REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL concerning the Implementation of the Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) N° 58/97

Main report (January 2000)

On the 20th December 1996 Council Regulation (EC, EURATOM) No 58/97 concerning structural business statistics was adopted. This report, foreseen by the SBS regulation, looks principally at:

* the availability and quality of structural business statistics;

* the efforts to implement the SBS regulation made by Eurostat and the national authorities in Member States responsible for producing Community statistics.

In most cases the main national authority responsible for producing Community statistics is the national statistical authority, although in many Member States some specific statistics are produced by other parts of the public administration. An important example of this is the statistics on insurance services which are often produced by the national insurance regulatory bodies.

Meeting the objective-

The objective of the SBS regulation according its first Article is to establish a common framework for the collection, compilation, transmission and evaluation of Community statistics on the structure, activity, competitiveness and performance of businesses in the Community. This framework for the production of structural business statistics sets a number of targets in terms of data availability and quality, for example in terms of coverage and freshness of data. All Member States needed to make changes to move towards these targets in order that EU statistics as a whole could progress, although the particular aspects that required improvement in each Member State varied greatly. The effectiveness of the implementation of the SBS regulation must be judged against this objective. The analysis of data availability, quality and burden is based on the situation at the time of writing [1]. In practice it is therefore based on 1995 and 1996 reference year data for which all Member States have sent data. 1997 data is also available for a few Member States.

[1] Data availability is based on the non-confidential data disseminated by 13 January 2000 on Eurostat's reference database called New Cronos.

Data availability

There has been a dramatic improvement in the volume of data available during the early part of the transition period foreseen in the SBS regulation. Practically all countries have seen an overall improvement in their position and availability has more than doubled. By the 1996 reference year more than half of the data foreseen in Annex 1 of the SBS regulation was already being provided.

The service sectors, which generally started from the worst position, and to a lesser extent construction, have seen the greatest improvements. In the industrial sectors there have also been large improvements across the EU as a whole although in some Member States the position has worsened.

The weakest data availability remains in the energy supply, mining and quarrying and transport and communication sectors with national post activities (NACE Rev. 1 Class 64.11) having the worst data availability amongst the Member States. This weak coverage outside of manufacturing can be seen from the availability of data to produce totals for the EU as a whole based on data for all 15 Member States. Such totals can be calculated for a very restricted number of variables for 7 of the 23 manufacturing Divisions of NACE Rev. 1. However, EU totals can not be calculated, without estimations for any other activities, notably for none of the service activities.

None of the main variables that figure in Annex 1 of the SBS regulation are regarded as being particularly weak in their availability. However the sector specific Annexes 2, 3 and 4 of the SBS regulation show a number of areas of concern, notably indicators of research and development, although it should be noted that data for the last two years of the transition period have in general not yet been transmitted.

Freshness

The freshness of data is one of the key issues of quality but, as the main criticism for the industrial sectors is the deterioration in the freshness of the data, and because this is equally important for services, this particular aspect of quality merits a separate examination. The lack of freshness may be due to data production taking a long time in Member States and the Commission or to changes in estimation methods for data that is missing or slow to be delivered. The delays in data availability should be seen in the light of several countries setting up new survey systems in the service sectors or carrying out major changes to existing systems. Despite this perception of worsening delays in the dissemination of data, delays in data transmission have in general fallen between 1995 and 1996. Eurostat will continue its efforts to speed up the data treatment procedures to make data available to users faster. In addition Eurostat will continue to review its dissemination policy for structural business statistics in order to speed up dissemination and to improve the means of dissemination used.

Data freshness is recognised as one of the greatest concerns of users and this aspect of data availability will need continuous vigilance from Eurostat and Member States in the future. In order to provide data for users quicker than foreseen for final results by the SBS regulation Member States and the Commission will need to make greater efforts to improve the availability of preliminary results which are particularly poor at the present time. In addition the Commission will need to continue to make estimates in manufacturing as it has done for several years and investigate the possibilities to develop estimation techniques in other sectors. The aim of these estimation procedures will be to have a first estimate for key variables within four months of the end of the reference year.

Evaluation of quality and assessment of burden

A great deal of theoretical work has been undertaken to compile a robust definition of quality for structural business statistics with appropriate measures. This has built on work done nationally by Statistics Sweden and the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom. Attention has now turned to an evaluation of the feasibility of these measures and the encouragement of their more widespread application and this will continue in the future.

The first stages of development have however taken place recently concerning the measurement of the accuracy of the main SBS variables. Within this context a Commission Regulation has been adopted which lays down the criteria for evaluating quality. A summary for the EU as a whole should be available during 2000 which will represent a significant stage of progress. In this area Eurostat's wish is to adopt a progressive improvement in the extent to which quality is taken into account. Such an approach is necessary firstly because the measurement of quality is expensive in terms of human and financial resources and secondly because the experience of the national statistical authorities is very varied in this domain. Finally it should be emphasised that the ever greater use of administrative sources as well as the use of more sophisticated statistical methods generally with the aim of reducing the response burden, require major theoretical developments in order to legitimately measure the accuracy of these data.

Eurostat's wish is to make the monitoring of the quality of structural business statistics and, if necessary, its improvement, one of the main areas of work during the next few years, through a close cooperation with the Member States.

Little progress has been made on the assessment of response burden. Traditionally very few Member States have collected such information on a regular, systematic basis (the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are the main exceptions) although several have done one-off studies. Whilst more quantitative information on response burden may be asked for, the collection of such information is faced by the paradox that the gathering of this information may itself lead to an increase in the response burden. Work to assess burden across the EU which has recently started has underlined the difficulties of providing a relevant quantitative assessment for the EU; the most important difficulty is how an estimate of burden can be connected to information on the availability and quality of the statistical information compiled and disseminated.

Future work in this area, which Eurostat feels should be intensified, needs to establish links between statistical response burden, quality (including data availability), user needs and the general administrative burden.

Implementation

National efforts to improve data production

In general a very positive picture of implementation by the Member States and Norway has been observed. The main focus of implementation has been a mixture of extensions of national business statistics to cover parts of the business community for which business statistics were either not available or extremely weak allied to a rationalisation of existing systems. In many cases, when national circumstances are favourable, this has been accompanied by increased efforts to make use of administrative data [2] in order to reduce the response burden, although this may have lead at the same time to increased costs for the statistical offices and the effect on quality is not necessarily positive. The detailed report which accompanies the main report contains information on the position from which each Member State started the implementation as well as the efforts made since the 1995 reference year. Three examples however give an indication of the type of efforts made and reflect to some extent the different environments in which structural business statistics are compiled.

[2] In the context of structural business statistics there is not a formal definition of administrative data. However it is used here to mean all the data collected regularly by public authorities, other than the statistical authorities, for their own use and not primarily for statistical purposes. For example tax declarations, published accounts and employment data from social security declarations are the most frequently used by the statistical authorities.

Firstly in a number of Member States the existing system of annual structural business statistics did not cover all activities, notably in the service sectors. An example of such a situation is Austria where, on an annual basis, only industrial activities were covered prior to 1995. Services were included in the non-agricultural enterprise census which were carried out infrequently (1976, 1983 and 1988). In 1995 the Austrian statistical office carried out a census covering both industry and services. From the 1997 reference year an annual data collection has been put in place with a sample survey extending the annual survey coverage from industry to include also services.

Secondly a number of Member States have managed to extend the availability of data to meet the requirements of the SBS regulation through a new or greater access to administrative sources. In Finland before 1995 the financial statements surveys was incomplete in sectoral coverage as it excluded some transport and communication activities as well as real estate activities, renting, research and development activities and some business activities. It was also incomplete as it excluded enterprises with less than 50 employees in hotels and restaurants and in one of the transport activities. Administrative data has been used to extend the availability of data to all of the service activities required by the SBS regulation as well as to provide data for the smaller enterprises that were excluded for some activities. In the case of Finland the availability of administrative data has also made it possible to exclude smaller enterprises from the financial statements survey that were previously covered.

Finally, in some Member States the size and sectoral coverage was essentially complete, occasionally with a small number of gaps, and the availability of variables was completed from several different sources. This was the case for example in the United Kingdom where a rationalisation has taken place with the introduction of the Annual business inquiry which has replaced in a coordinated manner the census of production, the census of construction, the retailing, wholesaling and motor trades inquiries, the property inquiry, the catering inquiry and the service trades inquiry as well as integrating a separate employment survey.

On the whole these and similar efforts have brought most Member States a long way towards meeting the compulsory requirements of the SBS regulation. At the time of writing data for the 1997 reference year has only been received from a few Member States, most are close to completing these surveys and the surveys for the 1998 reference year are also well advanced. Hence, although data is not always available as evidence, serious plans have been put in place to ensure that for the 1999 reference period data will be broadly available.

Common implementation activities

Based on the Comitology procedure foreseen in the SBS regulation the Commission has adopted a number of standards relating to the implementation of the SBS regulation. In particular these cover a precise description of the data series to be provided to the Commission, definitions of most of the variables and a list of quality measurement criteria.

Outside of these formal implementing measures and the definition and measurement of quality which has already been mentioned, the methodological areas that have been the subject of the greatest development work and where work will continue in the future centre around i) response burden and ii) the treatment of confidential data.

Response burden

The use of administrative data as a measure to counter response burden can be applied in several ways, for example to:

- exclude part of the population from statistical survey (for example Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland and Sweden [3]);

[3] In most of these countries administrative data is used for small enterprises and in some cases it is also used for particular activities, such as the liberal professions in Belgium.

- reduce the sample size by supplementing statistical surveys with administrative information (for example Italy [4]);

[4] The Italian statistical authority has raised the threshold from 20 to 100 persons employed above which it surveys exhaustively and below which it samples and uses administrative data.

- lighten questionnaires by reducing the number of questions (for example the United Kingdom [5]).

[5] The United Kingdom has removed questions on regional data from its statistical survey on employment and used administrative data instead.

Whilst the production of statistics from administrative data can have a number of benefits, the use of administrative sources can be problematic for a number of reasons, notably concerning the definitions of the administrative units used and the information available in the sources, as well as the quality of the data and ruptures due to administrative changes. The role that Eurostat has played in this area has been to provide an international forum for the discussion of ideas and practices and to document and disseminate best practice in the EEA. In the future Eurostat will continue its work in this area in particular to assist Member States in the development and support of best practice for the reduction of burden, focusing essentially on the use and combination of administrative data, estimations and encouragement of sampling techniques such as rotating or multi-yearly samples.

A related activity practised by some Member States for a long time (for example France and Portugal) and one which others have applied recently (Greece and Sweden) is the development of closer links between the definitions and terminology used in statistical surveys and that used in administrative sources. Refining the terminology and presentation adopted in statistical questionnaires to follow that used for company accounts is one example. More actively contacts with the bodies responsible for administrative standards to try to influence the terminology and structure they use such that reporting requirements can be combined is a further step currently investigated in Finland and Norway. National statistical authorities as well as the Commission need to maintain vigilance to try to avoid unnecessary contradiction between statistical demands and other administrative requirements and to facilitate the compilation of high quality EU structural business statistics.

Whilst the link with administrative standards is often seen primarily as an issue relating to burden, this can not be separated from quality. Business statistics rely to an ever increasing extent on other administrative standards and so the quality of EU business statistics will always depend, amongst other factors, on the degree to which these administrative standards are harmonised. The harmonisation of EU standards is in itself not sufficient as a growing proportion of EU groups, particularly large ones, choose to compile their accounts using non-EU standards to gain access to international finance amongst other reasons and this is likely to have consequences for the type of accounting data availability for enterprise statistics.

Confidentiality

The second area, confidentiality, remains a major concern for EU business statistics despite the obligation under the provisions of the SBS regulation for Member States to transmit confidential data. Data dissemination for the EU as a whole is severely limited by problems of statistical confidentiality. As an example, in 1996 for manufacturing, it was only possible to disseminate 38 of 103 [6] Groups of NACE Rev. 1 for the EU as a whole, even after estimating a certain amount of data that had not been transmitted. This problem is currently particularly acute in manufacturing and less problematic elsewhere as there are few other activities where all 15 Member States provide data or can be reliably estimated. As the implementation efforts of the Member States lead to a greater availability of data this problem will inevitably grow and a solution needs to be found. One possibility is to reassess the balance between the availability of national data and EU totals and between the dissemination of detailed or aggregated data.

[6] Eleven of the one hundred and three Groups can not be disseminated because of reasons other than confidentiality.

A charter on confidentiality for structural business statistics has been adopted with the objective to achieve a compatible treatment of confidentiality in the Member States and in Eurostat. A new agreement on confidential data has to be found between the Member States and Eurostat. Eurostat intends to update the charter on confidentiality to take account of general changes to EU statistical confidentiality and to endeavour to create the conditions to disseminate more EU structural business statistics to users. Without such an agreement the goal of EU structural business statistics may be achieved at a superficial level in that data is provided by Member States and disseminated for each individual Member State but the real goal of disseminating EU data will not be met.

Statistical units and the national implementation of definitions

As well as the areas mentioned above, where a considerable amount of work has already been undertaken, a number of other issues will need to be addressed in the future. Two principal areas of development have been identified which, if progress is not seen, EU structural business statistics will not improve.

A new period of reflection is required on the use in business statistics of different types of statistical units for producing non-regional data, in other words the main series of data. The SBS regulation currently foresees the use of two such units, namely the enterprise and the KAU. Further studies will be needed on these statistical units, their inclusion in statistical business registers and their appropriateness for analytical purposes, based on the experience gained during recent years since the implementation of the regulation on business registers for statistical purposes and the SBS regulation. The problems associated with these non-regional units are three-fold:

- the collection of data on units that are highly homogeneous in terms of the activities that they carry out is difficult but if this is not done the resulting sectoral structural business statistics may contain a large proportion of secondary activities; in other words it is difficult but necessary to break down the activity of multi-activity units into more homogeneous parts;

- groups of legal units that act together need to be treated in a manner that reflects the economic reality that they are not independent of each other;

- the business environment between EU Member States is diverse, resulting for example from the organisation of industry over time as well as current fiscal and administrative pressures, and this renders difficult the drafting of a common definition of one or several types of units that will be interpreted in a manner such that comparable EU business statistics can be compiled.

A solution to these problems is necessary if EU business statistics are to be compiled by simple addition of the results expressed for each Member State.

An area that has received very little attention in structural business statistics is the implementation of EU definitions at the national level. Although EU definitions have been drafted with a great deal of care and been adopted only after lengthy discussions with national experts, Eurostat believes that it is necessary to investigate the extent to which differences in major indicators such as turnover, production value, value added and investment can be attributed to different implementations of definitions rather than underlying differences in national business communities.

Developments

The main aim for the medium term is the achievement of the full implementation of the SBS regulation in order to enable the Commission to produce high quality aggregate figures for the European Union within a reasonable time span after the end of the reference period. However, if structural business statistics are to remain up-to-date and relevant they have to adapt. The following elements are required for such development to be undertaken successfully:

- recognition by suppliers and users of data of the necessity of development balanced against a need for some stability;

- attention to the changing needs of users, in EU institutions, nationally and regionally;

- attention to changes in production methods, employment patterns and business relations;

- priority setting within resource constraints.

In a context of limited financial and human resources this principle of adaptation may be considered as conflicting with the concern for the full implementation of the Regulation. The implementation of the SBS regulation should not preclude development of structural business statistics outside of this legal framework. In particular it is necessary to be able to provide a faster, more flexible response to some user needs than is possible with a legal instrument such as the SBS regulation. In order to avoid an ever increasing pressure on response burden and on the workload of national statistical authorities Eurostat will need to regularly review the requirements of the SBS regulation to ensure that areas of decreasing importance and relevance are also removed from the compulsory requirements.

Eurostat will, in cooperation with the national statistical authorities, set up a three year work programme for the development of structural business statistics which will incorporate remaining work on the subjects of the pilot studies foreseen in the SBS regulation as well as other subjects of importance.

The subject areas that have been identified as most important for development work during the next year, include statistics on business services and business demography/employment creation. Equally it is hoped that some existing projects that are carried out by Eurostat and the Member States outside of the scope of the SBS regulation can be stopped if the users of statistics from these projects can accept that a large proportion of their data requirements are being met by the SBS regulation. For example it is hoped that by the 1999 reference year this will be the case for special projects set up at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s on statistics on small and medium sized enterprises.

During 2000 and 2001 it is intended that the Commission will prepare a number of proposals for amendments to the SBS regulation, notably concerning financial intermediation, pension funding, activities auxiliary to financial intermediation and the strengthening of the list of characteristics to be used to observe business expenditure on environmental protection.

Recommendations

The following recommendations have been identified throughout this main report:

Member States that are not yet fully meeting the requirements of annex 1 of the SBS regulation in terms of activity and size coverage need to concentrate on meeting this first objective;

Eurostat should continue efforts to make data available more rapidly by improving data treatment procedures and the means of dissemination;

The need for EU totals makes it necessary that Eurostat continues the production of estimations for missing data, and tries to extend this to non-manufacturing sectors as well as supporting national statistical authorities in their production of preliminary results; Member States that do not yet respect the timetable for data transmission for the final results required under annex 1 of the SBS regulation need to concentrate on this aspect of quality;

Eurostat and the national statistical authorities must work to establish new practices concerning the identification and treatment of confidentiality in order to improve substantially the availability of EU totals;

Eurostat should maintain a vigilance with respect to the relevance of the statistics required by the SBS Regulation and more generally in structural business statistics to not only ensure that work is started on areas where new or stronger needs are identified but also that areas of decreasing importance are also removed in order to reduce pressure on national statistical authorities and on respondents.

Eurostat and the national statistical authorities need to continue to develop work on the quality of structural business statistics, in particular through further reflection on the most appropriate non-regional statistical units, the implementation of the definitions of variables and further harmonisation of concepts;

Eurostat and the national statistical authorities need to continue work to assess response burden and quality;

The national statistical authorities need to continue their efforts to look for ways to reduce response burden and Eurostat should continue to document and disseminate good and best practice in this area and support and encourage efforts by national statistical authorities.

Detailed report (January 2000)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I Implementation of the SBS regulation and the foreseen developments

1.1 Summary of Part I 11

1.2 Background to the SBS regulation 16

1.3 Developments undertaken 19

1.4 Member States' implementation of the SBS regulation 19

1.5 European implementation 40

1.6 Foreseen developments 52

PART II

Dissemination and use of data

2.1 Summary of Part II 54

2.2 Data users 57

2.3 Data 59

2.4 Confidentiality and dissemination 64

2.5 Data comparability 64

PART III

Quality of the data

3.1 Summary of Part III 72

3.2 Need and principles for a quality policy 72

3.3 First progress 73

3.4 Accuracy, a progressive implementation 75

PART IV

The costs for business

4.1 Summary of Part IV 76

4.2 Response burden 76

ANNEXES

Annex 1: NACE Rev. 1 82

Annex 2: Glossary 86

Annex 3:Tables for Part II 93

PART I

Implementation of the SBS regulation and the foreseen developments

1.1 Summary of Part I

On the 20th December 1996 the Council Regulation (EC, EURATOM) No 58/97 concerning structural business statistics was adopted. The objective of the SBS regulation according to Article 1 is to establish a common framework for the collection, compilation, transmission and evaluation of Community statistics on the structure, activity, competitiveness and performance of businesses in the Community.

The following summary lists the main actions between the 1995 and 1998 reference years and the major problems remaining in each Member State to implement the SBS regulation. The list of problems concerns mainly the requirements of Annex 1 of the SBS regulation; part 1.4 of this report details country by country the efforts that have been made and gives more information on the remaining problems for a full implementation of all Annexes.

National developments

Belgium: A new survey system has been put into place for the 1995 reference year with a new national legal basis. This meets most of the requirements of the SBS regulation.

Denmark: NACE Rev. 1 Sections C (except for Division 11), D, F and Division 52 have been covered by a new survey since the 1995 reference year referred to as the general accounts statistics. For the 1998 reference year Division 51 of Section G was added.

Germany: Estimations have been made for two variables for Section H for years when the survey is not carried out (1996 and 1998).

Greece: A construction survey has been introduced for the 1997 reference period which includes all variables foreseen by the SBS regulation. In services a completely new system of business statistics needs to be put into place. Starting from the 1995 reference period plans have been put in place for annual enterprise based surveys for the following activities: NACE Rev. 1 Sections G and H, Classes 60.22, 60.23, 60.24, 63.12, Group 63.3, Class 64.12, Division 61, Divisions 65 and 66, Groups 92.1 and 92.2.

Spain: 1998 will be the first reference year for the introduction of a new biannual survey system for the service sector which will, every 2 years, cover all service activities. For the 1998 reference year statistics will be produced for Sections G and H, Group 63.3, Divisions 64 and 72, Class 74.13, Groups 74.4 to 74.7 and parts of section O and the remaining service activities in the following year. The construction survey has been based since 1996 on the same central register as used for industry and services statistics.

France: A new generation of surveys (the 4th) has been progressively phased-in between the 1996 and 1997 reference years. The new construction survey started for the 1997 reference period and the industry and agro-food survey was revised for the 1996 reference period. Starting with the 1996 reference period data for industry cover all enterprises regardless of size. Since the 1996 reference year all of the missing activities in transport and communications have been covered through extensions to the surveys carried out or through estimations. The activity coverage in services will be increased in the 1998 reference year to cover most of NACE Rev. 1 Group 55.2.

Ireland: In industry, between the 1995 and 1996 reference year questionnaires, the enterprise forms underwent major modifications. In services the main change undertaken was to extend the coverage of the survey on an annual basis to NACE Rev. 1 Sections G, H, I and K from the 1996 reference year.

Italy: Starting with the survey referring to the 1995 reference year, existing surveys for different sized enterprises have been extended where necessary to match the activity coverage of the SBS regulation. For both surveys there was a new questionnaire in the 1996 reference year. Greater use of administrative sources and increased sampling will be used from the 1998 reference year onwards.

Luxembourg: A new survey system was developed for the 1996 reference year which meets most of the requirements of the SBS regulation.

The Netherlands: In industry questionnaires will be extended for NACE Rev. 1 Section C. For Section E enterprises with less than 20 employees will also be covered by a pilot survey in 1998 reference year. Investment data will be collected via sampling for enterprises with less than 20 employees in Sections C to F. Class 52.31 has been added to the sectoral coverage and Group 51.1 will be added.

Austria: For the 1995 reference year a full census was carried out with a new series of questionnaires. Since the 1997 reference year an annual survey has been introduced that is essentially the same as the census carried out in the 1995 reference year but introduces sampling for enterprises.

Portugal: The 1996 reference year saw a new generation of questionnaires covering all sectors. The new annual survey has no size cut-off.

Finland: For the industrial sectors the questionnaire for the 1995 reference year had already been revised based on the Commission's proposal for the SBS regulation. Data on the construction sector was produced for the 1995 reference year for the first time. Since 1995 administrative data has been available for all service activities covered in a compulsory manner by the SBS regulation hence completing the coverage of Finnish service statistics.

Sweden: For the 1997 reference year two existing surveys have been merged into one. The coverage of this new survey includes construction. For services the financial accounts statistics are exhaustive since the 1996 reference period. The activity coverage was extended for the 1997 reference period to include NACE Rev. 1 Division 70.

The United Kingdom: By the 1995 reference year the size thresholds for industry and construction had been fully eliminated. In the 1996 reference year the services coverage was extended to NACE Rev. 1 Group 60.1 and Divisions 62 and 63. In the 1998 reference year some new variables were added to the questionnaire and the survey coverage was extended to NACE Rev. 1 Class 64.11.

Norway: Structural business statistics will be produced for NACE Rev. 1 Group 40.1 and Division 41 from the 1998 reference period. For the 1995 reference year an enterprise based survey was introduced for Sections G and K of NACE Rev. 1. For the 1996 reference year existing thresholds were removed and the coverage was extended to Section I of NACE Rev. 1. For the 1997 reference year the coverage was extended to Section H. A major revision of the insurance statistics has been undertaken to fully meet the requirements of the SBS regulation from 1998.

Remaining problems in Member States

Belgium: It is unlikely that data will be provided within the 18 month delay for the 1999 reference year.

Denmark: No major problems foreseen.

Germany: In industry only some variables will be available for enterprises of all sizes until a survey of small enterprises can be put in place and this is dependent upon the completion of the business register. An attempt will be made for the 1999 reference year to extend this list of variables for which statistics are available for small and craft enterprises to the full list required by the SBS regulation. For transport, communications and business services data will only be available for a small number of variables based on administrative data or from existing surveys. This situation is likely to continue at least until the 2000 reference year and maybe later.

Greece: The availability of data for the service sectors is uncertain.

Spain: The ability of the Spanish statistical system to meet all of the requirements for the construction sector is unknown. The availability of statistics for the service sector will depend on the successful implementation of the new integrated system of service statistics for the 1998 and 1999 reference years.

France: No major problems foreseen.

Ireland: There are no proposals yet to remove the thresholds in industry and construction of 3 and 20 persons employed respectively.

Italy: No major problems foreseen.

Luxembourg: It is unlikely that data will be provided within the 18 month delay for the 1999 reference year.

The Netherlands: No major problems foreseen.

Austria: There may be difficulties to meet the delays for the final results because companies often do not close their accounts until 12-15 months after the end of the reference period.

Portugal: Production of KAU and local unit data is uncertain but is currently being studied as is the estimation of data for enterprises with less than 20 persons employed.

Finland: No major problems foreseen.

Sweden: No major problems foreseen.

The United Kingdom: No major problems foreseen.

Norway: No major problems foreseen.

National methodology

During 1999 a common updating of the information contained on the methodological practices in the Member States for industry and services was carried out for the first time. This information is disseminated commercially off-line (CD-ROM) and free of charge via the internet.

Regular contacts will need to be maintained between Eurostat and national statistical authorities in order to monitor the implementation of the SBS regulation and to assist Member States from a methodological standpoint where possible. This will be particularly important for the multi-yearly statistics foreseen in annexes 2, 3 and 4 of the SBS regulation for which the first reference year in all cases is 1997 and also for the compilation of preliminary results.

European implementation

The Commission has introduced a number of standards relating to the implementation of the SBS regulation more details of which are available in part 1.5 of this report. Between the adoption of the text in 1996 and the time of drafting this report [7] standards have been adopted on the following implementation aspects for both the SBS and insurance regulations:

[7] January 2000

- definitions of the characteristics

- first reference year for the compilation of the preliminary results

- breakdown of results

- frequency of the compilation of the statistics

- appropriate technical format for the transmission of results

- transitional period and derogations from the provisions of the SBS regulation

- criteria for the evaluation of quality

More generally the Commission has worked with the Member States to develop European methodology in a number of areas:

- to devise an extensive list of indicators relevant for the measurement of quality taking account of different collection methods; these can be summarised as: relevance, accuracy, timeliness, accessibility, comparability, coherence, completeness;

- in January 1997 the Commission hosted a seminar on the use of administrative sources for statistical purposes. Eurostat continues to follow developments in European and international standards for administrative information in order to avoid unnecessary contradiction between statistical demands and other administrative requirements;

- burden on enterprises has been studied in several technical meetings. The difficulties of providing relevant quantitative measures at the European level have been underlined; the most important difficulty is how an estimate of burden can be connected to information on the availability and quality of the statistical information compiled and disseminated;

- the provision of national confidential data is a necessary condition for producing EU totals, given that there are confidential data, but that this improvement brought about by the adoption of the SBS regulation was not sufficient to make EU totals available across all activities. A charter on confidentiality for structural business statistics has been adopted with the objective to achieve a compatible treatment of confidentiality in the Member States and in Eurostat;

- to provide data for users for those countries that have not been able to provide preliminary results or to respect the required delays for final results Eurostat has continued to develop and perform estimation procedures where sufficiently robust methods are available.

In terms of methodological developments for improving European structural business statistics the following key areas have been recognised:

- evaluate the feasibility of the proposed quality indicators and encourage a widespread application of these such that a meaningful assessment of quality can be made;

- develop and spread best practice for the reduction of burden, focusing essentially on the use and combination of administrative data, estimations and encouragement of sampling techniques such as rotating or multi-yearly samples;

- finalise a number of definitions that have not yet been established for multi-yearly characteristics laid down in the SBS regulation;

- update the charter on confidentiality to take account of general changes to European statistical confidentiality.

Pilot studies and future developments

Eurostat has started methodological work with some Member States on a voluntary basis for several of the pilot studies foreseen in the SBS regulation. The current situation for each pilot study is very diverse and ranges from methodological work that is advanced (for example on sub-contracting and on the activities of other financial intermediation) to work that has gone no further than a review of current practices (for example regional investment in the service sectors). A brief summary of each pilot study is provided in part 1.5.

As more than five years have passed since the list of pilot studies was drafted in the Commission's proposal for the SBS regulation Eurostat has also reopened discussions with users on their feelings on the usefulness of data on these prospective pilot study subjects.

In the light of the above Eurostat proposes to extend the timeframe for the execution of pilot studies beyond the 1998 reference year laid down in the SBS regulation to establish a programme for the execution of pilot studies to be reviewed annually. This rolling work programme should result from a priority list for the development of the Regulation based on user needs for additional data, current availability of data in Member States and the lead time necessary for the development of certain areas. Such a work programme has been discussed with Member States at the end of October 1999.

The main concern for the future is the achievement of the full implementation of the SBS regulation with the aim of enabling the Commission to produce high quality aggregate figures for the European Union within a reasonable time span after the end of the reference period. However, if structural business statistics are to remain up-to-date and relevant they have to adapt continuously to these changes. The following elements are required for such development to be undertaken successfully:

- recognition by data suppliers and data users of the necessity of development;

- constant attention to the changing needs of users, across the EU, nationally and regionally;

- constant attention to changes in production methods;

- priority setting within resource constraints.

Eurostat will, in cooperation with the national statistical authorities, set up a three year work programme for the development of structural business statistics which will incorporate outstanding work on the subjects of the pilot studies foreseen in the SBS regulation as well as looking at other subjects.

Bearing in mind the present state of progress on pilot studies and other structural business statistics development work it is possible to give a provisional indication of work that is likely to be completed in the near future. During 2000 and 2001 it is intended that the Commission will prepare a number of proposals for amendments to the SBS regulation, notably concerning financial intermediation, pension funding, activities auxiliary to financial intermediation and the strengthening of the list of characteristics to be used to observe business expenditure on environmental protection.

The subject areas that have been identified as most important for development work during the next three years, outside of the pilot studies foreseen in the SBS regulation, include statistics on business services (NACE Rev. 1 Section K) and business demography.

1.2 Background to the SBS regulation

Problems with structural business statistics in the 1980s

Prior to the adoption of the SBS regulation harmonised European structural business statistics had only been available for a limited part of the business community, namely the traditional industrial sectors of energy and water supply and the extraction, manufacturing and construction. The coverage of services in the Member States has been both incomplete and carried out in a non-harmonised format which has severely limited the comparability of the resulting information at a European level. The statistical information available for the industrial sectors was based on two Council Directives [8] adopted in 1964 and 1972. The harmonised industrial data were normally published in a number of annual volumes and they and the unharmonised services data are still available in part through the SBS domain of New Cronos.

[8] Council Directive 64/475/EEC of 30 July 1964 concerning coordinated annual surveys of investment in industry (OJ 131 of 13.8.1964, p. 2193) and Council Directive 72/221/EEC of 6 June 1972 concerning coordinated annual surveys of industrial activity (OJ L 133 of 10.6.1972, p. 57).

Despite the number of years during which the Directives were in force the production of European industrial structural statistics remained to a greater or lesser extent an annex to most national systems. These statistics become progressively less useful due to economic and technical developments in the intervening years and a combination of the inflexibility of the legal instruments and limited success in development outside of the legal framework. At the end of the 1980s many serious problems were evident in the extent to which the Directives were not being respected and more importantly in the lack of data available for the Commission to reply to user's data needs. In particular the following points were noted:

- Data covering enterprises of all sizes was only provided every 5 years if it was provided at all.

- Some industrial sectors, notably construction, were ignored by some Member States. Most Member States did not cover fully the service sectors of the economy and some did not cover it at all on an annual basis.

- Some phenomena relevant to structural business statistics were not covered, such as sub-contracting, research and development, environmental protection. Changes in business practices had weakened the usefulness of existing measures, such as the increased incidence of part time employment, the use of leasing and the role of intangible investment.

- Many users complained that the delay in the availability of data was far too great.

- Information was lost due to data being hidden at the national level to avoid the disclosure of confidential data, or through the passage from national nomenclatures to the common NACE 70. This made it close to impossible to calculate data for the EU as a whole.

- The statistics were produced for different statistical units with neither the enterprise nor the kind-of-activity unit being adopted as statistical units by all the national statistical authorities.

- Most national statistical authorities did not collect or supply certain of the required variables.

Some of these difficulties were reduced through the implementation of Council Regulation No 3037 of 9 October 1990 [9] on the statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE Rev. 1) and with the development of other statistical tools such as the harmonisation of business registers [10], however major difficulties remained.

[9] OJ L 293 of 24.10.1990, p. 1

[10] Council Regulation (EEC) No 2186/93 of 22 July 1993 on Community coordination in drawing up business registers for statistical purposes (OJ L 196 of 5.8.1993, p. 1).

During the technical discussions to resolve some of the remaining difficulties regular, detailed consultations were held with a large number of interested parties representing the primary suppliers of data (businesses), the statistical authorities at the national level and all types of users. These consultations can be categorised in three groups:

- the Commission's services were informed of the plans at an early stage and individual services contacted regularly thereafter;

- the national statistical authorities who remain responsible for the collection of the data, were consulted frequently. They were involved in the very first meetings where Eurostat was trying to analyse in detail the problems of the existing system, through the technical working parties in which the first proposals to make changes were made during which the Commission's proposals were refined;

- businesses and their professional associations were informed of progress on the development of the SBS regulation through presentations to the regular information meetings that Eurostat holds with European trade associations in the area of business statistics.

Adoption of the SBS regulation

In 1995 the Commission finalised its proposal to the Council for a new legal basis for European structural business statistics. On the 20th December 1996 the Council Regulation (EC, EURATOM) No 58/97 concerning structural business statistics was adopted. It was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities on the 17th of January 1997 and entered into force 20 days later.

Objective of the SBS regulation

The objective of the SBS regulation according to Article 1 is to establish a common framework for the collection, compilation, transmission and evaluation of Community statistics on the structure, activity, competitiveness and performance of businesses in the Community. A full implementation of the SBS regulation will result in the national statistical authorities, who are responsible for data collection, transmitting to Eurostat data which is comparable between the Member States. The SBS regulation lays down or foresees the norms, standards and definitions necessary for producing comparable Community statistics, without detailing the actual collection methods to be used. As such the statistical authorities in each Member State may conduct the data collection exercises in the manner most appropriate to its own situation, for example to take account of national requirements for the presentation of company accounts.

Through its Committee procedure the SBS regulation provides a degree of flexibility whereby measures for adjustment to economic and technical developments can be taken by the Commission after consulting the Member States.

The framework referred to in the first Article of the SBS regulation is made up of a number of broad provisions in the text that are relevant for most or all structural business statistics. These broad provisions are supplemented by more specific provisions in the 4 annexes. The first Annex is a general one relating to the production of a number of standard indicators for all activities covered by the Regulation. The three other annexes cover respectively industry, distributive trades and construction. This modular approach lends itself to relatively simple modifications of the SBS regulation as and when decisions to extend the data collection to cover in more detail any particular aspect of the business community are taken. This was done successfully for the new Annex 5 which covers insurance statistics.

1.3 Developments undertaken

Integration of the SBS regulation into the statistical annex of the EEA treaty

The SBS regulation was incorporated into annex XXI (statistical annex) of the EEA Agreement by Decision 13/1999 of the EEA Joint Committee at its 60th meeting on the 29th of January 1999 and entered into force the next day.

Council Regulation amending the SBS regulation

On the 16th February 1998 Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 410/98 amending Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 58/97 concerning structural business statistics (hereafter referred to as the Insurance Regulation) was adopted which added a fifth annex to the SBS regulation. This annex concerns a framework for structural business statistics for life and non-life insurance activities starting with the 1996 reference period.

The current structure combining the SBS regulation and the insurance regulation is summarised in the figure below.

>REFERENCE TO A GRAPHIC>

1.4 Member States' implementation of the SBS regulation

Belgium

Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year

The main sources of Belgian industrial statistics were an industrial survey of local or technical units (local KAU) with questions about value added and an investment survey also directed at local or technical units. A cut-off threshold of 5 manual workers was applied which was raised to 10 or 20 workers in some sectors. The surveys were exhaustive.

There were no surveys in the service sectors for which the only available statistics were derived from the social security register.

Changes and plans for the transition period: 1995-1998 reference years

A new survey system has been put into place for the 1995 reference year with a new national legal basis. This is based around one main compulsory questionnaire supplemented by a series of annexes which are mainly multi-yearly and is a common survey for all activities. The new survey aims to meet a wider range of needs than those covered by the SBS regulation and is hence more extensive.

For the 1995 reference year the survey coverage was extended beyond the traditional industry and construction sectors and covered NACE Rev. 1 Sections C-I and K. In the 1996 reference year this was extended to cover NACE Rev. 1 Group 65.2 of Section J. There is no longer a size threshold in the new survey other than the limits of the new business register. The main unit is the VAT or social security unit. Sampling has been introduced with exhaustive coverage for enterprises with 20 employees or more or an annual turnover in excess of 200 million BEF (approximately EUR5 million). The main questionnaire covers employment, income and expenditure (in a profit and loss account type format) and investment. The annual annexes include variables on the breakdown of turnover by activity and the local unit. In addition there are annexes with multi-annual variables.

In addition to the new survey, tax sources are being used for units not covered by the survey, namely the liberal professions that have no paid employees.

Remaining problems after the 1998 reference year

The new survey system is expected to meet almost all of the requirements of the SBS regulation with the question of the delay of data transmission remaining as the main problem; it is unlikely that data will be provided within the 18 month delay for the 1999 reference year and preliminary results are not available. Some multi-yearly variables are not yet collected and there are still some uncertainties concerning the production of KAU data.

Implementation plans for the 1999 reference year and after

Multi-yearly variables will be collected in 1999 by adding annexes specific to certain sectors. It is also planned to extend the use of administrative data by investigating the use of social security registers for some employment measures.

Denmark

Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year

Prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation the main surveys for industrial statistics were the accounts statistics and the investment survey. The accounts statistics were made up of a mixture of a statistical survey and administrative data.

The surveys covered annually NACE Rev. 1 Sections C-E (except Division 11) for enterprises with 20 persons employed or more. The surveys were exhaustive and the response rate was close to 100%. Information was collected on income and expenditure (in a profit and loss account type format) in the accounts survey. Statistics similar to the accounts survey are compiled annually on enterprises with less than 20 persons employed from administrative sources.

NACE Rev. 1 Section E is made up entirely of public utilities. All of these units were covered by public sector statistics rather than by the general business statistics. There was no size threshold for data collection in these surveys which were exhaustive.

NACE Rev. 1 Section F was not covered since the 1990 reference year.

Data for services were compiled from administrative data from the tax authorities, the VAT register and the register for business employment. The first of these covered all activities and most legal forms and provided information on profit and loss accounts and balance sheets. The second covered all units liable to VAT and provided information on turnover and elements of expenditure. The third source covered all local units in which persons are employed and provided information on employment, labour costs and certain characteristics of employees. The accounts and employment information was provided annually and the VAT information quarterly.

R&D data was collected separately from the survey carried out in the research ministry's bi-annual survey.

Changes and plans for the transition period: 1995-1998 reference years

NACE Rev. 1 Sections C (except Division 11), D, F and Division 52 have been covered by a new survey since the 1995 reference year referred to as the general accounts statistics. For the 1998 reference year Division 51 of Section G has been added. The survey is a sample survey above 5 employees with the sample rate normally reaching 100% above a threshold of 50 employees. As such this is an extension in terms of the activity coverage and the size coverage of the existing survey. In addition there is a supplementary annex for data by KAU for units with large secondary activities.

Administrative data is used to cover the population below 5 employees including information from the tax records which provides summary data and this is also used to extrapolate the population from the sample that has been drawn.

Whilst the preparations to extend the accounts statistics to cover all service sectors in the 1999 reference year are underway, Statistics Denmark continues to provide Eurostat with statistics on the service sectors based on the registers for accounts information with the tax authorities, the VAT register and the register for employment statistics. It is important to note that these three registers are not used independently but are merged together into an integrated set of business statistics. Whilst these statistics are only used for service sectors within the context of the SBS regulation they are in fact produced for all business sectors and it is intended to continue to develop them alongside the questionnaire/administrative source accounts statistics.

In addition to these mainstream business statistics, special statistics are produced on R&D and environment. The research Ministry carries out a 2-yearly survey on R&D and the intervening years are estimated. A special environment survey has been considered but has not yet been conducted.

Remaining problems after the 1998 reference year

None foreseen due to the extension of the activity coverage planned for 1999.

Implementation plans for the 1999 reference year and after

For the 1999 reference year it is intended to add the remaining services Sections, namely H, I and K as well as Divisions 11 and 50 to the accounts statistics.

Germany

Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year

The data collection for industry was based around two enterprise surveys collecting data on current income and expenditure on one hand and investment on the other as well as a separate survey for investment at the local unit level which did not cover construction. All of these surveys were annual. Separate questionnaires were used for i) the energy and water sector ii) mining and manufacturing iii) building and construction and iv) building finishing and completion work.

The surveys all had a cut-off threshold except in the energy sector. This cut-off was normally 20 persons employed but was set at 10 persons employed for the building finishing and completion work questionnaires until 1997 when it was raised to 20 persons employed. The income and expenditure survey was a sample survey with exhaustive data collection for units with more than 500 persons employed. The investment survey was exhaustive for units with 20 persons employed or more. The income and expenditure survey collected information on operating income and expenditure as well as on employment.

In services, the statistical surveys were limited to Sections G and H of NACE Rev. 1 with a few Groups excluded. No size threshold was applied. These enterprise surveys were carried out annually for Section G and every 2 years for Section H and provided information on employment, operating income and expenditure and investment. The surveys were stratified samples of around 8-10% of the population with a response rate close to 100%.

In transport there were some enterprise statistics in waterways, road transport and air transport concerning turnover, the number of persons employed and the number of employees. For the remaining activities the only data sources available were derived from VAT and social security declarations. Both of these sources covered all activities with low thresholds and were compulsory.

Changes and plans for the transition period: 1995-1998 reference years

The survey on HORECA is conducted every 2 years but information on a small number of variables were estimated for the 1996 reference year and will be again for the 1998 reference year. There have been no significant changes to the sources for distribution and other services.

Remaining problems after the 1998 reference year

In industry only some variables will be available for the entire survey population until a survey of small enterprises (those with less than 20 persons employed) can be put in place.

Preliminary results in industry will only cover enterprises with 20 persons employed or more.

The biggest problem expected by StBA for the implementation of the SBS regulation concerns services. For transport and communications and business services data will only be available for a small number of variables based on administrative data or from existing surveys. This situation is likely to continue at least until the 2000 reference year and maybe later. The main technical problem will be to have a high quality register and in addition there are expected to be problems of acceptance of the survey by businesses.

Implementation plans for the 1999 reference year and after

As already noted the main problem in industry concerns enterprises with less than 20 persons employed. There are plans to carry out an annual sample survey in the future covering all enterprises with less than 20 persons employed with a reduced list of variables (8 to 10 variables). This will only be possible once the business register is operational at the earliest for the 2000 or 2001 reference year. For the 1999 reference year it is intended to produce some estimates for small industrial enterprises for a limited number of variables. Questions on R & D, part-time employment and apprentices will be added to the main questionnaires in the 1999 reference year for large enterprises. The questionnaire will also be changed in the 1999 reference year in order to collect information on the breakdown of turnover by activity. The demographic variables will only be available once the register is functioning.

From the 1999 reference year the survey coverage in services will be extended to cover the missing activities in NACE Rev. 1 Section G, including agents which are currently excluded from some Groups of NACE Rev. 1 Division 50. A number of questions will be added to the questionnaires. There are also plans to increase the sample size for Section G. Preliminary results will be available for the 1999 reference year for NACE Rev. 1 Section G except for NACE Rev. 1 Group 52.7.

From the 1999 reference year onwards the survey on HORECA will be annual.

Regional data for NACE Rev. 1 Sections G or H will be provided from the 1999 reference year onwards.

Concerning transport and communications and business services the plan is to introduce national legislation for a new sample survey. If this is successful, the aim is to have a 20% sample survey in place for the 2000 or 2001 reference year.

Greece

Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year

For the industrial sectors the main observation unit was the local unit although the local KAU was used in exceptional cases. The enterprise and the local unit coincided in a very large proportion of cases. Five types of questionnaires were used for surveying the NACE Rev. 1 Sections C to E:

- one questionnaire for the "mining survey" in NACE Rev. 1 Section C;

- two questionnaires were used for NACE Rev. 1 Section D and NACE Rev. 1 Group 40.3 concerning units with more or less than 10 persons;

- the type Y questionnaire for NACE Rev. 1 Group 41.0 (Collection, purification and distribution of water);

- a special questionnaire directly sent to the single company of NACE Rev. 1 Group 40.1 (Production and distribution of electricity).

There was no survey in the construction sector.

These surveys were conducted by interview rather than by postal or electronic returns. The response rate was therefore close to 100%. Before the reference year 1993 no data were collected for units with less than 10 employees. During three reference years, 1993, 1994 and 1995, the NSSG conducted a sample survey on these units.

In services there were no structural business statistics prior to the 1995 reference period.

Changes and plans for the transition period: 1995-1998 reference years

From the 1997 reference year onwards the survey is an enterprise based survey and collect information on local units. In addition the list of variables in the questionnaire has been increased.

A construction survey has been introduced for the 1997 reference period (1998 collected at the same time). This survey includes all variables foreseen by the SBS regulation.

In services a completely new system of business statistics is being put into place. Annual enterprise based surveys have been planned or conducted for the following activities of NACE Rev. 1: Section G and Classes 66.01, 66.03 for reference years 1995 and 1996; Section H for reference years 1996 to 1998; Classes 60.22, 60.23, 60.24, 63.12, 64.12 and Group 63.3 for reference years 1996 and 1997; Groups 92.1 and 92.2 for reference years 1995 to 1998; Division 65 for reference years 1995 to 1997. These surveys aim to collect information on business demography, employment, current income and expenditure and investment such that all of the variables required by the SBS regulation are collected. No size threshold is applied other than the very low threshold of the coverage of the business register. Several of the surveys listed above have been delayed or still wait to be carried out. In addition to these surveys data is available for NACE Rev. 1 Group 60.1, Class 60.21, Division 62 and Class 64.11 from nationalised companies.

Remaining problems after the 1998 reference year

The availability of data for the service sectors is uncertain. At the present time no results of the surveys that have been started have yet been transmitted to Eurostat. There are no known plans for covering several parts of transport and communications (60.3, 63.11, 63.2, 63.4) and all of business services.

Implementation plans for the 1999 reference year and after

In industry very small units below 10 employees may no longer be surveyed from the 1999 reference year and administrative sources will be used in order to estimate the whole population. Preliminary results will be introduced for 1999 in industry. In services the aim is to improve the quality of the data and to speed up their dissemination.

Spain

Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year

The industrial statistics were centred around an enterprise based survey. A new questionnaire was introduced in the 1993 reference year. The survey covered enterprises with at least 1 employee. A simplified questionnaire was used for enterprises with less than 20 persons employed. The data collection was exhaustive above 20 persons employed and sampling is used below this threshold. NACE Rev. 1 Sections C, D and E were covered.

Data for Construction were produced by the Ministry for public works. A new questionnaire was introduced in the 1993 reference year. The register used was based on the 1978 census and updated with information from the Ministry. The survey covered enterprises of all sizes with special questionnaires for enterprises with less than 6 employees and unincorporated enterprises.

In services, the only sector treated regularly was passenger transport. This survey was conducted annually since the 1991 reference year and covered all enterprises in an exhaustive manner in NACE Rev. 1 activities 60.1, 60.21, 60.23, 61.1, 62.1, 62.2. Pilot studies on other service sectors were started in the 1992 reference year on a rolling basis covering different sectors each year.

Changes and plans for the transition period: 1995-1998 reference years

INE is setting up an integrated micro-data system for the industrial surveys. The Annual Industrial Survey will be at the heart of this system with a sample of approximately 40 000 units. Satellite surveys will be linked to this. Innovation will be the first to be fully integrated. These satellite surveys will be a sub-sample of the AIS (approximately 10 000 units in the case of innovation). R&D is being integrated in the 1998 reference year. The enterprise is the main statistical unit used for the industrial structural survey. However local unit data is collected for 6 variables from enterprises with more than 20 employees. For enterprises with less than 20 employees but with more than 1 local unit the number of employees is collected. Data is compiled for KAUs by classifying local units by their own principal activity and then merging the results for local units that have the same principal activity.

Since the 1996 reference year the same register has been used in the construction sector as for industry and services. Enterprises with more than 20 employees are surveyed exhaustively and those below this threshold are sampled.

The pilot studies for services started in the 1992 reference year have been continued. For example the following sectors were covered in recent reference years:

- 1995 cleaning services, computer services, telecommunications;

- 1996 legal services, investigation and security services, hotels, taxis, telecommunications and other services;

- 1997 retail trade, personal services, audio-visual, technical services, travel agencies.

These pilot surveys are all enterprise based and cover units of all size, including enterprises with no employees. Starting from the 1998 reference year an integrated system of services statistics will be put into place based on two biannual surveys and other sources. In 1998 this will allow statistics to be produced for approximately half of the service sectors.

Remaining problems after the 1998 reference year

In industry the main outstanding problem that has not yet been addressed is the non-coverage of enterprises with 0 employees. In addition the non-availability of some multi-yearly data needs to be addressed and the coverage of the environment survey in 1999 will be limited.

The availability of preliminary data for the service sectors is uncertain.

The ability of the Spanish statistical system to meet all of the requirements for the construction sector is unknown.

The availability of statistics for the service sector will depend on the successful implementation of the new integrated system of service statistics for the 1998 and 1999 reference years.

Implementation plans for the 1999 reference year and after

For industry a new revised questionnaire will be introduced for the 1999 reference year better reflecting the requirements of the SBS regulation by introducing some new variables. The questionnaire for industrial enterprises with 20 employees or more will change to have two styles, one for mono-regional enterprise and one for multi-regional enterprises. The use of administrative sources will be investigated to provide information for extrapolating data not collected in the industrial surveys. A first survey on environment is also planned for the 1999 reference year.

The construction sector will have a new questionnaire for the 1999 reference year which will collect all of the necessary information for the SBS regulation based on the Spanish company accounting standards.

From the 1999 reference year the integrated system of service statistics should provide statistics for all service activities.

France

Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year

The main industrial survey was made up of three parts: i) the agro-food industry, ii) industry, iii) building, public works and civil engineering. In addition there was a special survey of small enterprises. All of these surveys used the enterprise as the main observation unit and were carried out annually except for the small enterprise survey which was done in the agro-food and manufacturing industries twice every five years. Together these surveys covered all Divisions within Sections C to F of NACE Rev. 1 except for Division 37 which was surveyed within the service sector's surveys.

Within each of the surveys simplified questionnaires were used for smaller enterprises. The agro-food industry questionnaire had a size threshold of 10 employees. The industry survey had a threshold of 10 employees up to 1993 and 20 afterwards. The building, public works and civil engineering survey had a threshold of 6 employees. Below these thresholds multi-yearly surveys were conducted to complete the population. Depending upon the survey, sampling was used for collecting data from enterprises with less than 20 employees. All of these surveys collected information on demographic changes, income and expenditure (in a profit and loss format), balance sheet data, employment and investment as well as information on types of statistical units other than the enterprise. Special surveys were conducted annually on environmental protection expenditure (investment only), energy consumption and R&D.

In services the following surveys were traditionally conducted: i) distribution, ii) transport, iii) services. These surveys all used the enterprise as the main observation unit and were conducted as annual, sample surveys. The following service activities within the compulsory scope of the SBS regulation were not covered by any of the surveys: 55.2, part of 60.21, 60.3, 62.3, 63.2, 64.1, 73. Enterprises of all sizes were covered in these surveys except for enterprises with less than 6 employees in certain transport activities. These surveys in services collected similar information to the industrial surveys. The special survey on R&D was also conducted in the service sector.

Changes and plans for the transition period: 1995-1998 reference years

A new generation of surveys (the 4th) has been progressively phased-in between the 1996 and 1997 reference years. The new construction survey started for the 1997 reference period and the industry and agro-food survey was revised for the 1996 reference period. These surveys are the main source for preliminary results.

Data for NACE Rev. 1 Division 37 will become available from the 1998 reference year.

Starting with the 1996 reference period data for industry cover all enterprises regardless of size. Although the multi-yearly data collection for small industrial enterprises will continue, data for these enterprises will be provided from administrative sources.

Information on the number of part-time employees, apprentices and hours worked will be taken from the annual declaration of social data (DADS).

For services, since the 1996 reference year, the majority of the remaining missing activities in transport and communications have been covered through extensions to the surveys carried out or through estimations. In addition the small enterprises excluded from the survey for certain transport activities will also be surveyed from this date. From the 1997 reference year small enterprises will only be surveyed within the survey on services every 2 years and estimations based on administrative data will be used to replace these results in the intervening years. The activity coverage in distribution will be increased in the 1998 reference year to cover most of NACE Rev. 1 Group 55.2.

In all sectors, since the 1996 reference year, most of the final results are produced by a system in which survey data and administrative data are compared and integrated.

Remaining problems after the 1998 reference year

There are no plans yet to collect data on i) homeworkers in industry ii) income from sub-contracting in construction and iii) long-term rental.

Implementation plans for the 1999 reference year and after

It is intended to provide regional statistics for construction from the annual declaration of social data (DADS). This will be done for the first time in the 1999 reference year.

Ireland

Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year

In the industrial sectors the enterprise questionnaire covered enterprises with 3 or more persons employed. There was a special form for smaller enterprises. Of the 4 440 enterprises in this population approximately 200 contained more than one local unit and these received a separate form. In addition an industrial local unit survey was carried out for industrial local units of industry and service enterprises. The surveys were exhaustive above the cut-off thresholds. Administrative sources were only used to substitute late data or where there was no response.

In construction only one form was used and it covered enterprises with 20 persons employed and more. There were approximately 300-350 enterprises who received the questionnaire. This survey was exhaustive above the survey threshold.

Annual surveys were carried out in services from the 1991 reference year, but with a rotating sectoral coverage. These enterprise based surveys covered NACE Rev. 1 Sections G, H and K without any cut-off threshold. The surveys were based on stratified samples which were exhaustive for enterprises with 20 persons employed or more. The surveys collected information on income and expenditure, stocks, investment and employment.

Changes and plans for the transition period: 1995-1998 reference years

Since the 1995 reference year confidential data has been transmitted to Eurostat for the industrial sectors. In industry, between the 1995 and 1996 reference year questionnaires, the enterprise forms underwent major modifications to meet national needs, to meet the needs of national accounts and to implement the SBS regulation. Many of the changes concerned simplifications to the questionnaires. The following extensions were made that increase the availability of data required by the SBS regulation:

- R&D and financial leasing have been added;

- Turnover has been simplified: Exports have been grouped into 1 question and a new question on affiliates has been added;

- A question on agency workers has been added;

- The number of part-time workers and hours worked has been added.

No major changes were made for the 1997 reference period. For the 1998 reference period the question on the number of hours worked was dropped and questions on expenditure on fuels added.

In construction there have been no changes to the questionnaire as most of the requirements for variables from the SBS regulation were already met by the existing survey. The sending of questionnaires to enterprises has been brought forward for both the 1997 and 1998 reference year surveys in order to reduce delays.

In services the main change undertaken has been to extend the coverage of the survey on an annual basis to NACE Rev. 1 Sections G, H, I and K from the 1996 reference year. A large increase in the sample size was made for the 1998 reference period to take account of the revised NUTS geographical classification.

Remaining problems after the 1998 reference year

There are no proposals yet to remove the thresholds in industry and construction of 3 and 20 persons employed respectively.

Preliminary results are not yet planned for services.

Implementation plans for the 1999 reference year and after

It is planned that preliminary results will be in place for industry and construction in 1999.

There is a long running project to improve the quality of the business register and to move from a separate industrial register to a central business register.

Italy

Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year

In industry the survey of the system of economic accounts of enterprises covered exhaustively enterprises with 20 persons employed or more in Sections C, D and F of NACE Rev. 1. This survey was carried out annually since the 1989 reference year. As well as information on the profit and loss account and balance sheet of enterprises, information on the regional breakdown of activity was also collected in this survey. A second survey was carried out for small enterprises with between 1 and 19 persons employed covering NACE Rev. 1 Section C (Sub-section CA was added in 1992), Section D (Sub-section DF was added in 1994) and Section F. For enterprises between 10 and 19 persons employed the survey was carried out annually since the 1985 reference year and for enterprises between 1 and 9 persons employed since the 1992 reference year. This survey was carried out using sampling and collected information on a simplified set of accounts for the enterprise.

In services the same surveys were carried out. The survey of the system of economic accounts of enterprises covered exhaustively enterprises with 20 persons employed or more in Sections G, H, I and K (excluding Division 73) of NACE Rev. 1. The sample survey of small enterprises with between 1 and 19 persons employed covered Sections G, H, I, J (excluding Divisions 65 and 66), K, M, N and O (excluding Division 91) of NACE Rev. 1.

Changes and plans for the transition period: 1995-1998 reference years

Starting with the survey referring to the 1995 reference year, both the sample survey of small enterprises and the survey of the system of economic accounts of enterprises have had the same activity coverage (except for Division 67 for the survey of enterprises with 20 persons employed or more). The 1995 reference year surveys were based on a preliminary version of the new business register ASIA and the 1996 reference year surveys used the updated version of ASIA.

For the 1996 reference year there have been new questionnaires for both surveys. The revision was to structure the form closer to the information available at the level of the enterprise (based more on accounting standards) and to include extra variables for the introduction of the SBS regulation. For the 1998 reference year greater use of administrative data is planned. The sample survey will cover enterprises with less than 100 persons employed and the exhaustive survey will cover those with 100 persons employed or more.

A pilot exercise for the 1997 reference year is being conducted in order to observe expenditure on environmental protection. This was done using the "long form" questionnaire of the intermediate census. At the time of writing data collection is still being carried out.

Remaining problems after the 1998 reference year

None foreseen at the present time.

Implementation plans for the 1999 reference year and after

There is a general movement towards a greater use of administrative data and hence a reduction in the number of questionnaires as well as more efficient and coordinated sampling to reduce response burden. There are also plans to try to speed up and improve the quality of results through selective editing of results for individual units that at the same time may contain errors and have a significant impact on the final results.

Luxembourg

Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year

The survey system in industry and construction prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation was the same as it had been since the 1991 reference year. Separate questionnaires were used for the industrial and construction sectors. Both questionnaires were sent annually to enterprises with 20 persons employed or more and to a sample of enterprises with less than 20 persons employed. The main unit was the enterprise. KAU data was collected in significant sectors (iron and steel, rubber and plastics). As well as other variables the surveys collected information on operating income and expenditure and employment.

In services several sector specific surveys were run with similar methodologies: survey of distribution, survey of hotels, restaurants and cafés, survey of transport activities (including travel agencies), survey of services and the survey of audio-visual services. Some of these date from the 1980s, but those concerning business services were more recently introduced. Most of these surveys were carried out on a multi-yearly basis, approximately every 5 years. None of these surveys used a cut-off threshold and hence enterprises of all sizes were included. The main statistical unit was the enterprise. The information collected concerned accounting data (generation-of-income account, profit-and-loss account), employment and hours actually worked, labour costs and sector specific questions. All of these surveys were carried out on a sample basis.

In addition to the surveys in services there was a special survey of large enterprises which was carried out every year and collected information on twenty or so large enterprises which together represented a large proportion of activity in the Luxembourg services economy (such as telecommunications and audio-visual services).

Changes and plans for the transition period: 1995-1998 reference years

A revised survey is being introduced to meet three requirements: the introduction of the SBS regulation, the new ESA and the planned introduction of a new general accounting plan. The underlying trend of these and other efforts is to ease life for small enterprises.

A new survey system was developed for the 1996 reference year. The questionnaires were different for NACE Rev. 1 Sections C-E, F, G, H, I, K & other services. There were also special questionnaires for non-banking financial activities and for financial auxiliaries. Enterprises of all sizes are covered but reduced questionnaires used for the sampled part of the population made up of enterprises with less than 50 employees or less than 280 million LUF (EUR7 million) annual turnover. Enterprises have the choice of completing the questionnaires or providing their published accounts to STATEC. This means there is a significant reduction of burden for respondents but a considerable increase in work for STATEC. Note that the introduction of this new survey since the 1996 reference year means that there has been an annual coverage of the service sectors for the first time. The questionnaires collect information on employment, income generation and the profit and loss account, balance sheet and investment. Minor changes to the questionnaire have been made for the 1997 reference year to take account of problems identified with the introduction of the new system in the 1996 reference year.

The annual survey of large enterprises has been retained in the same form as before.

Remaining problems after the 1998 reference year

The new survey system is expected to meet almost all of the requirements of the SBS regulation with only the question of the delay of data transmission remaining; it is unlikely that data will be provided within the 18 month delay for the 1999 reference year.

Implementation plans for the 1999 reference year and after

No changes are planned.

The Netherlands

Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year

The main output/production survey in industry was changed for the 1994 reference year when the product statistics (now collected under PRODCOM) were separated and a new questionnaire introduced. The reporting unit used was the enterprise and the coverage was all activities in Sections D to F of NACE Rev. 1. In most but not all activities the size coverage was enterprises with at least 1 employee. Where this was not the case thresholds varied between 1 and 20 employees. When covered, enterprises with less than 20 employees in Sections D to E of NACE Rev. 1 were sampled as were construction enterprises with less than 50 employees. The survey was carried out annually.

The investment survey covered Sections C to F of NACE Rev. 1 for all enterprises with 10 or more employees. The survey was carried out annually. Sampling was only used for construction enterprises with less than 50 employees.

R&D and environmental protection expenditure were collected in separate surveys.

In services the production statistics covered annually Divisions 50, 51 (excluding Group 51.1), 52 (excluding Class 52.31), 55, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 71, 72, 74 (excluding Class 74.11 and Group 74.6). All sizes of enterprises were covered except for enterprises with less than 5 employees in NACE Rev. 1 Class 74.15 (holdings). All of these surveys were carried out annually. The survey unit was the enterprise. Sampling was used for enterprises with less than 20 employees, except for NACE Rev. 1 Class 74.15 where all enterprises with 5 employees or more were covered exhaustively.

In addition to these surveys organised by economic activity, the CBS produced labour account statistics on all activities and also business demography information derived from the business register.

Changes and plans for the transition period: 1995-1998 reference years

In industry questionnaires will be extended to cover NACE Rev. 1 Section C. For Section E enterprises with less than 20 employees will also be covered in a pilot survey to be conducted for the 1998 reference year. Note that in NACE Rev. 1 Section E these smaller units will be covered exhaustively rather than through sampling as used in other activities. Furthermore investment data will be collected via sampling for enterprises with less than 20 employees in Sections C to F.

For services, a number of different actions have been undertaken. A new survey was launched covering 1995 and 1996 reference years for NACE Rev. 1 Class 52.31. Group 51.1 has been included in the annual survey for the 1997 reference year.

Production of regional data started in the 1995 reference year.

The use of labour account statistics and the register for estimating business demographics have been extended in order to provide a complete picture meeting most of the requirements of the SBS regulation.

Remaining problems after the 1998 reference year

Information on the number of apprentices may not be available by the 1999 reference year nor on the births and deaths of enterprises; the level of detail poses problems for the latter two in particular.

Financial leasing is not yet covered for NACE Rev. 1 Divisions 51 and 52.

Sufficiently detailed and reliable preliminary results will only be available after 12 months.

The breakdown of results by the type of owner will not be available by the 1999 reference year.

Implementation plans for the 1999 reference year and after

The survey of small enterprises in NACE Rev. 1 Section E, piloted in 1998, is expected to be carried out as a regular survey from the 1999 reference year.

The questionnaire will be extended for NACE Rev. 1 Division 50 in the 1999 reference year to include extra variables.

The possible sources of data in NACE Rev. 1 Division 70 are a mixture of fiscal data (corporate tax) and annual accounts. The business register is the basis for the population. The latter has required a considerable amount of cleaning in order for it to be operational. Work is advanced on NACE Rev. 1 Group 70.3 and parts of NACE Rev. 1 Group 70.2 are already covered. It is expected that by the reference year 1999 data should be available for the whole Division.

Preliminary results will be available for the 1999 reference year based on early returns to the questionnaires in some activities and on short-term indicators in others, notably in services.

In general there are several ongoing projects related to quality (coherence between sources, common methods and tools) and to response burden (optimal use of administrative data) and these will continue. The aims of these projects are to increase efficiency and reduce burden. These projects will involve a greater use of EDI and replacing/supplementing statistical survey data by administrative data.

Austria

Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year

The industrial data in Austria has been conducted on the basis of three annual surveys: the industrial survey, the construction survey and the electricity survey. There were no size class thresholds in these surveys. The surveys were exhaustive above 20 persons employed and there was sampling below this threshold except for the electricity survey which was exhaustive for all size classes.

These structural business statistics were complemented in the years 1976, 1983 and 1988 by exhaustive surveys (census of non-agricultural enterprises) in: trade, storage; hotels and restaurants; transport, communication; financial intermediation; private insurance and other services. Liberal professions such as the activities of doctors, lawyers, tax consultants, civil engineers and so on were not included. In these same years the annual sample survey in the small business manufacturing sector was also carried out as a complete survey.

The "Betrieb" (KAU/local KAU) was used as the main reporting unit. These surveys collected information on employment, wages and salaries, investment, stocks as well as detailed statistics on consumption.

Changes and plans for the transition period: 1995-1998 reference years

Starting with the 1995 reference year the surveys on industry and services have been treated in a highly coordinated manner. For the 1995 reference year a full census was carried out with a new series of questionnaires. This was done i) to allow adjustment to the ESA 95 ii) for the introduction of a new classification with 6 digits and iii) to establish a new register of enterprises. The new survey system since the 1995 reference year has been based on three units, the enterprise, the Betriebe (local KAU) and the local unit each with their own questionnaire. Different questionnaires are used in industry and construction; financial intermediation and distribution; services. The new questionnaires collect from enterprises all profit and loss information except for extra-ordinary income and expenditure, as well as information on employment, stocks (not for financial intermediation), R&D (industry and construction only), environmental protection expenditure (industry and construction only) and investment. In addition a smaller set of information is collected from local KAUs and local units. These questionnaires provide all of the information required by the SBS regulation.

No survey was carried out in the 1996 reference year and some aggregated estimates for a reduced set of variables were produced. Since the 1997 reference year an annual survey has been introduced that is essentially the same as the census carried out in the 1995 reference year but introduces 20% sampling for enterprises. 40 000 enterprises are included in the sample, depending on the homogeneity of the different strata (NACE Rev. 1 and size classes of persons employed). In order to distribute the response burden as equally as possible a new sample is drawn annually. On the basis of different size classes of turnover and persons employed a restricted set of variables is used for smaller enterprises. The same questionnaire has been used from 1997 as in the 1995 reference year with a small number of modifications.

The requirements of the SBS regulation in the sector of private insurance are entirely met by the data of the insurance supervisory authority. Data for the sector of financial intermediation are largely provided y the banking statistics of the Austrian central bank.

Remaining problems after the 1998 reference year

There are no plans to produce preliminary results.

There may be difficulties to meet the delays for the final results because companies often do not close their accounts until 12-15 months after the end of the reference period.

Implementation plans for the 1999 reference year and after

No changes are planned.

Portugal

Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year

In industry the Survey system prior to the implementation of the SBS regulation - up to 1994 reference year was based on 21 questionnaires distinguished by size and activity. The annual surveys covered enterprises of all sizes using sampling for enterprises below 20 employees. The surveys were based on the enterprise with additional information collected for other units. Despite the complete coverage results transmitted to Eurostat concerned enterprises with 100 employees or more for Sections C-E of NACE Rev. 1 and for enterprises with 20 employees or more for construction. The questionnaire collected information on income and expenditure in a profit and loss account format, the balance sheet, employment, R&D and environmental protection expenditure. Information was also collected on local units.

In services a similar survey existed to that in industry. Structural business statistics on the service sectors were built up since the 1987 reference year. The annual survey was enterprise based and collected data on income and expenditure in a profit and loss account format, the balance sheet and employment. Information was also collected on local units. Sampling was used for enterprises with less than 20 employees who received a simplified questionnaire.

Changes and plans for the transition period: 1995-1998 reference years

The 1996 reference year saw a new generation of questionnaires covering all sectors (including agriculture) except for financial services. These changes have been made to meet the requirements of the ESA, the SBS regulation, and national needs. The new annual survey has no size cut-off but has different questionnaires for enterprises with 20 employees or more and those below this threshold. These questionnaires have annexes that collect the sector specific information required by the SBS regulation. The survey is exhaustive for the enterprises in the sub-population 100 employees and more while sampling is used below this threshold. The