The Commission presents a report on the implementation of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 58/97 and of Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 concerning structural business statistics (recast) which repealed and replaced Regulation No 58/97. The report has been prepared partly under the provisions of Article 14(1) of Regulation No 58/97 as regards final data for reference year 2007 and partly under the provisions of Article 13(1) of Regulation No 295/2008 as regards preliminary data for reference year 2008.

Generally, the aim of the report is to provide information on the actions undertaken by the European Commission to ensure that high quality European structural business statistics are made available to users, and also on the manner and extent to which each of the Member

States has implemented the SBS Regulations. Moreover, it provides information on the burden on businesses and the actions taken by Member States in order to reduce that burden.

Compliance : compliance with the SBS Regulation is evaluated on the basis of the punctuality of data transmitted by the Member States, and also on the completeness of the data and the number of versions needed before the final release. Overall, the compliance level for 2007 data has been increased relative to the compliance level recorded in the previous report. A full analysis of all compliance issues, in particular those related to comparability, will not be possible until the renewed quality reports are available in May 2011.

Punctuality has improved generally over the years. However, some countries continue to send their data with some delay, which has influenced the punctuality of the dissemination of EU aggregates. Compared with the previous report, the most notable improvements from the punctuality point of view were made by Belgium, Ireland, Greece and Slovenia. However, Belgium and Greece sent their data with some delay. First data for 2007 were provided by Malta with a major delay.

As far as the completeness of the datasets transmitted by the countries is concerned, when all datasets for the definitive series of Annexes I to IV provided by the EU-27 and Norway are taken together, they make up 90% of the required data. This represents a significant improvement in comparison with the situation described in the previous report provided to the European Parliament and to the Council in 2007, but it is still insufficient.

Several countries are taking action to improve data availability . Preliminary 2008 data were provided by most of the countries before the deadline set in the Regulation. A few countries sent their data with some delay, for instance around 20 days after the deadline in the case of Belgium and Italy, and with a delay of more than one month for Greece and Poland. In general, punctuality has not improved for these data sets compared to last year, but this situation was due to the fact that the 2008 reference year was affected by the implementation of NACE Rev.2. Overall, 94% of the required data is available.

Data for Annexes V to VII were still missing for some series. Overall, 73 % of the required data for financial annexes is available.

Eurostat has carried out actions in order to increase the level of compliance in two areas:

- a compliance report has been submitted to the SBS Steering Group twice yearly and to the Business Statistics Directors once a year. Letters from the Director-General of Eurostat to the Heads of National Statistical Institutes have also been used to address cases of serious non-compliance. In addition to monitoring and reporting, bilateral contacts have been made in order to investigate and resolve shortcomings in compliance;

- Eurostat has tried to find ways to facilitate data transmission, e.g. by simplifying the data transmission formats and by streamlining the data requirements, especially with the new SBS Recast Regulation.

Further development: the European Statistical System is constantly looking to identify ways of dealing with new and emerging needs for statistics, whilst at the same time making great efforts to reduce both the burden on respondents and the costs of producing statistics.

Moreover, given the increasing importance of European statistics - at EU level - for the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of EU policies, the Commission (Eurostat) has issued a Communication on the production method for EU statistics - a vision for the next decade. This Communication offers a vision for reforming the way in which European statistics are produced.

Lastly, the MEETS programme for the modernisation and better integration of enterprise and trade statistics is taking practical steps to implement this vision.

COM(2011)0242
EUR-Lex

This report covers the implementation of Council Regulation No 58/97 (‘the SBS Regulation) as amended by Council Regulation No 410/1998 and Regulation 2056/2002. The report aims to provide information on the actions undertaken by the Commission to ensure that high quality European structural business statistics are made available to users, and also on the manner and extent to which each of the Member States has implemented the SBS Regulation. It provides information on the burden on business and actions taken to reduce that burden.

Availability of SBS to users : in very broad terms, the Commission concludes that data sets delivered to Eurostat are reasonably complete from most Member States. There are gaps for some countries, however, which affect the availability of data to users. The Commission also states that the availability of data to users is considerably reduced by the existence of confidential data. Many data are confidential, especially in the smaller countries. The confidentiality rules at national level are not yet fully harmonised. In all countries, data relating to one or a small number of enterprises are protected. Rules for determining the EU aggregates that need to be suppressed have been laid down in a Confidentiality Charter agreed with the Member States. Of all EU aggregates for which data were available for the reference year 2004 in the annual enterprise statistics, 32% could not be published for reasons of confidentiality. The Commission is currently investigating ways of making more EU aggregates available in order to satisfy the users' need for information. Ways of calculating estimates for the confidential EU aggregates that afford sufficient protection to the data of individual respondents, while at the same time guaranteeing a certain level of accuracy of the aggregates, will be explored. The recast of the SBS Regulation contains a possibility for Member States to flag data as "contribution to European totals only", which is also expected to increase the number of available European aggregates.

With regard to accuracy, the aggregate EU coefficients of variation for most NACE groups are below 1.5 %. In general, coefficients of variation are lower for the NACE groups in industry. For construction, trade and especially services, coefficients of variation are higher. This means that in general the data presented for the industrial activities are more precise. The non-response rates vary between Member States; in a few cases they are above 20 percent.

The coherence between structural business statistics and short-term statistics reveals certain differences in methodology. Further investigation is therefore needed. A similar comparison has been made between SBS data on employment and other sources of labour data. Again, differences in methodology and also in definitions were observed. Further harmonisation work needs to be undertaken.

Compliance with the SBS Regulation is evaluated on the basis of the timeliness of transmission of the data by the Member States, as well as of the completeness of the datasets sent. Overall, the compliance level has risen when compared to the evaluation made for the previous report. Other compliance issues, such as the quality of the data transmitted, cannot yet be fully evaluated. The timeliness of the data transmission has generally improved over the years. However, some countries still send the data with significant delays, which influences the timely dissemination of EU aggregates. National action plans have been drafted by the Member States concerned in order to ensure that the Regulation deadlines are respected in future. As far as the completeness of the datasets transmitted by the countries is concerned, when all datasets for the definitive series of Annexes 1 to 4 provided by the EU27 countries and Norway are taken together, this represents 85% of the required data overall. This is a marked improvement on the situation described in the previous report to the European Parliament and the Council, but it is still insufficient. Several countries are taking action to improve data availability.

The burden on business: the report describes the SBS recast (COM(2006)0066) which aims to keep the burden on enterprises as light as possible, by taking away a number of mandatory variables, moving other variables from annual to multi-annual collection, and deleting the optional variables. It describes burden measurement, and states that from the number of hours spent on SBS, it is possible to make a very rough estimate of the cost to enterprises: if this average time spent is applied across the EU as a whole, the burden on the economy due to SBS Annexes I – IV would add up to about €75 million for the whole Community. On average, enterprises with less than 50 employees account for 70% of the time spent by all enterprises. Although large enterprises are normally included in the surveys, small enterprises contribute quite considerably.

Lastly, the report describes actions taken by Member States to reduce burden. In many Member States there is a growing preference for using administrative data instead of surveys. However, there are obstacles to the increased use of administrative data, which normally differ from statistical data in terms of formats, codes, transmission protocols, etc., so making these data usable for statistics requires investment. Political support is needed in order for agreements to be reached between the NSIs and the relevant governmental organisations. Changing the use of administrative data also requires additional internal resources, as NSIs have to adjust their internal workings to make good use of this investment.

COM(2007)0494
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COM(2004)0249
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32003R1667
OJ L 244 29.09.2003, p. 0001-0031

32003R1668
OJ L 244 29.09.2003, p. 0032-0056

32003R1669
OJ L 244 29.09.2003, p. 0057-0073

32003R1670
OJ L 244 29.09.2003, p. 0074-0111

Regulation 1997/58
OJ L 014 17.01.1997, p. 0001

OJ C 020 20.01.1997, p. 0365-0371
T4-0693/1996

T4-0693/1996

09512/1996

09512/1996

OJ C 096 01.04.1996, p. 0222-0236
T4-0123/1996

T4-0123/1996

Debate in Parliament

A4-0038/1996
OJ C 078 18.03.1996, p. 0003

A4-0038/1996

The ESC approved the draft Regulation and hoped sincerely that the module dealing with financial services would be proposed as quickly as possible. In addition, further data was required for the statistics presented in the module on the distributive trade. Finally, the ESC considered that the European Parliament’s suggestion that Eurostat become an autonomous body could make a positive contribution to better clarification of the roles of both Eurostat and the European Commission.

CES0594/1995
OJ C 236 11.09.1995, p. 0061

EUR-Lex
OJ C 146 13.06.1995, p. 0007
COM(1995)0099

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COM(1995)0099