Explanatory notes to the Generic Law on Official Statistics in Latin America Chapter I Objective and scope of the Law Article 1
Objective and scope of the Law 1.1 The Law applies to all activities for the development, production and dissemination of official statistics in the country. Article 4 defines the concepts of development, production and dissemination. 1.2 The Law defines official statistics and the criteria they have to meet, emphasizing compliance with the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations at the highest political level and in compliance with the principles of the Code of Good Practice in Statistics for Latin America and the Caribbean. To fulfil their demanding role, official statistics need to be compiled according to these and other internationally agreed standards and meet high quality requirements to ensure relevance, objectivity, accuracy, reliability, timeliness, transparency, clarity, coherence and comparability (see chapter VIII). This paragraph requires that those statistics that meet the criteria are identified and listed in the statistical programmes to distinguish official statistics from any other statistics. The Law uses the term ‘official statistics’ and not the terms ‘State statistics’, ‘national statistics’ or ‘government statistics’ to emphasize the scope of the statistics concerned and quality requirements official statistics have to comply with. The term ‘official statistics’ provides users with information on the status and quality of the information provided to them.
