Dissemination policy

The principles are based on the provisions of the Statistics Act relating to Statistics Norway’s work and role. Statistics Norway’s current strategy and the Government’s communication policy are also used as a basis, together with other relevant Norwegian laws. The principles also follow international guidelines on official statistics, primarily from the United Nations and the EU, but also the IMF.

Accessibility

The target group for Statistics Norway’s dissemination is anyone seeking knowledge through statistics, analyses and research. One of the most important user groups is the press.

Statistics Norway endeavours to make the statistics and analyses accessible and understandable to the general public, whilst also ensuring they are comprehensive and detailed enough to cover the needs of the business community and the authorities. Statistics Norway describes and analyses the statistics and examines causal relations, but does not offer any solutions to the results or express an opinion on such solutions.

ssb.no is the main channel for the dissemination of statistics and analyses. Official statistics, analyses, research and documentation are all published on this website. Analyses, research and documentation are also distributed as hard copy publications. Statistics Norway wants the statistics and analyses to be distributed and used to the greatest degree possible, provided that Statistics Norway is quoted as the source. The users are also given the opportunity to commission work that entails special adaptations.

Statistics Norway disseminates raw data on persons and enterprises (micro data) to researchers and analysts. Researchers at recognised research institutions are given access to micro data on the condition that they adhere to data protection legislation. Public planners can, in some cases, also be given access to such data.

All statistics are published in both Norwegian and English. Statistics Norway publishes a minimum of 25 per cent in each of the Norwegian language forms; Bokmål and Nynorsk.

Transparency

Statistics Norway endeavours to explain errors encountered in statistics and publications in a transparent and professional manner, and corrections are to be documented. The information to users and the documentation will be adapted according to the seriousness of the error, with a distinction made between serious and other content-related errors.

Independence

Statistics Norway is responsible for determining what types of statistics are to be released, as well as how and when new statistics, analyses and research are to be published. Statistics Norway’s publications primarily relate to work produced by Statistics Norway, and for which it has professional responsibility. Most of Statistics Norway’s statistics and some of the research are funded by the government, while others are user-financed assignments. All publications adhere to the dissemination policy, regardless of who is funding the work.

Equal treatment of users and exceptions

All products - statistics, articles and publications - are published on ssb.no at 10 am every work day, which means they are made available to all users at the same time. All such publications are announced in the advance release calendar. Releases of new statistics are announced at least three months in advance, and the following publication date is also normally given in the calendar.

In a few cases, external users (the authorities, data owners or users who finance the statistics) have access to releases prior to publication, but this is only for internal use. These exceptions should be announced publicly. Publications and articles are normally based on analyses of statistics that have already been released, and may be financed by external sources who are given access before publication. Such access is also only granted for internal use only. The media are never given advance access to releases, articles or publications.

Confidentiality

Official statistics are published in such a way that data cannot be traced back to a respondent or other statistical unit to its detriment. Data on individuals or individual businesses may be distributed for research purposes, but this is subject to strict data protection legislation.