Benchmarking the performance of statistical agencies

This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.This paper provides an initial look at the performance indicators of statistical agencies in the United States in order to offer a framework for benchmarking performance. As shown by this paper, several agencies have taken extremely different approaches in measuring their performance, both in terms of what they are measuring and how they are measuring it. Sharing this information is the first step toward making these measures more robust and comparable across all US agencies and international statistics offices.