Business Register Outputs in Support of Regional Policy

John Perry

UK Office for National Statistics

The Projects

• Enhanced outputs for regional accounts and other regional enterprise statistics, in support of the Review of Statistics for Economic Policymaking (Allsopp Review)

• Provision of small area outputs, in support of the UK government Neighbourhood Statistics Programme

The Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR)

Existing Sources

Current coverage of enterprises– VAT Traders– PAYE Tax Employers– Supported by:

• Companies House registrations• Dun and Bradstreet linkage• ONS and other statistical surveys

Extending coverage of enterprises– From Companies House– Identifying those without VAT or PAYE registration– Evaluating to see which should be on the IDBR– Establishing rules for adding

Improving quality

• Boost for the Business Register Survey for small enterprises

• Extended business profiling• Merged the Business Register Survey with the

employment collection within the Structural Business Survey

• Developing a replacement Business Register and Employment Survey

– Better local unit employment estimates– Local turnover estimates (subject to a successful pilot in

2007)

Existing Outputs

• Survey samples and survey populations• Lists of businesses - confidential• Publications

– UK Businesses on National Statistics website– Business demography on DTI website

• Tabulations to user specifications, including disclosive figures

New Outputs

• Small area tables for enterprises and local units on the Neighbourhood Statistics web site:

– Based on 2001 Population Census output areas– 6 tables in 2004– 19 in 2005

• New tables for “UK Business” publication– Parliamentary Constituencies– More local unit tables

• New tools for presentation– Interactive charts– Interactive maps

New Sources

• Corporation Tax– Link to Company Annual Accounts– Needs new legal gateway– Good indicator of trading businesses– Range of accounting variables– Potential for reducing compliance

• Yell – Commercial Source– Good source for business telephone numbers– Difficult to use to extend coverage– Data sharing require some care

The Regions

Working with the regions

• ONS appointed statisticians in the English regions in April 2007

• Co-located with the Regional Development Agencies (RDA)

• RDA responsible for economic development• Work done to establish the statistical requirements• Training needed in use of the business register

Regional data requirements

• Monitor turnover and employment changes in their areas

• Create clusters of businesses to monitor performance

• Monitor businesses receiving assistance against other businesses

• Work with local planning authorities• Provide feedback on business register quality

based on local knowledge

Legal Framework

• Data access limited by current legislation• Statistical use of disclosive and micro data

permitted by:– Government departments – including the ONS regional

statisticians– Local authorities– Some other public bodies– Government contractors

• Not RDA’s

Improving access

• Statistics and Registration Bill to create an independent ONS

• Has provisions to enable wider data sharing with public bodies

• But requires secondary legislation to implement• Follows the April 2008 creation of independent

ONS• In the interim, ONS regional statisticians will be an

important channel for dissemination of disclosure-free outputs

Benefits

• Quality improvement (extended coverage, better surveys and more focus to business profiling)

• More small area outputs• Improved support for regional customers