Creation of clusters to supplement legislature indicators

Indicators are selected to represent whole topics. A limited number of indicators can therefore be used to monitor complex objectives. However, indicators also have limitations, as they usually represent far-reaching topics, which can only be partly covered by indicators. Such limitations also affect the indicators of the 2011-2015 Legislature Plan, used to monitor the objectives of the Federal Council. Legislature indicators capture only very specific aspects of the objectives they represent, while at the same time the objectives can be quite broad in scope. To improve the explanatory value of the legislature indicators, they were supplemented with additional statistical information to create a cluster. Clusters were selected in close collaboration with the responsible specialised sections of the Federal Statistical Office as well as an advisory group composed of representatives from the Federal Administration, while complying with the principles of official statistics. This report describes how the clusters were created, from the definition of selection criteria and responsibilities to actual creation and first experiences with implementation. The relevant steps are illustrated by a sample legislature indicator.