Medienmitteilung

The Federal Council wishes to promote the reuse of data and reduce the burden on businesses

Bern, 27.09.2019 - Persons and businesses will only need to report certain information once. The Federal Council wishes to make data management in the public sector easier and more efficient by reusing data. To this end, it launched four pilot projects at its meeting on 27th September 2019 at the Federal Statistical Office. This serves as the basis for implementing the once only principle.

In addition to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) as the central competence centre, Switzerland’s official statistics system also includes around 40 federal agencies and other institutions that collect data and partly process their own statistics in order to carry out administrative tasks. In addition, the majority of cantons and several larger towns also have their own statistical offices. This results in multiple surveys that create a burden for businesses and private individuals.

So that data can be used several times, all affected agencies in the public sector need to use the data catalogue and metadata (description of a dataset) in the same way. Furthermore, the various agencies must be able to exchange data. For the Federal Council, confidence in data protection and the quality of data are key issues in data reuse. Data suppliers and users must be sure that the data can be used for the required purposes. It needs to be clear how the data have been collected and how access to the data is possible.

The Federal Council will reduce the burden on businesses and the population by dispensing with data deliveries and gradually introducing the once only principle. It decided to gain further experience by way of four pilot projects. In this manner, professional activities should be recorded uniformly in the Swiss occupation nomenclature. This is intended to simplify and improve the implementation of the obligation to give notice of job vacancies. Furthermore, for inpatient health provision, the definition of a uniform standard is planned for hospitals’ transaction data (including economic and medical classification systems) and for the corresponding reference data. Finally, it will be verified how the burden can be reduced on businesses in the wage statistics and how multiple surveys can be avoided in the area of taxes.

To further implement the project, the Federal Council has commissioned the Federal Department of Home Affairs in cooperation with the other departments to drive forward the standardisation and harmonisation of the Federal Administration’s data. A committee created for this purpose shall be supported by a specialist unit at the Federal Statistical Office. This is intended to develop the technical tools for the implementation of the strategy and to further expand existing applications.

The reuse of data is part of the Digital Switzerland Strategy and the eGovernment Strategy Switzerland. Furthermore, by way of motion 16.4011 “Digitalisation. No duplications in data collection”, the Parliament commissioned the Federal Council to ensure that businesses do not need to supply the same data and information to different authorities.