Stats NZ chief quits over census
Chief statistician Liz Macpherson has resigned after a review criticised ‘‘ultimately ineffective’’ leadership of Census 2018.
An independent review into the long-delayed Census 2018 identified numerous problems which led to a failure to count one-in-10 New Zealanders.
The 80-page review, released yesterday, said the leadership of Census 2018 was ‘‘overly complex and ultimately ineffective’’, and too much focus was put on the online census.
‘‘I want to publicly apologise for what went wrong with the 2018 Census. I am truly sorry,’’ she said yesterday.
‘‘We shouldn’t have been here, we shouldn’t have had to do this remedial work.’’
Macpherson, the chief executive of Statistics New Zealand, continued to offer assurances the now exceptionally delayed results from the first digital census, held on March 6, 2018, would produce a viable data set.
There has been widespread concern the data will be irreparably compromised.
The review found Statistics New Zealand faced problems in the lead-up to Census 2018, and there was an ‘‘optimism bias’’ within the organisation and key decisions were not raised with executive leadership. Cuts to the staff on the ground were too aggressive considering the uncertainty surrounding the digital census.
‘‘Communication subsequent to census day have not been transparent about response rates and plans for treating gaps, and have left many stakeholders frustrated,’’ the review said.
‘‘The buck stops with me,’’ Macpherson said. ‘‘Put simply, these decisions meant that the census, as carried out on the ground, did not stick to the original plan ... When things went wrong, we didn’t fix them correctly.’’
State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes said he supported
Macpherson’s decision, and asked her to remain in the role until Christmas.
‘‘I want her to stay on because she is the best person to finish the remediation work. I expect public service chief executives to own it, fix it, and learn from it . . . This is not an easy thing for anyone to do, and I want to thank Macpherson for her integrity.’’
Census expert Connie Graziadel, an author of the review, said: ‘‘It would be easy to conclude the census was a failure. We do not believe this would be a fair assessment. There were many things that went well.’’
Ma¯ori Council director Matthew Tukaki welcomed the chief statistician’s resignation and called for a ‘‘re-run’’ of the census.
Requests to hold another census before the planned 2023 survey have been dismissed.