Upon approval of the Law on Official Statistics and State Data Governance by the Seimas today, the Department of Statistics has become State Data Agency. The new Agency will be responsible not only for the production of official statistics but also for the efficient aggregation and use of additional data for state-relevant decisions. According to Minister of Finance Gintarė Skaistė, from now on, all state data will be collected in one place – by the State Data Agency, which will make provision of such data even more convenient, expeditious and comprehensible not only for state institutions but also for the public. 

“Today’s decision fundamentally changes Lithuania’s data management and creates additional instruments for collection and quality use of the data. Statistics Lithuania obtains new tasks and tools by becoming more efficient and responsive State Data Agency, which will combine different data from various state institutions in one place. This change will create significantly wider opportunities to rely on data in making political decisions,” the Minister of Finance said.

The adopted amendments to the law establish a new approach to the management and regulation of the state data, reduce the administrative burden on data providers, ensure more flexible use of the data collected in the public sector, as well as faster sharing of data between state data systems.

The new state data ecosystem allows data from different registers and information systems to be promptly collected, merged and visualised according to the issue addressed. Although the ecosystem itself is closed and used only for analytical tasks of public sector bodies, it will enable faster data opening and re-use of public sector data. This will also have influence on official statistics. It will continue to be published on the Official Statistics Portal, but is likely to be more detailed and relevant.

“The COVID-19 pandemic, illegal immigration are the crises that have shown the importance of data in managing such situations. The data helped state institutions to make timely and accurate decisions in managing emergency situations, assessing the impact of crises on various groups of society, and preparing support mechanisms for the most affected areas. The adopted Law will ensure that the collected data can be used not only in managing emergency situations, but also in other areas important to the state, which in turn will create opportunities to make reasonable, timely and cost-effective decisions”, the Director General of Statistics Lithuania Dr. Jūratė Petrauskienė says.

The Law on Official Statistics and State Data Governance of the Republic of Lithuania will enter into force in January 2023. The Law also defines the duties of data providers (respondents), the methods of statistical data provision, and extends the scope of statistical data sources to include big data collected by private enterprises.

Contacts:
Statistics Dissemination and Communication Division
Tel. +370 633 67 105
Email: info@stat.gov.lt