1. The Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) describes and defines the set of business processes needed to produce official statistics. It provides a standard framework and harmonised terminology to help statistical organisations to modernise their statistical production processes, as well as to share methods and components. The GSBPM can also be used for integrating data and metadata standards, as a template for process documentation, for harmonising statistical computing infrastructures, and to provide a framework for process quality assessment and improvement. These and other purposes for which the GSBPM can be used are elaborated further in Section VII. This version of the GSBPM is aligned with version 1.2 of the Generic Statistical Information Model (GSIM) and version 1.2 of the Generic Activity Model for Statistical Organisations (GAMSO).

Background

2. The GSBPM was first developed in 2008 by the Joint UNECE/Eurostat/OECD Group on Statistical Metadata (METIS) based on the business process model used by Statistics New Zealand. Following several drafts and public consultations, version 4.0 of the GSBPM was released in April 2009. Subsequently, it was widely adopted by the global official statistics community, and formed one of the cornerstones of the High-Level Group for the Modernisation of Official Statistics (HLG-MOS)

vision and strategy for standards-based modernisation.

3. The previous version of the GSBPM (version 5.0) was released in December 2013 and a broad review was conducted in 2018 to incorporate feedback based on practical implementation and to improve consistency with new HLG-MOS models, the GSIM and the GAMSO. Whilst the current version of the GSBPM (version 5.1) is considered as final at the time of release, it is also expected that future updates may be necessary in the coming years, either to reflect further experiences from implementing the model in practice, or due to the evolution of the nature of statistical production. The reader is therefore invited to check the GSBPM wiki

to be sure of having the latest version.

Main Changes from Version 5.0

4. The review of version 5.0 of the GSBPM had a clear mandate from the HLG-MOS to only introduce changes that had a strong business case and widespread support in the international statistical community. The rationale for this approach was that many organisations had invested heavily in implementing the GSBPM. Major changes could imply significant costs and could ultimately be counter-productive in terms of securing the widespread adoption and use of the model.

5. The main changes to the GSBPM between versions 5.0 and 5.1 are as follows:

• A few sub-processes have been re-named to improve clarity;
• The duplication between the overarching processes in the GSBPM version 5.0 and the GAMSO has been resolved;
• Descriptions of the phases and the sub-processes have been updated to be less survey-centric and activities related to working with non-statistical data providers have been added where necessary;
• In recognition of the growing importance of integrating statistical data with geospatial data, descriptions have been expanded to include tasks needed to use geospatial data;
• Terminology has been modified where necessary to improve consistency with the GAMSO and the GSIM;
• Examples and descriptions have been updated and expanded to improve clarity.