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ABS news

News about the latest developments that have brought changes to the Annual Business Survey.

April 2013 News Items	Detail
On the 30th April 2013, the ABS published "Exporters and Importers in Great Britain, 2011", experimental statistics which provide estimates of the proportion of registered businesses in the non-financial Business Economy in Great Britain who engage in export and/ or import activity. The estimates also show which businesses export and import by employment size, age and ownership. Information is provided for goods, services and goods and/ or services.	The release and supporting documents can be accessed on the Annual Business Survey, Exporters and Importers, GB, 2011 release page
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) are proposing to cease the publication of the Annual Business Survey (ABS) count of retail outlets (62.5 Kb Excel sheet) table from reference year 2011 (published in June 2013). Retail outlet counts have been published annually every summer as part of the ABS publication on the ONS website. A review of the retail outlets methodology and processes was undertaken which highlighted that similar information was available from the Inter Departmental Business Register (IDBR). The IDBR collects, validates and publishes retail outlet data via the annual publication- UK Business: Activity, Size and Location (2.56 Mb Excel sheet) - (see class 47 in table A3.1). There is an ONS user consultation about this change, open until 31st May 2013.	For more information on the user consultation "Retail outlet data: publication removal" visit the open consultations page on the ONS website.
As part of a number of new views of ABS data being developed, and following several requests for this series, ABS published on the 4th April an employment sizebanded series at SIC section level (comprising A-S) and covering the UK Business Economy for the years 2009 - 2011. The data, which contain the standard publication variables, are split by four employment sizebands: 0-<10, 10-<50, 50-<250, 250+. This employment breakdown will be incorporated into the standard ABS release going forward with the first update available in June 2013.	The dataset ''ABS 09-11 - Sections A-S UK Business Economy by Employment Sizeband (118.5 Kb Excel sheet) " can be found under reference number 001287 on the Published ad hoc data: business, requests during April 2013 webpage.
March 2013 News Items	Detail
Following on from the 2012 UK Statistics Authority assessment of the Annual Business Survey (ABS), it was recommended that ABS "investigate the need for, and feasibility of, a consistent time series". This recommendation was taken on board and an experimental series using Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2007 has been developed from 1997 to the latest available year, 2011. The converted series is published at division level (2-digit SIC) with sector level aggregates also available. The conversion was implemented on all previously published variables. This paper will provide some background on the SIC changes and then detail the methods employed in converting the data. It will then summarise the coverage and conversion issues that users should be aware of when using the data.	The paper and associated timeseries 'ABS Historical SIC 2007 Backseries' can be found under reference number 001230 on the Published ad hoc data: business, requests during March 2013 webpage
August 2012 News Items	Detail
The Annual Business Survey publishes new and improved supporting information about the survey and its outputs. This includes a technical report, a revised quality and methods information document, a review of ABS timeliness and a progress report on using administrative data to supplement the ABS.	For more information please visit our Quality and methods page
The Changing Shape of UK Business St Giles Hotel, central London, Tuesday 6 November 2012 This all-day event, coordinated jointly by the Office for National Statistics and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, will be opened by Andrew Dilnot CBE, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, and former Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies. It will feature a range of talks from users, producers and suppliers of business statistics, not just from central government and the Devolved Administrations, but also local government, business representatives and researchers. The event will also include a session to discuss the priorities for users and producers of business statistics over the next few years.	For more information please visit our events page
In response to feedback from a range of our users, ONS has begun the process of converting the ABS series produced using Standard Industrial Classification 2003 (SIC03) to SIC07. This will mean that a consistent series will be available from 1997 to the present day.	More information can be found on the ABS SIC07 back series page.
June 2012 News Items	Detail
We have set up a new Business and Trade Statistics Community on the StatsUserNet forum. StatsUserNet is the Royal Statistical Society’s new interactive site for users of official statistics. It enables you to join online communities for your areas of interest, and even create your own.	More information can be found on our user engagement and survey management page.
Selective editing is introduced to ABS for the 2011 survey. This paper contains a description of the Eden principle for editing survey data and details of the analysis undertaken to measure the impact of introducing selective editing to the ABS.	The Application of Selective Editing to the ONS Annual Business Survey (110.7 Kb Pdf)
A new regional weighting method using a design approach has been introduced to ABS for the revision to the 2009 Regional results and the provisional 2010 Regional results in July 2012. Analysis of the impact of the new weighting method shows that the resulting differences in the figures are generally small, particularly at high levels of aggregation.	Weighting in the Regional System (200.2 Kb Pdf)

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