You asked
I'm writing to ask if the next bulletin of "Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy Survey (LCREE)" will include indirect data per country (I'm specifically interested in Scotland). For some reason since last year the bulletin is not including indirect estimates and it's something that my organisation is very interested in.
We said
Thank you for your correspondence.
We are currently considering a review of the methodology used to construct the estimates of indirect and total activity generated by the low carbon and renewable energy economy.
The methodology used to estimate indirect turnover and employment generated by the low carbon and renewable energy economy is experimental. The UK Statistics Authority's Code of Practice for Statistics defines Experimental Statistics as "new official statistics undergoing evaluation. They are published in order to involve users and stakeholders in their development and as a means to build in quality at an early stage." An evaluation of these experimental statistics last year determined that the methodology used was not suitable for estimating indirect activity below UK level.
In 2020, we published 2018 estimates of UK-wide indirect and total employment generated by the low carbon and renewable energy economy (LCREE) in response to a user request. This can be found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/adhocs/11120lowcarbonandrenewableenergyeconomylcreesurveydirectandindirectestimatesofemploymentuk2014to2018
You may be interested in the following caveats that were noted alongside the data:
- UK-wide estimates of indirect and total LCREE activity only were provided because sub-UK multipliers are not available. Therefore, estimates of indirect activity at country level (sub UK) would require the application of UK-level multipliers (given sub-UK multipliers are not currently available) to sub-UK level estimates.
- It is possible that estimates from the LCREE survey, which aim to measure direct activity, also capture some activity that might be considered to be indirect activity. This has the potential to introduce double counting and overestimation of total (direct plus indirect) LCREE related activity using this experimental methodology.
Given these limitations in estimating total (direct plus indirect) LCREE related employment and further considerations for estimating total LCREE related turnover, the experimental methodology used to produce indirect and total estimates of LCREE activity requires a review. Work on this was planned to take place during 2020 but was paused due to Covid-19 pressures. We are considering such a review in collaboration with stakeholders such as the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Welsh Government, Scottish Government, Northern Ireland Department for the Economy and academia, and we welcome feedback from interested users of the data.
Direct estimates for the LCREE survey for 2019 are scheduled for release on 29 March 2020.