quality assuring the uk business register
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Quality assuring the UK business register. Andrew Allen. Quality framework. Relevance Coherence Timeliness/ punctuality Accuracy Comparability Accessibility & Clarity. Aspects of UK register quality. Relevance – Business register coverage - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Quality assuring the UK business register
Andrew Allen
Quality framework
• Relevance • Coherence • Timeliness/ punctuality • Accuracy• Comparability• Accessibility & Clarity
Aspects of UK register quality
• Relevance – Business register coverage• Coherence - Administrative data input/
Profiling• Timeliness/ punctuality - Updating frequency• Accuracy – Register maintenance survey• Comparability – Quality control• Accessibility & Clarity - NSBRG/ Web site
Coverage
• Vital that register coverage is very high
• UK register based primarily on sales tax (VAT) and employers tax (PAYE) – relatively high thresholds
• Explored other sources to assess coverage
• Are other sources worth developing?
Other sources –Corporation Tax
• Legal Barriers
• Aggregate comparisons annually – give assurance of coverage
• Identified small company gap
• Would be beneficial – identifying small trading companies below VAT and PAYE threshold
• Possible access through new legislation
Sources – business directories
• Commercial databases – e.g. Yell
• Thought to reach small businesses below threshold
• Mostly consumer facing businesses - bias
• Good for phone numbers
• Expensive and commercial sensitivities
Sources – Valuation Office
• For rateable value of businesses -site based
• Potential source of local units
• Occupier names missing/ empty properties
• Can indicate missing local units
• Worth revisiting
Sources – Company registrations
• Used as a third source already
• Some registrations not on the register
• Examined a sample of the missing and their accounts to see why
• Many are not trading or for leaseholders.
• Challenge is to identify those trading
Coverage summary
• Current coverage meets existing needs
• None of the new sources would provide complete coverage
• Pursuing Corporation Tax in conjunction with further use of Companies registrations offers most cost-effective way to improve coverage
Universe coherence
• Different data sources lead to conflicts
• Administrative data held outside survey scope until quality assured – avoids duplication and sectoral bias
Examples:• Discrepancies between sources e.g. high PAYE
employment – low VAT turnover• Company registration – but no tax registration• Integration of farms register
Timeliness
• Lags in administrative processes impact on quality
• Example: UK VAT data daily, but 6 - 9 months lag in VAT process
• Administrative death process• Monitor changes in lags over time
Quality assuring input data
• 2.1 million active enterprises
• Team of 10 check administrative data inputs
• 21 daily VAT reports plus less frequent checks
• 40 checks applied to PAYE data quarterly
• Examples – large growth, large births, death check against other sources, size across sources
Impact of new tools on quality
• New tools can lead to discontinuities
• Improved matching software IDS
• Better match rates–meant units previously held outside universe as suspicious moved into scope of survey
• Introduced in controlled way in agreement with survey users
Register maintenance surveys
• Principally for keeping local unit structures up to date
• Around 75,000 businesses per year sampled• Complex businesses sampled each year • Simple businesses less frequently• Sample of businesses with PAYE and
register employment failing a closeness rule
Redeveloping the register survey
• Merged with an annual employment survey
• Will yield saving and improve coherence
• Business register and employment survey
New sample design
• Complex* 20+ FTE 1in1* active in more than one region and industry
• Simple 100+ FTE 1in1• Unusual cases (employment) 1in1• Simple 20 - 99 stratified by NACE 1 in 2• Simple < 20 FTE stratified by NACE 1 in 500• Administrative data used for most enterprises
<20 FTE
Profiling
• Team of 8 • Profile 500 large complex businesses each
year
• To improve coherence between ONS surveys• To reflect current operating and legal
structures• To improve response to ONS surveys.
Monthly quality control
• Alerts users to change over timeChange to top level universe
Change to employment, turnover and number of businesses
Drills down into industry, region, legal status, administrative sources
• % change by size, used to assess impact – traffic light system
Annual quality reports
• Small change each month – can show trends
• Timed to check quality before main annual survey samples taken
• Also used to quality assure the business register survey – 0.5 million LU’s updated each.
Special industry checks
• Monitoring of industries with known special criteria e.g. large employment required, only a small number in the country, discrepancies between employment/turnover
Examples:• Glass and steel manufacturing• Holding companies • Investment companies
Accessibility
• Feedback on register quality
Web publications
National Statistics Business Register Committee – key government users across UK
Annual survey of users
Summary - UK register quality
• Part of continuous improvement• Paying attention to administrative data• Extending business register outputs• More efficient surveys• Communicating with customers