Statistics Belgium

Terroritory Directorate

marlene.doulou-ouamba@economie.fgov.be
michel.loxhay@economie.fgov.be

Data on European cities have been collected as part of the Urban Audit.
The ultimate goal is to help improve the quality of urban life.
The Urban Audit contains more than 130 variables and more than 50 indicators.

Specific classification and coding system have been developed for the spatial units and for the variables and indicators.
For the description of the coding system and the list of indicators and variables see the City statistics manual

For example :

Classification system for variables :

The variable is produced from data collected by the national statistical offices of the countries.
The variables are labeled as follows :

Variable DE1001V - "Population on the 1st of January, total"

Domain code ----- DE
Number ----------- DE1001
V (for variable) --- DE1001V

Classification system for the spatial units

Spatial Unit ------ Code ------- Name
Country ------------ BE --------- Belgium
City ---------------- BE001C ---- Brussels
FUA ---------------- BE001F ---- Brussels

The indicators and variables cover several aspects of quality of live :
- Demography
- Nationality
- Houshold structure
- Housing
- Health
- Crime
- Labour Market
- Economic Activity
- Education and training provision
- Educational qualification
- Waste management
- Travel patterns
- Culture and Recreation
The complete list of indicators and variables in found in the City statistics manual.

For most of indicators, existing international standards have followed as far as possible.

Statisticas units are mostly persons.
Few variables are collected on households structure, entreprises, dwelings, cities, etc...
For the complete description of the variable see the manuel on city statistics.

For most variables the target stistical universe is the usual residents of the geographical area
(city and FUA "Functional Urban Area, Kingdom)

Spatial units are described in the City statistics manual.

The time coverage is 1991 - 2022 - all data is annual.

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The unit of mesurement varies from indicator to indicator, variable to variable. In most cases the unit of mesurement is included in the label.

1991 and 1996 were the reference for the "historical" data collection.
2001, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2014 - 2022 reference years for the main data collection.
2005 - 2013 for the period, few variables were collected.

All data supply of urban statistics is based on volontary agreement the Portal to European Union Law

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Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European Statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164),
stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines guaranteeing the confidentiality of and access
to confidential data used for the production of European Statistics,
taking due account of technical developments and users' needs in a democratic society.

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Annual collection

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See :
City statistics manual
Methodological manual on territorial typologies

The quality assurance procedures detailed in the manual have been applied.

Statistics Belgium undertakes to provide all user with statistics the comply with the quality standards defined for European statistics.
Statistics Belgium's quality criteria are compatible with the European Statistics Code of Pratice (CoP).
All apllies, the principles of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM principles).

The quality of data is fully controlled on the hand by internal procedures and on the other hand by Eurostat validation methods.

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The quality of the variable collected is good.

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Depends on the domain and the individual variable.
But, generally timelimess is about 9 months.

For much of the data delivery is done by the deadline.
But the availability of some data is later, therefore these data will delivered as soon as they are available.
It is about :
- Number of deaths per year under 65 due to diseases of the circulatory or respiratory systems (deadline 2 years)
- Economically active population (deadline less than one year)
- Persons employed (deadline less than one year )
- Municipal waste generated (domestic and commercial) (deadline less than one year)
- Cinema (deadline less than one year)

The definitions of the "City statistics manual" make it possible to ensure the comparability of data colleted by countries.
We point out that there is a new spatial division of the FUA. And some cities include several municipalities to create a Greater city.

The majority of data are comparable over time.

Data collected is coherent.

Internal coherence is ensured by applying multivariate and univariate validation checks.

Data collection is mainly based on administrative data, so the workload is responsability of Statistics Belgium.

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In case of change in the methodology used, we send to Eurostat, the revision of the data.

Data are collected by Statistics Belgium from differents sources, data are collected:
- from registers
- from cities
- from regions
- from an estimation

The Urban Audit project collects data on annual basis.

The data was collected by the National Urban Audit Coordinators (NUAC) on behalf of Eurostat.
The NUACs collected the data from sources available at :
- Statbel,
- other government departments,
- the cities concerned,
- regions
- private sources.
On the other hand, some data have been estimated.

All data collected was verified by the National Urban Audit Coordinators and the data quality validation departement.

Data have been compilated by the National Urban Audit Coordinators in Belgium.

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