What is importance of statistics to government?

Answer 1

There are several aspects.

A government is meant to look after the population of the region that it governs. It therefore needs to know how many people there are: how many children who need schooling, how many babies who will need schooling later, how many people of working age who (potentially) will create the wealth of the nation, how many elderly people who are likely to require more medical support, how many households who will want housing, energy and food.

It is also necessary to try to manage the economy and for this a whole array of statistics are required. Governments need to decide between alternatives and statistics are a useful tool for building mathematical (or econometric) models which can forecast what might happen in a range of scenarios. Political judgement is the used to decide on the options. Statistics can then be used to monitor the outcome so as to ascertain whether things are going according to plan.