Dissemination and statistical use of Business Register data

1. Dissemination and statistical use of Business Register data Conference of European statisticians Group of experts of Business Registers Luxembourg, 6-7 O2ctober 2009

2. Business Register in Finland - duties • Compile statistics concerning business population and business demography • Base register for production of statistics • Provide chargeable information services to outside users • Future plans Tuula Viitaharju

3. Business Register in Finland - 40 years (1) • Main phases of development • 1954, 1964 business censuses • output: statistics on business population • 1970’s, regular register maintenance, main ideas: • statistics of business population • contributing NA statistics Tuula Viitaharju

4. Business Register in Finland - 40 years (2) • 1980 - 1995 intensive development phase: • increasing coverage • development of register based statistics production • development of base registers and business identification codes • increasing use of administrative files • growth of chargeable information services • background: early phases of information society, rationality in sharing data on basic units with all users in society Tuula Viitaharju

5. Income from Business Register services Tuula Viitaharju

6. Business Register in Finland - 40 years (3) • from 1995 on, topics like: • EU regulations • quality questions, small area statistics • dynamics, complex business structures, globalisation • enterprise group unit • response burden • Annex 1 in my paper: milestones in the development of Business Register Tuula Viitaharju

7. Business register, number of business enterprises- increasing coverage Tuula Viitaharju

8. main BR duties 1: Compiling statistics Tuula Viitaharju

9. Compiling and dissemination of statistics - business population • from Business Register production database -> we produce annual data files for source of annual statistics = a kind of frozen version of BR for each reference year • file of enterprises • file of local units • threshold: 0,5 employment and 6 months activity period (comparable statistics over time) • it means more workload to produce the annual data file Tuula Viitaharju

10. Compiling and dissemination of statistics - business population • statistics by NACE, by region, by legal form, by size category of employment and turnover, variables: employment, turnover, sum of wages and salaries in StatFin database: enterprises,local units • analysis • published in Statistics Finland home pages(EN) (FI) • paper publication ‘Enterprises in Finland’ Tuula Viitaharju

11. Compiling and dissemination of statistics - business demography • from Business Register production database it is compiled quarterly statistics on ‘Enterprise openings and closures’ • statistics by NACE, by region, by legal form, variable: number of enterprises in StatFin -database • analysis • published in Statistics Finland home pages(EN)(FI) • business demography statistics according to EU harmonised method are not yet published in Finland Tuula Viitaharju

12. main BR duties 2: Business Register use in statistics production process • the most important role of Business Register Tuula Viitaharju

13. Business Register use in statistics production • BR database collects and merges plenty of administrative data as common frame for statistics (annex 2 of the paper) • BR is important tool when linking administrative and survey data • BR is survey frame for all direct data collections • BR is data source in register based statistics production • it provides basic units, classifications, employment, turnover • as an example: recently SBS in Finland gave up collecting and estimating employment data for itself and started to use exclusively BR employment variable • Tool of profiling activities • Tool for enterprise respondent service • Tool in statistics on globalisation - enterprise groups Tuula Viitaharju

14. Sharing Business Register data - in-house • BR database is in wide use inside Statistics Finland • about 300 users from economic as well as from social statistics • on-line access or reading by batch programs • use is supported by BR metadata kept available in Statistics Finland (quality reports, time table of BR updating, variable descriptions, process descriptions) Tuula Viitaharju

15. In-house co-operation, examples • common data collection with FATS-statistics on foreign owned enterprises (MNEs in Finland) • common data collection with regional employment statistics on multi-site enterprises (their local units and employment-local unit links) • profiling large and complex enterprises - the network coordinator is working in BR – profiling activities started in 2008 Tuula Viitaharju

16. Enterprise respondent register • contains information from all Statistics Finland business data collections • respondent service about Statistics Finland data collection • enables measuring response burden Tuula Viitaharju

17. main BR duties 3: Sharing Business Register data with outside users Tuula Viitaharju

18. Data dissemination as chargeable services • tailor made statistics • unit level data • in standard form • ad-hoc information services • defining business populations according to customer wishes • updating customer registers periodically, etc. • mass data deliveries for further dissemination • web based enterprise lists, business portals • BR service database: monthly deliveries available of whole populations and all public variables Tuula Viitaharju

19. Boundary condition for unit level data dissemination • The Statistics Act includes specific provisions on the public data items of the Business Register, the list include: • BI-code, name, postal address and code, telephone number • Legal form, ownership, activity code, domicile, language • Personnel, size class of personnel (local unit), size class of turnover • Code of import or export • Relationships of enterprise groups Tuula Viitaharju

20. Problems of unit level data dissemination • Confidentiality in large and small enterprises • with large enterprises: threat of revealing sensitive information connected to competition with other enterprises • with small enterprises (like farms etc): threat of revealing sensitive information connected to proximity of private and business life; family and enterprise mixed • Not all enterprises are happy about data sharing, but only small minority is actually opposing Tuula Viitaharju

21. How to manage the contradictions • open administration, in general public base registers are widely accepted in Finland • thanks to well known base register co-operation among Finnish administration (a special board) • Statistic Act strictly regulates the list of public data • the principles of unit level data dissemination are clearly told to respondents in survey letters and in Statistics Finland Internet pages Tuula Viitaharju

22. Benefits of unit level data dissemination • feedback from data users and enterprises themselves • increased knowledge about BR and BR data quality • route to disseminate NACE Rev 2 • saving taxpayers money, co-operation helps whole administration • release of local unit level data (BR is the only source that covers all sectors) – useful for regional organisations • saving response burden Tuula Viitaharju

23. Customers of outside services • large private companies, banking and insurance sector • research institutes, schools • single researches • public sector (government, ministries, regional planning and local organisations) • private sector 70 %, public sector 30 % • Customer relations in outside services • BR service team, 4 persons • Business Register Service Guide Tuula Viitaharju

24. Statistics Finland’s Research Laboratory • mainly for economic research purposes • access to encrypted micro level data • contain several data sets including Business Register data (enterprise, local units, enterprise groups) • Remote on-line access under development Tuula Viitaharju

25. Future plans Tuula Viitaharju

26. National accounts Social statistics Pricesand costs Other economicstatistics Business statistics(STS, SBS) Science,technology, innovation Foreign trade Labour statistics Governmentfinance Business register Economic statistics Environmentalstatistics International statistical system Operating environment The System of Economic Statistics Tuula Viitaharju

27. Current strategic goals for Business Register • globalisation - to cover MNEs and to operate in the EGR network • means in improving coherence of economic statistics • efficiency of production - the BR as a common frame of business statistics • a more real time Business Register with interactive nature • present data architecture originates from 1997 Tuula Viitaharju

28. Business Register redesign project • Definition stage ongoing 2009 • Goals • to establish a data warehouse solution for business statistics • to define interactive BR processes inside Statistics Finland • to define well operating system for administrative data capture including metadata management • to define changes in Business Register data content Tuula Viitaharju

29. Thank you for your attention!Tuula ViitaharjuHead, Business RegisterStatistics Finlandtuula.viitaharju@stat.fitel: +358 9 1734 3378 Tuula Viitaharju