Learn About the Statistical Office in Białystok
The Statistical Office in Białystok is part of the public statistics services under Statistics Poland and operates on the basis of:
- the Act of June 29, 1995, on Public Statistics (Journal of Laws 2023, item 773),
- the Office’s charter, adopted by Order No. 12 of the President of Statistics Poland dated August 21, 2012 (Official Journal of Statistics Poland, item 39, as amended),
- the Office’s organizational regulations introduced by Internal Order No. 1 of the Director of the Statistical Office in Białystok dated January 3, 2022,
- and other legal provisions applicable to the Office.
In accordance with the charter, which is attached as an appendix to Order No. 12 of the President of Statistics Poland dated August 21, 2012, on the adoption of the charter for the Statistical Office in Białystok (Official Journal of Statistics Poland, item 39, as amended), the scope of the Office’s responsibilities includes:
- converting administrative datasets into statistical datasets;
- collecting data, including from public administration information systems, and compiling, processing, and analyzing statistical data;
- carrying out work arising from the public statistics research program and the methodological work plan;
- conducting and implementing censuses and other large-scale surveys within the Podlaskie Voivodship;
- participating in the development of methodologies for statistical surveys concerning the Podlaskie Voivodship;
- identifying and analyzing the demand for statistical information and analyses by territorial cross-sections within the Podlaskie Voivodship, as well as designing methods and forms to meet that demand;
- making available and disseminating the resulting statistical information concerning the Podlaskie Voivodship;
- conducting research and analyses relevant to the specific characteristics of the province, including in cooperation with scientific and research institutions;
- providing informational support to local government units and to advisory and expert bodies cooperating with local government;
- conducting activities aimed at popularizing and promoting statistics and disseminating knowledge about statistics, including providing statistical education within the Podlaskie Voivodship;
- participating in work related to the compilation of regional statistics;
- providing statistical information concerning the Podlaskie Voivodship to government administrative bodies, local government authorities, and other recipients;
- conducting research, analysis, and publication activities in the Podlaskie Voivodship in the field of cross-border and Euroregional statistics in cooperation with the Center for Cross-Border Research and Euroregional Statistics of the Statistical Office in Rzeszów;
- developing methodologies, conducting research and analyses, and preparing publications concerning the “Green Lungs of Poland” ecoregion;
- maintaining the national official register of economic entities (REGON) with respect to legal entities, organizational units without legal personality, and natural persons conducting business activity, as well as making data from the REGON register available;
- maintaining and providing access to data from the national official register of the country’s territorial division (TERYT) within the Podlaskie Voivodship, specifically the portion covering the system of statistical regions and census districts, as well as the address identification system for streets, properties, buildings, and dwellings (including the street directory);
- maintaining spatial address databases within the Podlaskie Voivodship for the purpose of creating spatial maps using specialized GIS software, based on data from the National Official Territorial Division Register (TERYT) and statistical registers;
- cooperating with government administrative bodies and local government authorities in the Podlaskie Voivodship that maintain official registers and public administration information systems regarding the transfer of source data for updating the registers and surveys;
- conducting joint surveys with government or local government agencies, included at their request in the public statistics survey program;
- managing the IT infrastructure of public statistics agencies located in the Podlaskie Voivodship.
The Statistical Office in Białystok specializes in carrying out nationwide tasks for the benefit of public statistics as a whole in the following areas:
- environmental protection statistics;
- nature protection statistics;
- forestry statistics, including environmental-economic accounts for forests;
- the green economy;
- the silver economy.
The Office carries out tasks in the field of environmental and nature protection statistics, in cooperation with the relevant department of Statistics Poland, specifically regarding:
- conducting methodological work;
- preparing guidelines, creating databases, designing forms, and streamlining the data collection process and improving the research tools used;
- collecting, compiling, processing, and analyzing data;
- compiling survey results and assessing data quality;
- initiating, planning, and designing statistical surveys;
- identifying administrative data sources and conducting work to enable their use in statistical surveys;
- designing, programming, and maintaining IT systems to support the conduct of surveys;
- cooperating with other ministries, institutions, and organizations in the area of survey methodology, including participation in the work of interministerial and international teams;
- creating and maintaining statistical databases;
- preparing statistical publications and reports.
As the lead agency conducting research in the field of forestry statistics, including environmental and economic accounts for forests, the Office carries out tasks related in particular to:
- identifying the need for statistical data and initiating, designing, and planning statistical surveys;
- initiating and conducting methodological work and pilot studies;
- developing data set templates along with explanatory notes;
- developing and updating registers, survey manuals, and creating databases;
- collecting, compiling, processing, and analyzing statistical data;
- providing IT support for ongoing surveys, including preparing specifications for IT systems related to the collection, processing, analysis, and compilation of survey results;
- assessing the quality, inspecting, and approving provincial and national data sets, as well as provincial and national control and results tables;
- creating and maintaining statistical databases, developing their structure and specifications, and compiling metadata to populate statistical databases;
- calculating labor intensity, estimating, accounting for, and analyzing the costs of conducted research;
- compiling and disseminating research results, and preparing summary and analytical publications;
- compiling environmental-economic accounts for forests;
- improving the methodology of environmental-economic accounts for forests;
- maintaining summary accounts of forestry production indicators for the purposes of the System of National Accounts and the Global Production Account, including value added in forestry; monitoring changes in national and international legislation and conducting work aimed at aligning surveys with applicable legal requirements;
- providing opinions on draft government documents;
- identifying and assessing the suitability and potential use of administrative and non-administrative data for the purposes of statistical surveys;
- cooperating with other ministries, institutions, and organizations to integrate and coordinate statistical surveys and data collection, by participating in the work of international and interministerial teams and expert groups;
- preparing documents and materials for meetings and consultations related to international cooperation
As the lead agency for research on the green economy, the Office carries out tasks related in particular to:
- conducting methodological work;
- identifying administrative data sources and utilizing them in the research;
- collaborating with the administrators of administrative data sources;
- preparing publications and statistical reports.
As the lead agency for research in the field of senior economy, the Office carries out tasks related in particular to:
- conducting methodological work;
- initiating, planning, designing, and conducting statistical surveys;
- identifying administrative data sources and conducting work to enable their use in statistical research;
- cooperating with other ministries, institutions, and organizations in the area of research methodology;
- creating and maintaining statistical databases;
- preparing statistical publications and reports.
