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Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency Seventh Edition (2021) / Chapter Skim
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Practice 4: Professional Advancement of Staff
Pages 63-66

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From page 63...
... , statistical methodologists who specialize in data collection and analysis, and other skilled staff such as budget analysts, procurement specialists, human resource specialists, computer scientists, and data scientists. Statistical agency staff should be recruited and promoted based solely on their professional qualifications and performance, and these personnel decisions should be made solely by agency career staff without external interference (see Practice 2)
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From page 64...
... • Supporting participation in relevant statistical and other scientific associations, including leadership positions, to promote interactions with researchers and methodologists in other organizations that can advance the state of the art. Such participation is also a mechanism for disseminating information about an agency's programs and helps ensure a culture of scientific integrity in federal agencies.17 • Fostering interaction with other professionals inside and outside the agency through a variety of mechanisms, including opportunities to participate in technical advisory committee meetings, interacting with contract researchers and research consultants on substantive matters, interacting with visiting fellows and staff detailed from other agencies, offering developmental assignments with other relevant statistical, policy, or research organizations, and offering rotational assignments within the agency.
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From page 65...
... An effective statistical agency maintains and develops a sufficiently large number of in-house staff, including mathematical statisticians, survey researchers, subject-matter specialists, and information technology experts, who are qualified to analyze the agency's data and to plan, design, carry out, and evaluate its core operations, so that the agency maintains the integrity of its data and its credibility in planning and fulfilling its mission. Agencies also need staff with specialized skills to create visualizations, metadata, and application programming intefaces (APIs)
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From page 66...
... and by federal pay scales. However, some statistical agencies have been needlessly constrained in the number of agency staff they can employ regardless of their budgetary resources, resulting in too few staff to adequately handle the work needed to maintain existing programs and oversee contractors.
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