Division Current situation

Community statistics on migration and asylum are currently subject to serious problems of non-availability of data and poor harmonisation. Measures to overcome those weaknesses are ongoing and will continue throughout the programme period. These improvements will be driven by the implementation of new legislation for Community statistics on migration and asylum in the first years of the programme. The potential in the field of crime statistics will be further explored in accordance with the EU Action Plan 2006 to 2010 on developing a coherent and comprehensive framework to measure crime and criminal justice. The feasibility and advisability of introducing a legal basis for these statistics will be explored.

In recognition of the wide differences among national administrative and statistical systems for migration and asylum and for crime and criminal justice, measures to improve the comparability of statistics will focus on the harmonisation of statistical outputs rather than on the introduction of common data sources and procedures. However, in some cases (such as for statistics on organised crime) it may be necessary to develop new data sources.

Main initiatives for 2008 to 2012:

• the implementation of the legislation concerning Community statistics on migration and asylum will be completed. This will provide a framework for ongoing measures to strengthen the availability, comparability, timeliness and policy relevance of those statistics,

• statistics providing socio-economic information about migrant populations will be developed and disaggregated by gender, where appropriate, including the implementation of ad-hoc modules in the Labour Force Survey and the collection of migrant information as part of the 2011 Community Census Programme,

• the current research being carried out into the potential for Community statistics on crime (including organised crime), victimisation and criminal justice will be continued.