THE board of directors of the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) has signed off on amendments to be made to the Statistics Act.

This was disclosed by director general at STATIN Carol Coy at a JIS think tank at the agency’s head office in Kingston, Tuesday.

“We are now in discussion with our parent ministry —– the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service—as to the way we move forward,” Coy said.

She said that the proposed amendments are informed by discussions that took place with relevant stakeholder groups.

The changes are intended to update the existing Act in order to strengthen the entity’s ability to produce quality statistics, and reflect advances since the legislation was last amended in 1984.

“The United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics has come on. It lays out certain features that a statistics office should have,”Ms. Coy noted.

The principles include relevance, impartiality and equal access; professional standards, scientific principles, and professional ethics; accountability and transparency; prevention of misuse; sources of official statistics; confidentiality; legislation; national coordination; use of international standards and international cooperation.

“We have been following the principles but what we want to do is enshrine this in the Act,” the director general said.