SINSO is mandated by the Statistics Act 1970 and the Census Act 1959 to collect, process, analyse and disseminate core official statistics for the purposes of policy and planning, decision making and public debate. The working vision of SINSO is a dynamic government statistical agency fulfilling its mission to provide timely, relevant and accurate statistics within a responsive national statistical service.
SINSO has four core functions, which also make up its operational units. These are:
i) Economic Statistics: responsible for the production of key economic statistics such as the consumer price index (CPI), merchandise trade and national (GDP) accounts.
ii) Population-Social Statistics: responsible for the analysis and dissemination of census and socio-demographic statistics including other related statistics such as visitor arrival statistics.
iii) Survey-Census and Provincial Operations: responsible for executing all national statistical projects (e.g. the census) and for the coordination of all statistical and field activities in the provinces.
iv) Executive Management and Support Service: this includes the Office of the Government Statistician (the head of SINSO) and the Deputy Government Statistician. Management is supported by an Administration Officer.
SINSO formally began as a division within the Ministry of Finance and Treasury (MOFT) immediately after the country’s independence in 1978, although the organisation operated prior to independence in undertaking statistical activities. The functions of SINSO are governed by the Statistics Act 1970 and the Census Act 1959, and subsequent amendments. SINSO is officially an independent agency of government guided by the aforementioned legislations, but administratively it remains a division of MOFT.