The Deputy's question was accompanied by correspondence which contained information on an individual enterprise. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) cannot comment on matters relating to an individual enterprise.
Ireland is obliged under EU law to provide extensive data on business activity to the European Commission and the European Central Bank (Appendix 1 details the main legal obligations). The CSO is the government body mandated to supply these data requirements. In addition, the CSO fulfils data demands from other international bodies such as the OECD and the UN, and also from national users such as government, the social partners, economists, and universities. In the majority of cases, such data requirements cannot be fulfilled by drawing on administrative sources (such as other government bodies) and must be obtained by conducting statistical inquiries directly to businesses.
The Government has set a target of reducing administrative burden on business by 25% by 2012. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is co-ordinating the Government programme to measure and reduce administrative burdens. As part of this overall effort, the CSO has identified the most burdensome regulations and surveys on business and is devoting resources to the Government programme to measure and reduce these administrative burdens.
The CSO recognises that statistical surveys impose an administrative burden on those businesses, particularly small businesses, which are included in surveys.
In its Statement of Strategy 2008-2010, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) identified as a corporate priority the minimising of response burden on CSO inquiry respondents. To achieve this, the CSO is taking a number of actions, including increasing the use of electronic reporting methods, adopting better sampling techniques, increasing the co-ordination between surveys, and making greater statistical use of administrative records. A number of burden-reduction measures have already been implemented. These include reducing sample sizes, reducing the number of questions asked on inquiry forms, instigating changes to payroll software to facilitate the automated completion of inquiries on employment and earnings, and expanding the use of administrative data, especially that of the Revenue Commissioners.
In the context of the overall administrative burden imposed by government regulation, it should be noted various studies suggest that the burden imposed by statistical inquiries is relatively low and only accounts for around 2% of the overall administrative burden. Eurostat studies also show that the statistical burden imposed on businesses in Ireland is consistent with that of other EU member states of a similar size. In the 2006 Business Regulation Survey, conducted by the Economic and Social Research Institute on behalf of the Department of the Taoiseach, 9.4% of businesses reported that making CSO returns was a heavy burden, while 1% of businesses identified CSO returns as the single most significant administrative burden on their business.
Appendix 2 presents figures on the reporting burden imposed on Irish business by the CSO, as taken from the Report on Response Burden placed on Irish Businesses by CSO inquiries in 2008 (published on 23 June 2009):-in 2008, less than one-third (32.8%) of Irish business enterprises were surveyed by the CSO, i.e., more than two-thirds of enterprises did not receive a single CSO inquiry form. If the total number of CSO inquiry forms issued in 2008 is divided by the population of business enterprises, the resulting average is 1.3 CSO inquiry forms received per enterprise. In terms of the time expended on completing CSO inquiries, and again based on the entire population of Irish business enterprises, on average each enterprise spent less than one hour (54.5 minutes) in responding to the various CSO inquiries issued in 2008. These figures are based on time information supplied by business enterprises themselves in returning the inquiry forms. (Refer to Appendix 2 Table A.)
In terms of the distribution of CSO inquiry forms by size of business, the figures in this report demonstrate the efforts made by the CSO to limit the response burden on small businesses. In 2008, just over 70% (70.6%) of Irish businesses employing less than 20 people were not surveyed at all by the CSO (i.e., received no CSO inquiry form), while 20% (20.2%) of businesses in this size category received just one CSO inquiry form; this means that more than 90% of businesses in the smallest size category received a maximum of one CSO inquiry form in the course of 2008. Overall, more than two-thirds (67.2%) of Irish businesses were not surveyed at all by the CSO in 2008. (Refer to Appendix 2 Table B.)
Appendix 1 — Primary EU Statistical legislation
(1) Regulation (EC) No. 1166/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of the 19 November 2008 on the farm structure surveys and the survey on agricultural production methods and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No. 571/88.
(2) Regulation (EC) No. 1165/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of the 19 November 2008 concerning livestock and meat statistics and repealing Council Directives 93/23/EEC, 93/24/EEC and 93/25/EEC.
(3) Regulation (EC) No 1099/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 November 2008 on energy statistics.
(4) Regulation (EC) No. 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2008 concerning structural business statistics (recast).
(5) Regulation (EC) No 177/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 February 2008 establishing a common framework for business registers for statistical purposes and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 2186/93.
(6) Regulation (EC) No 1445/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2007 establishing common rules for the provision of basic information on Purchasing Power Parities and for their calculation and dissemination.
(7) Regulation (EC) No 716/2007 of the European Parliament and the Council of 20 June 2007 on Community Statistics on the Structure and Activity of foreign affiliates.
(8) Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 establishing the statistical classification of economic activities NACE Revision 2 and amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 3037/90.
(9) Council Regulation (EC) No. 701/2006 of April 2006 Laying down the detailed rules for the implementation of Regulation (EC) No. 2494/95 as regards the temporal coverage of price collection in the harmonised index of consumer prices.
(10) Regulation (EC) No. 1158/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2005 amending Council Regulation (EC) No. 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short term statistics.
(11) Regulation (EC) No. 808/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 concerning Community Statistics on the information society.
(12) Commission Regulation (EC) No 642/2004 of 6 April 2004 on precision requirements for data collected in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) 1172/98 on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of goods by road.
(13) Directive 2003/107/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 December 2003 amending Council Directive 96/16/EC on statistical surveys of milk and milk products.
(14) Regulation (EC) No 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 December 2003 on the economic accounts for agriculture in the Community.
(15) Decision No 1608/2003/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 July 2003 concerning the production and development of Community statistics on science and technology.
(16) Regulation (EC) No. 437/2003 the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 February 2003 on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of passengers freight and mail by air.
(17) Regulation (EC) No. 91/2003 the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2002 on rail transport statistics.
(18) Regulation (EC) No. 2056/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 November 2002 amending Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No. 58/97 concerning SBS.
(19) Decision No 1919/2002/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2002 amending Council Decision 96/411/EC on improving Community agricultural statistics.
Other regulations that have an indirect impact
(1) Regulation (EC) No. 184/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics concerning Balance of Payments, International Trade in Services and Foreign Direct Investment.
Appendix 2 — Figures on the reporting burden imposed on Irish business by the CSO (from the Report on Response Burden placed on Irish Businesses by CSO inquiries in 2008)
Table A: Business enterprise surveys — forms issued and forms returned, time taken to complete returns
|
2007
|
2008**
|
Total number of CSO Business Surveys
|
30
|
31
|
Total number of forms issued
|
367,374
|
362,597
|
Total number of forms returned
|
275,638
|
266,757
|
Average No. of forms received by an enterprise
|
1.3
|
1.3
|
Average No. of forms returned by an enterprise
|
1
|
1
|
% of enterprises surveyed
|
42.7
|
32.8
|
% of enterprises responding
|
27.5
|
21.1
|
Total number of hours to complete returns*
|
270,170.50
|
250,854.70
|
Average number of minutes to complete a return*
|
62.7
|
58.7
|
Average number of minutes taken to complete these CSO returns per unit of enterprise population*
|
59.5
|
54.5
|
*Excludes the Business Profile Inquiry, the Quarterly Survey of Construction, and the Balance of Payments inquiries, which currently do not collect information on minutes taken to complete the inquiry form.
**Preliminary.
Table B: Distribution of Forms Issued, by Size of Business
Year
|
% of Population Receiving Forms
|
|
0 Forms
|
1 Form
|
2-4 Forms
|
5-9 Forms
|
10-19 Forms
|
20 or more Forms
|
Total
|
2008
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Less than 20 persons engaged
|
70.6
|
20.2
|
5.6
|
0.9
|
2.3
|
0.4
|
100
|
20-49 persons engaged
|
12.8
|
17.9
|
21.1
|
24.2
|
12.2
|
11.7
|
100
|
50 or more persons engaged
|
2.9
|
9.7
|
16.8
|
23.3
|
24.8
|
22.5
|
100
|
All employment groups
|
67.2
|
19.9
|
6.4
|
2.2
|
3.2
|
1.2
|
100
|