Cap. 422 Art. 7Functions of the Authority.

(1) The Authority shall have the following functions:

(a) to examine and submit, for the approval of the Minister, the business plan and financial estimates drawn up by the Director General for the administration of the Office;

(b) to regulate and to generally supervise the production of official statistics in accordance with international requirements and standards;

(c) to discuss and advise on statistical matters, including methodologies, relating to the collection, compilation and dissemination of statistics;

(d) to establish priorities in responding to the demand for official statistics;

(e) to liaise between the Office and other public bodies concerning the supply of data and the coordination of activities with statistical implications;

(f) to publish the business plan after its approval by the Minister and the Minister of Finance;

(g) to disseminate the knowledge of official statistics;

(h) to consider and comment where necessary on the understandings with other local and foreign statutory bodies, government departments, international organisations, and other entities which exercise regulatory, supervisory or licensing powers, under any law in Malta or abroad or which are otherwise engaged in gathering statistics, which could be directly or indirectly beneficial to the Authority.

(3) The members of the Authority, other than the Director General, shall not have access to confidential information pertaining to any individual person, household or undertaking unless they are appointed officers of statistics as defined in article 11.

(4) Nothing in subarticle (1) shall be construed as enabling the Authority to exercise any power or function already assigned to the Director General under this Act.

(5) The members of the Authority shall not take instructions from the Government or any other authority, political parties or any other interest groups, in the selection of data sources, statistical methods and procedures, in the contents, form and time of dissemination, and in the application of statistical confidentiality.