Vision
The departments vision is "an informed society using official statistics", hoping to be "your first source of information for making key decisions" and says on its website that it "leads the collection and publicising of key information on nearly everything."
In its statement of intent, it lists statistical excellence, integrity, confidentiality and data security, leading, connecting, and communicating as its values. It says on its website: "Our highest priority is to produce relevant, accurate, and timely data with useful in-depth analysis. We aim to continually improve our technical and quality standards to foster a professional organisation and provide leadership for the Official Statistics System."
Confidentiality isn't only a policy chosen by the department, but required by law. A section of the Statistics Act 1975 reads "No information from an individual schedule is to be separately published or disclosed, except as authorised by the Statistics Act (the Act permits others to see information from an individual schedule, but only when it is in a form that prevents identification of the respondent concerned, and then only under strict security conditions). This means government can't abuse personal information from a census by revealing (or threatening to reveal it) for dubious purposes. A particular person's income responses can't be handed over to a tax collection agency, for example.
The agency maintains an open copyright policy stating that "information obtained from Statistics New Zealand may be freely used, reproduced, or quoted unless otherwise specified" with the caveat that "in all cases Statistics New Zealand must be acknowledged as the source."
A training program was established to encourage college graduates to consider a career at the agency. This program is called the Graduate Leadership Development Programme (gLDP, sometimes gDLP). It features social and technical support networks, monthly workshops, peer-mentoring, action learning groups, team corporate projects, and rotations through different departments. It seeks graduates skilled at communicating and analyzing and working with people, and hires approximately ten to fifteen graduates each year.
Read more about this topic: Statistics New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the word vision:
“A novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews [sic] the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“Deep in the human heart
The fire of justice burns;
A vision of a world renewed
Through radical concern.”
—William L. Wallace (20th century)
“Every civilization when it loses its inner vision and its cleaner energy, falls into a new sort of sordidness, more vast and more stupendous than the old savage sort. An Augean stable of metallic filth.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)