Toward a Statistical Knowledge Network (2004)

Statistics support planning and decision making and enormous efforts are made to collect data and produce statistics at all levels of governance. An important principle of democratic societies is that government statistics should be accessible to the broadest possible constituencies to empower better plans and decisions in all aspects of life. Given the potential of near-ubiquitous Internet access in homes and workplaces and efforts by government agencies to mount websites, physical access to large volumes of government is close to a fait accompli. What remains a significant challenge is enabling access to the right statistical information at the right time and in the right form.