REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the implementation of the Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning structural business statistics
Date: 2014-04-24
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: branch of activity, confidentiality, data collection, economic statistics, qualitative analysis, statistical method













EUR-Lex - 52014DC0243 - EN











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52014DC0243

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the implementation of the Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning structural business statistics /* COM/2014/0243 final */









Table
of Contents
1............ INTRODUCTION.. 3
1.1......... Regulation on structural
business statistics. 3
1.2......... Content of the main data
sets. 3
1.3......... Accessibility of SBSs. 4
1.4......... Publications in 2012 and
2013. 5
2............ EFFECTIVENESS OF THE
REGULATION AND RELEVANCE OF DATASETS. 5
2.1......... Availability and
completeness of data. 5
2.2......... Confidentiality rules
and their implementation. 7
2.3......... Usefulness of SBSs. 8
3............ ACCURACY.. 8
4............ COHERENCE AND
COMPARABILITY.. 9
4.1......... Coherence. 9
4.2......... Comparability. 9
5............ DEADLINES FOR
SUPPLYING DATA.. 10
6............ ACCESSIBILITY AND
CLARITY.. 10
7............ COMPLIANCE WITH THE
SBS REGULATION.. 10
8............ THE BURDEN ON
BUSINESSES AND MEASURES TO REDUCE IT. 12
8.1......... Background. 12
8.2......... Measures taken to reduce
the burden on businesses. 12
9............ FURTHER DEVELOPMENT. 13

1.                      
INTRODUCTION
1.1.                
Regulation on structural business statistics

Under
Article 13(1) of Regulation (EC) No 295/2008[1] on structural
business statistics (hereinafter referred to as ‘the SBS Regulation’), ‘the
Commission shall, by 29 April 2011 and every three years thereafter, submit a
report to the European Parliament and the Council on the statistics compiled
pursuant to this Regulation and in particular on their quality and the burden
on business’.
This
report follows on from the May 2011 report[2]
submitted pursuant to Article 14(1) of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No
58/97 (an earlier regulation, now replaced by the SBS Regulation referred to
above).
This
report gives an overview of progress in implementing the SBS Regulation based
on final data for 2010, the reference year, as regards structural business statistics
on:
·      services;                   
·      industry;
·      trade;
·      construction;
·      business services; and
·      business demography.
It
provides information on the measures taken by the Commission to ensure that
high quality European structural business statistics are made available, and on
the implementation of the SBS Regulation by Member States. It also provides information on the burden that
providing statistics places on businesses and the actions taken by Eurostat and
  Member States to reduce that burden.

1.2.                
Content of the main
data sets

Structural
business statistics (SBSs) give a comprehensive picture of the structure,
development and characteristics of European business as a whole and of
different sectors, and make an important contribution to several other areas
such as national accounts, short‑term statistics and business registers.
In
general, the data cover all sectors apart from agriculture and personal
services. Data are collected on the following variables:
·      output-related variables (e.g. turnover and added value);
·      input-related variables relating to labour input (e.g. employment
and hours worked), goods and services input (e.g. total purchases) and capital
input (e.g. investments in tangible goods); and
·      business demography variables (e.g. population of active businesses,
number of new businesses created and number of businesses closed down).
In
addition, several other important indicators are derived from the above, in the
form of ratios of certain monetary variables or per capita values.
All
Member States send several data sets, as required by Commission Regulation (EC)
No 251/2009[3].
The main datasets are:
·      annual enterprise statistics (all characteristics are published by
country at NACE Rev.2[4]
four‑digit level (classes));
·      annual enterprise statistics by size class (all characteristics are
published by country at NACE Rev.2 three‑digit level (groups), with size
class determined by number of persons employed);
·      annual regional statistics (four characteristics are published by
NUTS 2 region at NACE Rev.2 two‑digit level (divisions)); and
·      annual demographic statistics by legal form or by employee size
class (the characteristics are published by country, at NACE Rev.2 four‑digit
level (classes)).
The
majority of the data is collected by national statistical institutes (NSIs) by
means of statistical surveys, business registers or from various administrative
sources. Member States apply various statistical methods, according to the data
source, such as grossing up, model‑based estimation or different forms of
imputation, to ensure the quality of SBSs produced.
All
data received from Member States undergo quality checks before being published
on Eurostat’s website. 

1.3.                
Accessibility of SBSs

All
data provided by Member States for 2010, the reference year, together with the
EU aggregated results, have been freely available on Eurostat’s website since November
2012. The SBS section of the website is easy to find under the area heading ‘Industry,
trade and services’[5]
or via the search function[6].

1.4.                
Publications in 2012
and 2013

In
addition to being available on Eurostat’s website, the results have also featured
in a number of articles published on the restructured European business section
of Statistics Explained[7].
Statistics Explained is based on web 2.0 wiki-type technology and its
main purpose is to explain European statistics by presenting data and highlighting
what is interesting or surprising about them, taking into consideration all the
necessary background information. 
SBSs
have also been used in many other publications. Major contributions were made in
2012 and 2013 to the Eurostat yearbook, Eurostat pocketbook and regional
yearbook.

2.                      
EFFECTIVENESS OF THE
REGULATION AND RELEVANCE OF DATASETS
2.1.                
Availability and
completeness of data

Tables
1, 2 and 3 show that, on the whole, data sent by Member States are reasonably
complete for all SBS modules. Countries are considered as “large”, “medium” or
“small” in terms of their share of the EU total of value added in the business
economy. 
Missing
data were explained by the fact that there were some problems in the
calculation of some indicators; some data were not available for 2010 reference
year; lack of data sources for regional and ‘kind of activity unit’ (KAU) data;
data were available after the data transmission deadline or zeros values were
not provided.
The
countries have promised to provide the complete datasets with the next data
delivery (2011 reference year). 
The
availability of SBSs on Eurostat’s website was limited, however, by the fact
that some data, especially for small countries, are confidential.
Table 1:   Availability and
confidentiality of final 2010 data on services, industry, trade and construction,
NACE Rev.2
 Countries[8] || Total cells sent as a percentage of the SBS Regulation requirement || Confidential cells as a percentage of cells sent 
 Large countries || 94 || 10 
 Medium countries || 92 || 15 
 Small countries[9] || 98 || 24 
 ALL || 95 || 18 
The
2010 results for the 27 EU Member States and Norway showed a 5 % increase
in data availability as compared with the previous report to the European
Parliament and the Council. In particular, small countries provided more data on
the four sectors covered in Table 1.
Likewise,
data availability was very good (95 %) for statistics on business services
(Table 2) and business demography (Table 3). An important contribution to this
high rate of availability was also made by the small countries.
The
fact that some Member States decided not to flag the values of some indicators
as confidential, when they could have done so, also contributed to the high availability
of data.
Table 2:   Availability and
confidentiality of final 2010 data on business services, NACE Rev.2
 Countries || Total cells sent as a percentage of the SBS Regulation requirement || Confidential cells as a percentage of cells sent 
 Large countries || 100 || 0 
 Medium countries || 97 || 10 
 Small countries || 90 || 15 
 ALL || 95 || 11 
Table 3:   Availability and
confidentiality of final 2010 data on business demography, NACE Rev.2
 Countries || Total cells sent as a percentage of the SBS Regulation requirement || Confidential cells as a percentage of cells sent 
 Large countries || 99 || 10 
 Medium countries || 91 || 12 
 Small countries || 98 || 13 
 ALL || 95 || 12 

2.2.                
Confidentiality rules
and their implementation

The
tables in paragraph 2.1 illustrate the extent to which confidentiality rules have
reduced data availability. 
All
Member States have implemented similar confidentiality rules, mainly in order
to avoid the release of data on one or more specific businesses. In several
Member States, this approach was supplemented by a ‘dominance rule’ under which
data were not published if one respondent accounted for more than a certain
percentage of the figures. The percentages used vary slightly between Member
States.
The
percentages of data classified as confidential vary from 0 % to 24 %,
with higher rates recorded by the medium and small countries due to the rules
mentioned above.     
However,
the confidentiality rates for 2010 for statistics for the services, industry,
trade and construction sectors were 4 % lower than those in the previous
report.
In
addition to the confidentiality rules applied to data at country level, data at
EU level were also withheld from the statistics for publication in order to
protect confidential national data. The rules determining the circumstances in which
EU totals must be withheld from publication have been laid down in a
Confidentiality Charter agreed with all Member States.
As
a result, 8.3 % of the aggregated EU results for 2010, the reference
year, for statistics on services,
industry, trade and construction could not be
published for reasons of confidentiality.
Around
14 % of the aggregated EU results for business services and business
demography have not been made available due to confidentiality issues. The
numbers and percentages of confidential data cells are presented in the table
below.  
Table 4:   Confidentiality
of the main variables included in annual enterprise statistics for which EU
2010 aggregates were published for all levels of NACE Rev.2
 Area of SBS || Total number of data cells || Number of confidential data cells || Confidential data (%) 
 Services || 5 569 || 679 || 12.2 
 Industry || 8 008 || 457 || 5.7 
 Trade || 2 092 || 170 || 8.1 
 Construction || 732 || 56 || 7.7 
 Total (services, industry, trade and construction) || 16 401 || 1 362 || 8.3 
 Business services || 151 || 21 || 13.9 
 Business demography || 18 532 || 2 700 || 14.6 

2.3.                
Usefulness of SBSs

An
indicator of the usefulness of SBSs is the number of downloads from Eurostat’s
website. The figures in the table below are for the period October 2012 to
August 2013, during which the 2010 data were available.
Table 5:   Number of downloads
 Area of SBS || Number of downloads 
 127 574 
 Services, industry, trade and construction || 106 594 
 Industry and construction || 59 540 
 Trade || 20 302 
 Services || 13 885 
 Regional data — all sectors || 12 867 
 Business services || 5 954 
 Business demography || 15 026 

3.                      
ACCURACY

In
order to measure the accuracy of SBSs, Commission Regulation (EU) No 275/2010[10] requires
all Member States to provide Eurostat, on an annual basis, with information on
quality indicators such as coefficients of variation. They must also submit a
report on the methodology used to collect and process the data. On the basis of
the information provided by all Member States, Eurostat has conducted an
assessment for 2010, the reference year, the main parts of which are included
in this report.
Member
States are free to decide on the most efficient and effective ways of
collecting and processing data, in accordance with national particularities
(e.g. size class, economic activity and regions) and available administrative
sources.
In
order to evaluate the quality of the data at EU level, Eurostat has calculated
aggregated EU coefficients of variation based on the national coefficients of
variation for six characteristics and for all sectors at NACE Rev.2 one‑digit
level (Section).
Table 6:   Aggregated EU coefficients
of variation (CVs) for statistics in services, industry, trade and construction
(%)
 2010 || Share of EU coefficients of variation (%) 
 EU coefficients of variation[11] || Number of enterprises || Turnover || Added value || Personnel costs || Gross investment || Number of persons employed 
 0.0-0.5 || 69 || 62 || 69 || 85 || 0 || 100 
 0.6-1.5 || 23 || 31 || 31 || 8 || 31 || 0 
 1.6-2.5 || 8 || 0 || 0 || 8 || 31 || 0 
 >2.5 || 0 || 8 || 0 || 0 || 38 || 0 
The
table above shows that the aggregated EU coefficients of variation for the variables
are in most cases below 1.5, with the exception of the ‘gross investment’ variable,
for which the coefficients are mainly between 0.6 and 2.5.
In
general, the coefficients of variation are lower for industry and slightly
higher for construction, trade and services.

4.                      
COHERENCE AND
COMPARABILITY

As
mentioned above, Member States are asked to deliver a report for each reference
year, giving information about the methodology used to collect and process the
data.

4.1.                
Coherence

Coherence
refers to the extent to which statistical correctness allows data from
different sources to be combined. Eurostat is therefore keen to identify the
features common to SBSs and other business surveys and to determine to what
extent they are consistent.
SBSs
can be used alongside statistics from a number of other sources, such as business
registers, national accounts, labour cost survey, labour force statistics,
business demography and short‑term statistics. Analysing the coherence of
SBSs and the other statistical sources revealed a number of differences in both
the data and the methodologies used. For any particular statistical source, the
methodology will be chosen which best suits the purposes of that source and for
this reason there tend to be differences in methodology between sources.

4.2.                
Comparability

Statistics
on services, industry, trade and construction are comparable over time and across
countries only from reference year 2005 onwards, as some countries implemented changes
in methodology and scope before that year. The implementation of the new
classification of activities (NACE Rev.2) in 2008 prevents any time series
being carried across that year.
Statistics
on business services and business demography are comparable from 2008, when the
survey became mandatory.

5.                      
DEADLINES FOR SUPPLYING
DATA

The
deadlines, by which Member States must supply data for the reference year, as laid
down in the SBS Regulation, are as follows: 
·      10 months after the year-end for preliminary statistics on services,
industry, trade and construction; and
·      18 months after the year-end for final data for all sectors.
For
reference year 2010, 19 countries delivered their data on time for all SBS areas.

Derogations
from the provisions of the SBS Regulation were granted to some Member States to
allow them to make the necessary adaptations to their national statistical
systems. Complete derogations were granted to Estonia and France for statistics on business services.

6.                      
ACCESSIBILITY AND
CLARITY

All
SBSs are available free of charge on Eurostat’s website in the area ‘Industry,
trade and services’, together with detailed explanations of methodological
issues that may be of relevance to users[12].
The
NSIs also publish SBSs at national level, which make the data even more easily
accessible to the users.

7.                      
COMPLIANCE WITH THE SBS
REGULATION  

Member
States’ compliance with the SBS Regulation is assessed on the basis of the completeness
of the data provided, the number of versions received before publication of the
final data, and whether the data are provided within the deadlines.
The
overall compliance score for 2010 data shows an improvement on the compliance
level recorded in the previous report. Most countries are now delivering data
more promptly than was previously the case, although some continue to miss
deadlines, which delayed the publication of EU aggregates.
An
average of 1.4 versions of each Member State’s data was provided before publication
of the final data.
Table
7 shows an overall assessment of compliance for all 27 EU Member States and Norway for all the areas that were subject to the SBS Regulation for reference year 2010.
The
countries have been awarded one of four grades for compliance:
·      VG =          Very good compliance. All
required data (with minor exceptions) were delivered on time (scores of 90 %
or above).
·      G    =          Good compliance. There
were a few elements missing or minor delays in data delivery (scores between 70
and 89 %).
·      P     =          Data were partially
available but major sections of required information were missing or deadlines
were not met (scores between 10 and 69 %).
·      N    =          A large part of the data
was missing or there were major delays in data delivery (scores of less than 10 %).
Table 7:   Overall assessment of
compliance
 Countries || Overall score 
 AT, BE ,BG, CZ, DE, EE, ES, FI, FR, HU, LT, LV, NO, PT, RO, SI, SK || VG 
 CY, DK, IE, IT, LU, NL, PL, SE, UK || G 
 EL, MT || P 
 - || N 
The
above table shows that compliance was ‘very good’ or ‘good’ for most Member
States.
Eurostat
took steps to improve compliance in two ways: by reporting on the compliance
monitoring carried out and by providing Member States with a tool for data
validation. 
Eurostat
now submits a compliance report to the SBS Steering Group twice a year and also
provides a report to the Business Statistics Directors Group once a year. In
some cases the Director-General of Eurostat has also sent letters to the heads
of NSIs.
Eurostat
has explored ways of reducing the number of versions of data sent by Member
States before publication of the final data. It has developed a data validation
tool which Member States can use to check for accuracy and potential confidentiality
before sending the data to Eurostat.

8.                      
THE BURDEN ON
BUSINESSES AND MEASURES TO REDUCE IT
8.1.                
Background

In
order to be able to adapt to the changing economic environment and to respond
promptly to users with a new need for statistics as situations arise, Eurostat
is constantly looking to identify different ways to make the European
Statistical System (ESS) more flexible as regards SBSs.
Measures
which could help to achieve a flexible, high-quality system of business
statistics must however be subject to the limits implicitly imposed by the goal
of reducing the statistical burden on respondents, notably businesses,
and by the reduced resources at the disposal of national statistical
authorities. Working within these constraints means that Eurostat needs to aim
for the rational development of business statistics by finding synergies,
prioritising and focusing on European targets.
In
line with the Vision Communication (COM(2009) 404), a project has
been launched to establish a framework regulation for the integration of
business-related statistics (FRIBS) which will simplify the production of
business statistics by providing shared infrastructure and defining consistent
data requirements.

8.2.                
Measures taken to
reduce the burden on
businesses

Eurostat
works with NSIs on an on-going basis to find ways of reducing the burden on
businesses by simplifying the data requirements, whilst at the same time ensuring
that the available statistics meet the needs of users.
Following
several consultations with the main users of SBSs, both within and outside the
Commission, Eurostat has identified a number of possible ways of reducing the
burden on NSIs and businesses. These measures relate to the requirements imposed
on financial services businesses, the details requested for multiannual
datasets and the discontinuation of KAU based datasets.
In
addition to the above changes, the list of required characteristics is undergoing
a review which will take into account proposals from the European
Statistical System Committee (ESSC) on areas not to be prioritised.  
Some
of the steps taken by Member States to reduce the burden on businesses were
related to SBSs data collection. Sample surveys are frequently used by the
majority of Member States and they have adopted new sampling strategies in
order to reduce both the burden on business and the costs for NSIs.
In
addition, a number of countries have excluded small businesses from their
surveys and used administrative data sources combined with estimates instead.
In
many Member States, there is a strong and growing preference for using
administrative data sources instead of carrying out surveys. There are however several
obstacles to using only administrative data, which normally differ from
statistical data, e.g. as regards the definitions, formats, codes and
transmission protocols used. NSIs are working with the bodies responsible for
administrative data to try to overcome these obstacles, which would allow them
to make greater use of administrative data and simplify the data collection
process.  
Some countries have developed and implemented online systems for
collecting annual fiscal and statistical information. These systems use modern
information technology and can improve the quality of the data and reduce the
time taken to enter and process it.   
The
burden placed on businesses is taken into consideration whenever changes are
made to data requirements or data production processes. However, producing high‑quality
SBSs which meet users’ needs in a cost-effective way remains the main
objective.

9.                      
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

ESS
is constantly looking to identify ways of responding to new and emerging needs
for statistics, whilst at the same time reducing both the burden on respondents
and the cost of producing statistics.
Eurostat
developed a programme for the modernisation of European enterprise and trade statistics
(MEETS)[13]
which ran for six years, from 2008 to 2013. Its main outcome was a proposal for
practical steps to modernise business statistics, such as developing a target
set of indicators and conducting a review of priorities. Implementing this
proposal will require significant commitment and investment from ESS in the
coming years.
[1]     Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of
the Council of 11 March 2008 concerning structural business statistics (recast),
OJ L 97, 9.4.2008, p. 13.
[2]     COM(2011) 242 final. 
[3]     Commission
Regulation (EC) No 251/2009 of 11 March 2009 implementing and amending
Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council as
regards the series of data to be produced for structural business statistics
and the adaptations necessary after the revision of the statistical classification
of products by activity (CPA), OJ
L 86, 31.3.2009, p. 170.
[4]     Commission Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 establishing the statistical classification of
economic activities NACE Revision 2 and amending 
Council Regulation (EEC) No 3037/90 as well as certain EC
Regulations on specific statistical domains, OJ L 393,
30.12.2006, p.1.
[5]     http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/statistics/search_database.
[6]     http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home.
[7]     http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Category:Structural_business_statistics.
[8]     In order to minimise the burden on
businesses and the costs to the national statistical authorities, Member States
may mark data for use as a ‘contribution to European totals only’ (CETO).
Eurostat does not publish such data and they are not marked as ‘CETO’ when Member
States publish them nationally. The use of the CETO flag depends on the Member State’s share of total added value in the business
economy, as follows:
Large countries: DE, FR, IT, UK;
Medium countries: BE, DK, ES, GR, IE, NL, AT, PL, PT, FI, SE, NO;
and
Small countries: BG, CZ, EE, CY, LV, LT, LU HU, MT, RO, SI, SK.
[9]     Data for Malta are from 2009.
[10]             Commission Regulation (EU) No 275/2010 of 30 March 2010
for implementing Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of
the Council, as regards the criteria for the evaluation of the quality of
structural business statistics, OJ L 86, 1.4.2010, p. 1
[11]    The coefficients of variation were calculated for final 2010
data for series 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A (Annexes I-IV), at NACE Rev.2 one-digit level
(Section).
[12]    http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home.
[13]    Decision No 1297/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 16 December 2008 on a Programme for the Modernisation of European Enterprise and Trade Statistics (MEETS), OJ L 340, 19.12.2008, p. 76.