1. 17 September 20031 SME Statistics OECD Workshop SME data and methodologies in the EU - item 5 Paul Feuvrier / Eurostat

2. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 1 The European legal framework for SME statistics 2 Data availability 3 Methodological issues 4 Statistical Disclosure Control (statistical confidentiality) 5 Quality indicators

3. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 1 The European legal framework for SME statistics – the SBS-Regulation in short, data broken down by NACE Rev.1 4-digit level by NACE Rev.1 3-digit level and size class (SME statistics) by NACE Rev.1 2 or 3-digit level and Region (NUTS) other data sets – environmental protection expenditure – purchase of energy products – etc...

4. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 SME data = part of the SBS Regulation – Module on definitions – Business Register Regulation – Statistical Units Regulation

5. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 Four specific modules – Services (common module) - 5 variables – Manufacturing - 10 variables – Trade - 5 variables – Construction - 10 variables For each module – specific size class breakdown more detailed breakdown for small businesses size bands

6. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 Size bands simplified – from reference year 2002 onwards Commission Regulation No 1614/2002 mainly to prevent too many confidentiality problems

7. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 2 Data availability – NewCronos = Eurostat dissemination database – Reference and updated database theme4/sbs/sizclass – Annual enterprise statistics broken down by size classes – Historical database theme4/hist_theme4/SME “old” joint OECD/Eurostat data collection no longer updated, as a NewCronos warning clearly puts it

8. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003

9. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 EU-15 totals data by size class available for reference year 1999 and 2000 – Germany < 20 not available beforehand… Acceding countries totals ACC (10 countries) available in NewCronos end of September 2003 EU-25 available in NewCronos on 1/5/2004

10. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 3 Methodological issues – Eurostat performs quality checks before any data release – Implementation problems encountered at national level Level of detail of size class data – Difficult to implement for some small countries One size hardly fits all… – Still a single size class breakdown is necessary (and relevant) for computation of reliable EU-15 totals

11. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 – Completeness The existence of cut of values used to be the most serious problems related to SBS – Data related to enterprises with more than x persons employed used to be available instead of > 1 person employed requested by the Regulation Depending on the availability of a Statistical Business Register including small businesses – and on its quality… Removal of cut of values = main achievement of SBS- Regulation – Germany, among others, made dramatic efforts top comply with the Regulation and cover <20...

12. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 – Remaining problematic countries as regards cut of value Greece – >10 persons employed in all industries Ireland – >20 persons employed in Construction Hungary – >5 persons employed in all industries That’s it for reference year 2001! – Other countries >1 person employed in all industries More problems for historical data...

13. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 – Implementation problems encountered at national level small and medium-sized enterprises are defined as enterprises which have: – fewer than 250 employees, – an annual turnover not exceeding € 50 million – an annual balance-sheet total not exceeding € 43 million. – Which are independent in particular not affiliate of any enterprise group.

14. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 4 Statistical Disclosure Control (statistical confidentiality) – Member States send confidential data to Eurostat... – …so that Eurostat is in a position to calculate European totals... – … and to release them as soon as the protection is not broken

15. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 – Cells of detailed tables contain information either on a single or very few respondents --> implementation of measures to limit disclosure risk – Main method implemented by Eurostat so far = Cell suppression Assessment of disclosure risk connected to each step Suppression of sensitive cells – primary suppression Secondary suppression – primary suppression not enough to prevent disclosure because of the additive relationship between the cells

16. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003

17. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 5 Quality indicators

18. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 – Variance takes into account survey design non response misclassification – To that respect, CVs clearly higher for small businesses than for large ones, Accuracy of SME data not as good as the one of large businesses statistics Mainly because small businesses are not completely enumerated – take some stratum Large businesses are – take all stratum

19. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 Other problems posed for large businesses – industrial heterogeneity secondary activities – statistical coverage of enterprise groups

20. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 Conclusions – Eurostat database on SMEs of high quality timeliness – data available at T+20 accuracy – CVs available availability completeness – coverage of small businesses almost fully achieved comparability – legal framework for concepts and definitions

21. SME Statistics Workshop OECD 17 September 2003 – Yet some challenges ahead for Eurostat work on SMEs: Still some cut off values to remove... Reflection on a distinction between – independent SMEs – SMEs affiliates of groups Improving the quality of R&D variables for SMEs – where the relevant statistical unit is probably more the enterprise group than the enterprise Improving the consistency between SBS - SME data and SBS - Business Demography data