important role in the revitalization of statistics in Africa. Their plans for the 2011 census initiative are also well underway, and because of the success of their current endeavors, this time they aim to reach all areas of the government.

With the proven track record of SuperSTAR products and Space-Time Research support, Stats SA is continuing the collaboration to meet their future needs as a world-class data service provider.

Case Study

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