Research project AG/HH/115 (Research action AG)
Within the framework of the expansion of the Datawarehouse Labour Market and Social Protection, this project has the intention to make a thorough analysis concerning the content of the data sources and to develop a methodological manual. The objective is to achieve a consolidated Datawarehouse Labour Market and Social Protection, under the coordination of the Crossroads Bank for Social Security.
The project aims at opening up new data sources in order to improve quantitative reporting, policy analysis and research on social protection by the Federal Public Service Social Security and others.
While widening the scope of the Datawarehouse Labour Market and Social Protection, priority has to be given to a systematic quality check of the Datawarehouse data, not only at the technical level, but also with regard to the contents of the available data. The three following movements are indispensable in that respect:
1) First of all the documentation on the Datawarehouse needs to be improved. An adequate description has to be made concerning the contents of the primary and secondary datasets of the social security institutions that provide the data. Also the way in which those datasets are integrated and processed in the Datawarehouse and the applied procedures must be documented systematically. At last, changes in the regulation and in the method of data recording and processing by the institutions of social security have to be monitored and the impact of these changes on the data of the Datawarehouse must be cleared out.
2) Once this rather technical and descriptive information is available, the focus has to shift to a systematic evaluation with respect to the contents of the data. Variables from diverse data sources have to be harmonised and the data that are actually stored in the Datawarehouse have to be checked on their international compatibility.
3) A third essential movement is to evaluate the available data from the perspective of the social security concept matrix. This matrix indicates which information is needed for an optimal Datawarehouse on social protection.
