Overview
       Importance of a quality assurance programme
          o The quality assurance circle
          o  The role of managers
       Dimensions of quality
       Quality assurance by census phase
       Evaluation
          o  Process quality
          o  Data quality
     United Nations Regional Workshop on the 2020 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses: International Standards 
                      and Contemporary Technologies, Lagos, Nigeria, 8-11 May 2017
     Importance of a quality assurance programme
    P&R recommends that  “Each country must have a quality assurance and 
      improvement programme in place to measure the quality of each stage of the 
      census” (P&R 2.169)
    A major  objective of a quality assurance programme is to ensure that quality 
      assessment is consistently incorporated in all phases of the census, focusing on 
      efforts in controlling the occurrence of errors and taking remedial actions to ensure 
      the highest quality of both the processes and their outcomes.
    A quality assurance programme should also be viewed as a quality improvement 
      programme, and without such a programme, the census data when finally 
      produced may contain many errors, which can severely diminish its usefulness 
    The quality assurance and improvement system should be developed as part of the 
      overall census programme - integrated with other census plans, schedules and 
      procedures, - and established at all phases of census operations, including 
      planning, pre‐enumeration, enumeration, coding, data capture, editing, tabulation 
      and data dissemination.
    United Nations Regional Workshop on the 2020 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses: International Standards 
                  and Contemporary Technologies, Lagos, Nigeria, 8-11 May 2017
     Importance of a quality assurance programme
      Quality is the outcome of processes, and deficiencies in quality (for 
        example, delays in processing or lack of accuracy in the results) are 
        usually the result of deficiencies in process rather than the actions of 
        individuals working in that process.
      Quality is relative, and is based on what is acceptable to data users, or 
        fit for the purpose, rather than on a concept of absolute perfection
      The key to quality assurance and improvement is the ability to regularly 
        measure the timeliness and accuracy of a given process so that the 
        process can be improved when a fall in quality is indicated.
      The focus of quality assurance is to prevent errors from reoccurring, to 
        detect errors easily and inform the workers so that they do not 
        continue --this simple feedback loop is represented in the “quality 
        assurance circle”
    United Nations Regional Workshop on the 2020 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses: International Standards 
                  and Contemporary Technologies, Lagos, Nigeria, 8-11 May 2017
         Quality assurance circle
                                                         The quality assurance circle is a schematic 
                                                         representation of the iterative process by 
                                                         which quality is improved
                        Measure 
                                
                         quality
                                                         Quality assurance circle is particularly 
                                                         applicable to tasks that are highly repetitive 
                                                         such as the processing phase of the census
         Implement                     Identify most 
         corrective
                                                
            action                       important       It is less applicable in processes that are 
                                         problems        one-off or time-constrained (eg. 
                                                         enumeration) as there is less opportunity to 
                          Identify                       measure performance, identify problems 
                          causes                         and implement corrective actions
                                   
                        of problems
                                                         The emphasis of the quality circle is on 
                                                         improving the process that caused the 
                                                         “error”, which may be any of the cost, 
                                                         timeliness or accuracy attributes falling 
                                                         below specified levels.
        United Nations Regional Workshop on the 2020 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses: International Standards 
                                  and Contemporary Technologies, Lagos, Nigeria, 8-11 May 2017
     The role of managers
    Managers have a vital role in establishing quality – their main roles include:
      o Establishing a culture within the census agency that has a focus on quality 
         issues and to obtain the commitment of staff to strive to achieve high‐
         quality goals
      o  Creating an environment in which everyone has the opportunity to 
         contribute to quality improvement
      o  Ensuring that clients’ expectations are known and that these expectations 
         are built into planning objectives and into the systems that are to deliver 
         them
      o  Ensuring that processes for implementing quality assurance programmes 
         are documented and such documentation provide information on: 
            •  how quality is going to be measured
            •  who is involved in identifying root causes of problems with quality, 
            •  how the process improvements are going to be implemented
     United Nations Regional Workshop on the 2020 World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses: International Standards 
                    and Contemporary Technologies, Lagos, Nigeria, 8-11 May 2017