The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) is an executive agency

Executive agency

An executive agency, also known as a next-step agency, is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate in order to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly or Northern Ireland...

 within the Department of Finance and Personnel

Department of Finance and Personnel

The Department of Finance and Personnel is a devolved Northern Ireland government department in the Northern Ireland Executive...

 in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

. The organisation is responsible for the collection and publication of statistics related to the economy, population and society of Northern Ireland. It is responsible for conducting the decennial census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

, and also incorporates the General Register Office

General Register Office (Northern Ireland)

The General Register Office is responsible for the civil registration of births, deaths, marriages, civil partnerships and adoptions as well as administering marriage and civil partnership law in Northern Ireland...

(GRO) for Northern Ireland which is responsible for the registration of births, marriages, and deaths.