It is important to have a release policy regarding statistics so that there is public confidence that statistics are not influenced in anyway by anyone outside of the Anguilla Statistics Department (ASD). The policy should include a process where statistics are approved for public release and that they be available to the public at the same time as they are released to members of the Government.

The ASD is a Department under the Ministry of Economic Development, Investment, Commerce, Information Technology and Natural Resources and reports to the Permanent Secretary for Economic Development, Investment, Commerce, Information Technology and Natural Resources. The policy is that data to be released is verified by the Chief Statistician to ensure there is no breach of confidentiality and the quality of data is acceptable. It is then given to the Permanent Secretary for Economic Development, Investment, Commerce, Information Technology and Natural Resources for pre-release notice. The following note below is end along with the email:

• Please be aware that all pre-releases sent to you by the Anguilla Statistics Department are as a matter of courtesy solely, as we follow the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics - Principle 1 - Relevance, impartiality and equal access (http://unstats.un.org/unsd/goodprac/bpaboutpr.asp?RecId=1), which seeks to raise the standard of the ASD in line with top regional and international agencies.
• The ‘equal access’ element is the element being focused on in my preamble, this is achieved through the process of being free from political interference in both the methodology adopted and what is released and when.
• The ASD has the sole authorization to release these reports or information therein. Information within these reports should not be used or acted upon prior to their official release. We trust that you understand our position and will work to maintain the integrity of the ASD and the data emanating from within.
• Such reports will emanate from the email of the Chief Statistician to yours unless otherwise requested by staff who will then copy me into the email. Additionally, please note that these emails will be release to the general public on the date provided below by the ASD only. You will also be copied into that release.

In some situations it may be necessary to have certain expertise, not available from the Anguilla Statistics Office, to assist in validation of data. The assistance would be for content reasons. For example if there were a survey on literacy, members of the education department could provide guidance on questionnaire design and validation of the data. In these situations, the experts providing assistance would be named in advance and would be asked to sign a document maintaining the confidentiality of individual identifying data.

All data aggregates would be made available to the public on request once the data has been released. Data requestors would bear any costs of the work of special tabulations. The Statistics Office publishes summary data on the Government on this website – http://statisticsdept.azurewebsites.net/StatisticsDept/Statistics

The GDDS is a structured process through which IMF member countries commit voluntarily to improving the quality of the data compiled and disseminated by their statistical systems over the long run in order to meet the needs of macroeconomic analysis and monitoring. Member countries that participate in the system determine themselves the priorities they will pursue in a set of statistical development plans that reflect the migration toward full realization of the objectives of the General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) as well as recognition of the resource and other constraints that determine the pace of the migration.

Anguilla is not a member of the IMF and does not formally subscribe to the GDDS but recognizes the importance of improving the quality of data compiled and disseminated. Most of our data series include the provision of their metadata and provides the reader with information that would allow for determining the level of quality of the data.

The GDDS seeks to

• encourage member countries to improve data quality;
• guide member countries in the provision to the public of comprehensive, timely, accessible, and reliable economic, financial, and socio demographic statistics; and
• provide a framework for evaluating needs for data improvement and dissemination as well as for setting statistical priorities.

The GDDS framework comprises four dimensions described in detail ahead:

• coverage, periodicity, and timeliness of data;
• access by the public;
• integrity of the disseminated data; and
• quality of the disseminated data.