Who trusts a number? How did the 10 principles of official statistics travel from 1994 to Uzbekistan?

In the newspaper we read: "inflation was such-and-such percent." Why do we trust this figure? The person who calculated it is an ordinary person like us, but behind them stands a silent set of rules: who calculates the figure, who cannot change it, to whom the information given in a survey stays invisible. These rules are the "trust passport" of official statistics. This article is about their history: from the Conference of European Statisticians to the UN General Assembly, and from there to the law and the international assessment in Uzbekistan.

Key theses

1. The beginning. According to the UN Statistics Division, the principles were first developed at the Conference of European Statisticians in 1991, endorsed by the ministers of the Economic Commission for Europe in 1992, and later found suitable for the whole world.
2. April 1994. At a special session, the UN Statistical Commission adopted the fundamental principles of official statistics (UN Statistics Division).
3. 2013. The Commission reaffirmed the principles; ECOSOC endorsed the document by decision 2013/21 of 24 July 2013.
4. 29 January 2014. The General Assembly endorsed the principles by resolution 68/261.
5. In Uzbekistan. The Law "On Official Statistics" of 11 August 2021 (ZRU-707) replaced the earlier state statistics law; statistical confidentiality is listed among its principles (LexUZ, Norma.uz).
6. 2024. By a Presidential resolution of 4 March, the UN quality assurance principles are planned to be introduced into the national system by the end of 2024 (UzDaily, Daryo). The international global assessment was carried out in 2024, and the final report came out dated February 2025.
7. For the accountant. Knowing the principles also brings order to a company's reporting and its internal statistics: the figure, the source, confidentiality and correct interpretation.

Why were principles needed in the 1990s?

Statistics began with counting: population censuses, tax lists, commercial accounts. But once a figure is published, many people read it, so trust in it needs a separate guarantee. What if someone presents a figure in a form more convenient for politics? What if information that a respondent has given is used for another purpose? The principles were created to give a common answer to these questions. According to the UN Statistics Division, the principles started in Europe and then became a global document.

What do the ten principles consist of?

In brief, the content of the ten principles in the UN text is as follows: 1. Practical utility, impartiality and equal access. 2. Professional standards, scientific principles and professional ethics. 3. Providing information on sources, methods and procedures in line with scientific standards so that data can be interpreted correctly (accountability and transparency). 4. The right to comment on erroneous interpretation or misuse of statistics. 5. Choosing data sources (surveys, administrative records) with regard to quality, timeliness, cost and the burden on respondents. 6. Confidentiality of individual data. 7. Public release of the laws and rules under which the statistical system operates. 8. Coordination among statistical agencies within the country. 9. Use of international concepts, classifications and methods. 10. Bilateral and multilateral cooperation in statistics.

Principle 6, confidentiality, is the closest to everyday life: according to the UN text, individual data collected by statistical agencies, whether they relate to natural or legal persons, must be kept strictly confidential and used exclusively for statistical purposes. The logic is simple: if people are willing to give information, statistics are complete and of good quality. And willing cooperation is secured by keeping the secret.

How do these principles look in Uzbekistan?

The legal basis of official statistics is the Law "On Official Statistics" (11 August 2021, ZRU-707); it was adopted in place of the earlier state statistics law. Among the main principles of the law are named independence, transparency, accuracy, objectivity, statistical confidentiality and timeliness (Norma.uz). The quality policy page of the National Statistics Committee, in turn, states that the committee relies on the fundamental principles of official statistics and on the UN National Quality Assurance Frameworks (NQAF). In other words, the content of the UN principles is directly familiar in Uzbek documents. The text of the law may change, so check the current version in the official database (lex.uz).

The Presidential resolution of 4 March 2024 goes in the same direction: the UN quality assurance principles for official statistics are planned to be introduced into the national system by the end of 2024, each producer of official statistics is to write its own quality and dissemination policy, and a national quality assurance guideline is to be prepared (UzDaily, Daryo, Gazeta.uz). At that time the statistical body was called the Statistics Agency under the President; by Decree UP-27 of February 2025 it was transformed into the National Statistics Committee (Kun.uz). The assessment was carried out by UNECE, Eurostat and EFTA: the expert group came to Uzbekistan and held meetings, and the final report came out dated February 2025. According to the committee, the assessment's recommendations are used in developing the development strategy for 2026–2030. In addition, in April 2025 Uzbekistan was unanimously elected to the UN Statistical Commission for the first time, for 2026–2029 (National Statistics Committee, Kun.uz).

One caution: we do not set out the specific conclusions of the assessment (which principle is met to what extent) in this article, because it is right to read them in the report itself.

Then and now

Example: how should "Bahor savdo" publish the figures of six branches?

The following example was prepared by the author; the company and figures are fictional.

The hypothetical LLC "Bahor savdo" has six shops. March takings (mln soum): 48, 52, 60, 45, 150 and 55. The accountant Dilnoza is preparing a short briefing for the general director. Calculated with python: - Total takings: 410 mln soum. - Arithmetic mean: 410 / 6 = about 68.3 mln soum. - Median (the middle of the ordered series): (52 + 55) / 2 = 53.5 mln soum. - The largest branch (150 mln) accounts for about 36.6 percent of total takings. - The mean of the other five branches without it: 52 mln soum.

If Dilnoza says only "on average 68.3 mln", the reader will think each shop brings in about that much. In fact five shops fall within 45–60 mln, and one stands out sharply. This is a mistake in the spirit of UN principle 4: the figure is correct, but it can be interpreted wrongly. So she writes the mean, the median and the share of the largest branch side by side. The second rule resembles principle 6: in external reporting the overall result is given rather than individual branches, while branch-level detail is visible only to the responsible staff. Note: this is the company's internal policy, not a state rule.

A lesson for today's accountant

• Write the source. Next to every figure there should be its source and method of calculation, like transparency in the principles.
• One figure is not enough. Show the median together with the mean; if there is an outlying value, state it separately.
• Agree on confidentiality. In an internal document, set who may be shown customer, employee or branch data; then give a summarised result in external reporting.
• Be professionally independent. Even if the manager dislikes the figure, the method of calculation must not change: statistics principle 2 and the accountant's loyalty to the accounting policy follow the same logic.
• When taking an official figure into your report, write its publication date, indicator and unit.

Conclusion

The strength of official statistics lies not in the technique of counting but in the rules that make it trustworthy. These rules took shape in Europe in the 1990s, rose to the level of the UN Statistical Commission in 1994 and the General Assembly in 2014, and are reflected in Uzbekistan's law and quality policy. For the accountant the path is the same: first the rule, then the number.