One of the primary tasks of public statistics, as provided for in the Act, is the collection and the gathering of statistical data:

• from and on entities of the national economy and their activities and
• from and on natural person on their physical life and situation
• from all available sources, as defined in detail in the program of statistical surveys of public statistics or in separate laws, among other things,
  • from full research, general censuses,
  • from the research conducted with methods of representation,
  • from administrative sources.

The programme of statistical surveys of public statistics is a list setting out the thematic , subject and subjective scope and related duties.

Techniques used for transfering statistical data:

• Internet (Reporting Portal, email)
• face-to-face interview (using paper form or CAPI - interview recorded on a portable electronic device),
• telephone interview (traditional or CATI - telephone interview assisted by computer program).

• Surveys

since 2000 in all Statistical Offices, there have been Departments of Surveys dealing with the implementation of social and agricultural statistical research through a network of pollsters.

They carry out the research:

• continuous,
• cyclic,
• one-time
• and research commissioned and on individual order, not covered by the program of statistical research of public statistics.

Social surveys are voluntary, conducted with representative method.

Quotations and agricultural surveys are obligatory, and in the case of this research sampling is purposeful.

Research in Opolskie Voivodeship in 2016 is conducted by 37 field pollsters.

In the case of a large load of research there is the possibility of the involvement of employees performing their work on a daily basis in the Office (the so-called changing pollsters).

• Reporting Portal

On 1 January 2009, the Central Statistical Office introduced as valid a safe form of electronic transmission of statistical data. In accordance with the program of statistical surveys of public statistics the entities of the national economy, for which the reporting obligation was established, shall transmit the data in electronic form to the REPORTING PORTAL of CSO. The portal made available applications that allow you to fill in the on-line application form. Signing in to the reporting portal of CSO is possible through previously activated account. For selected reports at http://form.stat.gov.pl/formularze/formularze.htm applications off-line will also be made available that give you the opportunity to fill out reports on your computer, without the need for a direct connection to the Internet, and then send them electronically to public statistics.

• Censuses 

Both the Census on population and housing, as well as the agricultural census are obligatory research, carried out on the basis of the Census Act. They are at the same time, the greatest statistical undertakings which are taken not only in Poland but all over the world. The implementation of such projects requires full mobilization, both of the public and the State.

National Census provides the most detailed information about the population, territorial distribution, the socio-demographic and professional structure , as well as of the socio-economic characteristics of households and families and their housing conditions and resources at all levels of the territorial division of the country: national, regional and local.

Agricultural Census has been carried out in order to provide information in the field of agriculture in the scope of general characteristics of an agricultural holding, land use, sown area and livestock and tractors, agricultural machinery and equipment, use of fertilizers, as well aspersons working on the farm, the structure of the farm income, use of the support schemes for agriculture and methods of agricultural production (the impact of agriculture on the environment).

• Administrative sources

The bodies of the Government Administration and units of local self-government, other government agencies, the authorities who run official registers and Polish National Bank free of charge shall forward to the services of the public statistics collected administrative data in the scope, form and within the time limits defined each time within the surveys program of public statistics, in particular in the form of extracts from the registers, copies: data sets, collected declarations, documents and other official recording forms, the results of measurements, environmental monitoring data and provide data from databases of information systems.

 Collections of administrative data are derived fromcentral systems, among other things: The Ministry of Finance/tax offices-an information system operated by the tax authorities; The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration - collection of SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS and vehicle records CEP; The Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture; Money For The Agricultural Social Insurance; The National Health Fund - A Central List Of Insured Persons; Agri-Food Commercial Quality Inspection; The main Office of Geodesy and Cartography-State Register of borders and surface of the units of of the territorial division of the country, and orthophoto maps of the Polish area; and distributed: Marshall's offices - Databases of Topographic Objects; powiat starosts -land records and buildings and information systems of State Labour Office; offices of gminas - real estate tax records of the EPN and communal registration sets.