Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
Division of Spatial Economy and Sustainable Development
1.3. Contact name
Confidential because of GDPR
1.4. Contact person function
Confidential because of GDPR
1.5. Contact mail address
Federal Statistical Office Espace de l'Europe 10 CH-2010 Neuchâtel
1.6. Contact email address
Confidential because of GDPR
1.7. Contact phone number
Confidential because of GDPR
1.8. Contact fax number
Confidential because of GDPR
2.1. Metadata last certified
20 November 2012
2.2. Metadata last posted
20 November 2012
2.3. Metadata last update
20 November 2012
The Urban Audit (UA) launched in June 1998 by the European Commission, is part of regional and urban policy as well as the European Union’s cohesion policy. The UA collects approximately 350 variables and 300 indicators covering a wide range of topics, according to three spatial units (larger urban zones, core cities and sub-city districts). Since 2005 it has been one of Eurostat’s key activities, carried out annually since 2009.
The participation of Switzerland is consistently integrated within the framework of regional statistics as well as the agglomeration policy of the Swiss confederation. The fourth axis of this policy targets particularly to integrate the Swiss cities and agglomerations in the network of European cities. On this basis, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) in coordination with the Federal Office for Spatial Development (ARE) and the 10 regional partners (participating cities and cantons) launched the project Urban Audit Switzerland to integrate Switzerland in the project of the European Union.
The roles of the three coordinators are defined as follows:
FSO: direction and general coordination, operational management, contact partner for Eurostat and DG region.
ARE: operational and financial support, link to the agglomeration policy and the urban stakeholders.
Regional partners: data providers, thematic collaboration
A working group (FSO, ARE, delegates of the 10 cities) has been implemented to support the direction and to assure an optimized realization of the Urban Audit. A steering board under the auspices of the FSO in which the ARE and the delegates of the 10 cities are as well integrated is responsible for the strategic alignment of the project.
The chart "CH_Organization Chart" attached in the 'Annexes' presents the organizational structure for the Urban Audit project in Switzerland.
3.1. Data description
Item imputation rate and methods and, where possible, the effect of imputation on the estimates for the variables transmitted: No imputation procedures for item non-response concerning the number of job vacancies were applied.
3.2. Classification system
Specific classification and coding systems have been developed for the spatial units and for the variables and indicators of the Urban Audit project.
Classification system for the spatial units
The city code consists of a 2-digit country code, a 3-digit city code and a final C for Central City - for LUZ an L is used and for SCD a D.
Each Sub-City district will have the city code plus a unique number afterwards to identify the individual Sub-City District within the city. Thus, each sub-city unit will have a unique code.
In the Urban Audit, some cities have 2 sub-city levels. For this reason, 5 extra positions are used for sub-cities. The total length of the sub-city code is 11 characters.
Classification system for the UA variables
A variable is the raw data collected by the national statistical offices of the countries. The variable data serves as the raw data for the calculation of the indicators. The variables serve as either the numerator or denominator of the indicator equation, depending on how this has been defined.
Classification system for the UA indicators
Indicators are labelled in a similar way to variables, except that the names end with an I to identify them as indicators.
For examples on these classifications please refer to the UA reference metadata.
3.3. Coverage - sector
The indicators and variables cover several aspects of quality of life, for e.g. demography, housing, health, crime, labour market, income disparity, local administration, educational qualifications, environment, climate, travel patterns, information society and cultural infrastructure.
The selection of participating towns / cities and the definition of the composition of the LUZ and the SCD in terms of spatial units need to respect certain criteria set by DG Regional Policy and Eurostat and those concerning statistical quality in general:
the participating towns / cities in each country should represent about 20% of the population in that country
the participating towns / cities should reflect a good geographical distribution within the country (peripheral, central)
coverage should include more medium-sized towns / cities than was the case in the Urban Audit Pilot Phase (medium-sized towns / cities are defined as having a population of between 50.000 - 250.000 inhabitants; large towns / cities are defined as >250.000)
there should be comparability of data to enable comparative analysis between towns / cities
data should be available
This "sampling" procedure for the Urban Audit project was carefully and specifically designed by Eurostat, DG REGIO, the National Statistical Offices and the towns / cities in the countries. The final selection of participating towns / cities in the Urban Audit was a compromise between all aspects.
The Large City Audit involves all "non-Urban Audit cities" with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the EU. The list of participating cities was agreed bilaterally with the Member States.
3.6. Statistical population
Switzerland – under the auspices of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) in coordination with the Federal Office for Spatial Development (ARE) – is conducting the Urban Audit with its ten most populated cities, Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Bern, Lausanne, Winterthur, Lucerne, St. Gallen, Lugano and Biel/Bienne since 2009, after a pilot phase (2006/08) with 4 Swiss cities.
3.7. Reference area
EU Member States, Switzerland, Norway, Croatia and Turkey are represented in the data collection.
3.8. Coverage - Time
Data are available for the period 2007 to 2009.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
The unit of measurement varies from indicator to indicator; from variable to variable. In most cases the unit of measurement is included in the label.
Data are provided for three reference years, 2007, 2008 and 2009. Census-year 2000 is included in case of unavailability of the reference year.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
All data supply of urban statistics is based on a voluntary agreement, as there is no Community legislation yet on this topic http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm.
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
Not applicable.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
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 ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
Not applicable.
8.1. Release calendar
Not available.
8.2. Release calendar access
Not available.
8.3. Release policy - user access
Not available.
The periodicity of the data is 3-years. A few indicators are collected annually.
The database is updated occasionally (on average quarterly) depending on the data availability of new and revised data.
10.1. Dissemination format - News release
Not available.
10.2. Dissemination format - Publications
Not available.
10.3. Dissemination format - online database
Not available.
10.4. Dissemination format - microdata access
Not available.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
Not available.
10.6. Documentation on methodology
Not available.
10.7. Quality management - documentation
Not available.
11.1. Quality assurance
Not available.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
Overall, it can be written down that the processes and the quality of the Urban Audit are established. Nevertheless, there are a few recommendations that can be given from a Swiss point of view:
The definitions of the variables could be more precise in the glossary.
The sub-city district as a spatial level is important in the Swiss Urban Audit. It would be highly appreciated if this level could be kept and fortified.
It would be appreciated if the duration of data validation and dissemination was accelerated.
Rankings (top 10, low 10) in publications are normative. In our point of view, this is not a task for independent statistics.
The visibility and the use of Urban Audit data at an European level must be encouraged and improved.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Not available.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
Not available.
12.3. Completeness
Overall, 80% of the variables could be delivered for the reference years for the Urban Audits 2009-2011 (including the variables that can only be delivered based on the census year 2000).
Missing variables
Most domains can be delivered with more than 80% of the respective variables. The economic aspects represent the domain with the most missing data.
Generally, the absence of data is based on:
the unavailability of respective sources in the Swiss statistical system
diverging definitions (Eurostat Swiss definition)
missing data for some spatial units
13.1. Accuracy - overall
Not applicable.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Not applicable.
14.1. Timeliness
Depends on the domain and individual indicator. As a general rule, timeliness is about 24 months.
14.2. Punctuality
Not available.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
The approach of collecting data from existing sources makes it difficult and sometimes impossible to achieve comparability of variables over the entire "population". The National Urban Audit Coordinators did their best to achieve comparability of urban data, at least within their own country. Wherever it was not possible, attempts were made to estimate the data; where this has been achieved it is noted in the database with a flag.
Due to the sometimes deviating definitions and different data sources used the comparability of data is limited to some extent. Detailed information is available from the Methodological manual on city statistics or upon request.
For more information please refer to the UA reference metadata.
15.2. Comparability - over time
For the cities included into the data collection after 2004 no data for 1991 and 1996 were collected. For 1991 to 1996 (historical data) only a subset of the indicators are available.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Data collected at sub-national level is coherent with the data collected at national level to a limited extent due to the different data sources used.
15.4. Coherence - internal
Internal coherence (e.g. between spatial levels, between indicators like total, male, female population) is ensured through the application of multivariable and univariable validation controls.
Not available.
17.1. Data revision - policy
No preliminary data is published.
17.2. Data revision - practice
As the Urban data cover are very extensive, it cannot be excluded that errors exist in the data. Detected errors will be corrected after consultation with the national coordinator.
18.1. Source data
Not available.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Not available.
18.3. Data collection
Not available.
18.4. Data validation
Not available.
18.5. Data compilation
Not available.
18.6. Adjustment
Not available.
Transnational Urban Audit
After having concluded the pilot phase with the city of Geneva, Basel joined the pioneer project of the transnational Urban Audit. Hence, Geneva and Basel are the two cities concerned by the transnational Urban Audit. This project is about to be realized (definition of the transnational larger urban zone’s perimeter, organization of data ordering at the NSIs of Germany and France, coordination of the Swiss NSI and the two cities of Geneva and Basel).
Furthermore, it has been decided that data for the larger urban zone of Geneva and Basel will be transnational data from 2012 on.
Item imputation rate and methods and, where possible, the effect of imputation on the estimates for the variables transmitted: No imputation procedures for item non-response concerning the number of job vacancies were applied.
20 November 2012
For most of the indicators, existing international standards have been followed as far as possible.
The selection of participating towns / cities and the definition of the composition of the LUZ and the SCD in terms of spatial units need to respect certain criteria set by DG Regional Policy and Eurostat and those concerning statistical quality in general:
the participating towns / cities in each country should represent about 20% of the population in that country
the participating towns / cities should reflect a good geographical distribution within the country (peripheral, central)
coverage should include more medium-sized towns / cities than was the case in the Urban Audit Pilot Phase (medium-sized towns / cities are defined as having a population of between 50.000 - 250.000 inhabitants; large towns / cities are defined as >250.000)
there should be comparability of data to enable comparative analysis between towns / cities
data should be available
This "sampling" procedure for the Urban Audit project was carefully and specifically designed by Eurostat, DG REGIO, the National Statistical Offices and the towns / cities in the countries. The final selection of participating towns / cities in the Urban Audit was a compromise between all aspects.
The Large City Audit involves all "non-Urban Audit cities" with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the EU. The list of participating cities was agreed bilaterally with the Member States.
Switzerland – under the auspices of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) in coordination with the Federal Office for Spatial Development (ARE) – is conducting the Urban Audit with its ten most populated cities, Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Bern, Lausanne, Winterthur, Lucerne, St. Gallen, Lugano and Biel/Bienne since 2009, after a pilot phase (2006/08) with 4 Swiss cities.
EU Member States, Switzerland, Norway, Croatia and Turkey are represented in the data collection.
Data are provided for three reference years, 2007, 2008 and 2009. Census-year 2000 is included in case of unavailability of the reference year.
Not applicable.
The unit of measurement varies from indicator to indicator; from variable to variable. In most cases the unit of measurement is included in the label.
Not available.
Not available.
The periodicity of the data is 3-years. A few indicators are collected annually.
The database is updated occasionally (on average quarterly) depending on the data availability of new and revised data.
Depends on the domain and individual indicator. As a general rule, timeliness is about 24 months.
The approach of collecting data from existing sources makes it difficult and sometimes impossible to achieve comparability of variables over the entire "population". The National Urban Audit Coordinators did their best to achieve comparability of urban data, at least within their own country. Wherever it was not possible, attempts were made to estimate the data; where this has been achieved it is noted in the database with a flag.
Due to the sometimes deviating definitions and different data sources used the comparability of data is limited to some extent. Detailed information is available from the Methodological manual on city statistics or upon request.
For more information please refer to the UA reference metadata.
For the cities included into the data collection after 2004 no data for 1991 and 1996 were collected. For 1991 to 1996 (historical data) only a subset of the indicators are available.
