Office for National Statistics

Business Statistics Division

Room 2.301

Office for National Statistics

Government Buildings

Cardiff Road

Newport

NP10 8XG

The estimates are turnover and exports and are published in the UK in £ millions every month and also provided to Eurostat. The publication and delivery to Eurostat contains total turnover, domestic and export turnover in current prices and covers industries across sectors B, C and E. The data are not seasonally adjusted or working day adjusted.  Data are collected via the Monthly Business Survey, which is completed by a sample of small, medium and large businesses every month.  Industries 05, 06, 19, 24.1-3. 35.1, 35.2-3 are collected via volume estimates and converted into current price levels for transmission to Eurostat. 

Production covers the United Kingdom and the latest UK estimates can be found here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/datasets/monthlybusinesssurveymbsturnoverinproductionindustries

Services covers Great Britain and the latest GB estimates can be found here:  https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/datasets/monthlybusinesssurveymbsturnoverofservicesindustries

Up to the reference period September 2017, both Production and Services industries were published combined in one release:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/turnoverinproductionandservicesindustriessept2017 

NACE Rev. 2 statistical classification of economic activities

The Monthly Business Survey covers the majority of the production sectors B, C, and E. The delivery to Eurostat contains industries 05, 06, 19, 24.1-3. 35.1, 35.2-3, these are not collected via the Monthly Business Survey and are instead collected via volume estimates and converted into current price levels for transmission to Eurostat. 

Turnover and export turnover in £000s are collected by the monthly business survey (MBS), every quarter, a question is included on the number of employees. The industries included are as defined by the United Kingdom Standard Industrial Classification (UKSIC) 2007 sectors, which is aligned with NACE Rev 2.

Businesses within MBS are classified according to a Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) based on their predominating business activity. The SIC 2007 classification was introduced in August 2011, released in October 2011 and represents the first major revision of the classification structure since 1992. 

The definition of Turnover is:

Turnover comprises the totals invoiced by the observation unit during the reference period, and this corresponds to market sales of goods or services supplied to third parties. Turnover also includes all other charges (transport, packaging, etc.) passed on to the customer, even if these charges are listed separately in the invoice.

Turnover excludes VAT and other similar deductible taxes directly linked to turnover as well as all duties and taxes on the goods or services invoiced by the unit. Reduction in prices, rebates and discounts as well as the value of returned packing must be deducted. Price reductions, rebates and bonuses conceded later to clients, for example at the end of the year, are not taken into account. Income classified as other operating income, financial income and extraordinary income in company accounts is excluded from turnover. According to this definition, the items generally included are:

— sales of manufactured products,

— sales of products manufactured by subcontractors,

— sales of goods purchased for resale in the same condition as received,

— invoiced services provided,

— sales of by-products,

— invoiced charges for packaging and transport,

— invoiced hours worked to third parties for labour-only subcontracting,

— invoiced mounting, installations and repairs,

— invoiced instalments (stage payments),

— invoiced development of software and software licences,

— sales of supplied electric power, gas, heat, steam and water,

— sales of waste and scrap materials,

Subject to the treatment of income classified as ‘other operating income, financial income and extraordinary income’ in company accounts, the items generally excluded are:

— VAT and other similar deductible taxes directly linked to turnover all duties and taxes on the goods or services invoiced by the unit

— commissions,

— leases and rentals,

— leases for own production units and machines if used by third parties,

— leases of company-owned dwellings,

— receipts for licence-fees,

— receipts from staff facilities (for example from a factory canteen),

— the supply of products and services within the observation unit,

— sales of own land and fixed assets,

— sales or leases of own properties,

— sales of shares,

— interest receipts and dividends,

— other extraordinary income.

The above items may be included if they generate turnover in the principle field of operation of the observation unit.

The expressions ‘turnover’ and ‘sales’ are often used as synonyms in the context of short-term statistics. 

The enterprise or the activities of a specified list of local units belonging to an enterprise are used as the reporting unit. Very often the latter of these is close to the KAU. The observation unit is the same as the reporting unit, namely the enterprise or list of local units.

Businesses are selected from a total number of 145 thousand businesses approximately within UK (production). The Inter Departmental Business Register (IDBR) is the sampling frame for business surveys, is constantly updated to account for any current/future demographic changes.

For industries 05, 06, 19, 24.1-3, 35.1 and 35.2-3 a census is taken of volume estimates and delivered to ONS. 

The geographical area covered is United Kingdom, with no regional breakdown. 

Monthly. 

Not applicable 

Turnover value in £ GBP millions

Monthly from January 1998 in most series - see 15.2 comparability over time. 

The Monthly Business Survey data, feeding into the Turnover and Order in the Production and Services Industries (TOPSI), are collected under the Statistics of Trade Act 1947. 

Data are delivered to Eurostat via SDMX around the 10th working day of the calendar month in which the data are due to be published. 

The United Kingdom Statistics Authority has designated these statistics as National Statistics in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2009 and signifying compliance with the code of Practice for Official Statistics. Details of the policy governing the release of new data are available by visiting:

https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/code-of-practice/

Statistical disclosure control methodology is applied to the MBS data. This ensures that information attributable to an individual or individual organisation is not identifiable in any published outputs. 

https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/code-of-practice/

The ONS release calendar is available at www.ons.gov.uk

https://www.ons.gov.uk/releasecalendar

The data is released on the ONS website at 9:30 on the release date to all users. Data are sent to Eurostat using SDMX format on the same day as National dissemination.

Monthly

No news release or briefING is produced or held for this dataset, reference tables and time series are published on the ONS website:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/datasets/monthlybusinesssurveymbsturnoverinproductionindustries

Monthly Business Survey Turnover in Production Industries is published on the ONS website, as reference table accompanying the Index of Production release

https://www.ons.gov.uk/

Monthly Business Survey Turnover in Production Industries is published on the ONS website, as reference table and time series dataset alongside the Index of Production statistical release

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/

Not available

Data are sent to Eurostat on the day of release

Documentation including articles on methodology and sources are published on the ONS website.  See the bottom of the page in the attached link.

In addition, information is provided in the Quality and Methodology Information and statistical releases

https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessservices/

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/

A summary quality report for the Monthly Business Survey (MBS) can now be found on the ONS website, see 'Quality and Methodology Information for the Monthly Business Survey, in the following link:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessservices/methodologies/monthlybusinesssurveyqmi

ONS has developed Guidelines for Measuring Statistical Quality ; these are based upon the European Statistical System (ESS) quality dimensions. - More information can be found on the ONS website, see the following link for further details

https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160106003751/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/method-quality/quality/guidelines-for-measuring-statistical-quality/index.html

The work the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is undertaking to monitor the quality of published statistics, and develop improvements to existing data can be found in the following link:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoraccounts/methodologies/ukindexofproductionqmi

https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessservices/methodologies/monthlybusinesssurveyqmi

Furthermore the UK Statistics Authority publishes a report on each assessment it carries out. The IOP is assessment as part of the Short term Economic output Indicators and the assessment can be found in the following link, report number 278.

https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/

The Monthly Business Survey Turnover in Production Industries dataset is intended to provide a general measure of monthly changes in the Turnover in £ millions of output of production and services industries. It shares exactly the same industry coverage as the corresponding series within Gross Domestic Product Output (GDPO).  It has two primary uses:

• As a short-term economic indicator in its own right. The Government and Industries, among others, monitor the TOPSI as an important indicator of industrial activity

• As a requirement for the Statistical Offices of the European Community (Eurostat) – information on turnover and current price sales are provided to Eurostat

User Satisfaction was assessed as part of  the UK Statistics Authority published assessments. In addition to face to face meetings with key stakeholders. This dataset was assessed by the UK Statistics Authority: Index of Production, see report number 278. .

http://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/assessment/assessment/assessment-reports/index.html

All STS requirements are fulfilled

For the monthly Industrial turnover estimate for the whole of the MBS, coefficients of variation around 1.0 - 2.0% are usual. Therefore over all statistical errors and bias are small.

Sampling error occurs because estimates are based on a sample rather than a census. Sampling error of the main data source the MBS is measured internally at the point where results are made final and are passed for the purpose of estimating TOPSI. For the monthly turnover estimate for the whole of the MBS, coefficients of variation around 1.0 - 2.0% are usual. Coefficients of variation are calculated both at the sampled level of industry and at the aggregated level of industry that is published in TOPSI. High coefficients of variation are rare but are always investigated at the individual business level to determine the cause. Coefficients of variation will in future, be published as part of the MBS Basic Quality Information (BQI) document, following a review of their production.

ONS published Survey Methodological Bulletin No.75 Spring 2016, containing Standard Errors of movement in the Index of Production, based upon this dataset. 

https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/methodologicalpublications/generalmethodology/surveymethodologybulletin

Non sampling errors- are not easy to quantify and include errors of coverage, measurement, processing and non-response. Various procedures are in place to ensure errors are minimised. Validation checks on data, for example percentage movements from month to month, are carried out to highlight unusual changes in turnover data. Disparities are investigated by contacting the business for clarification if necessary. Monthly target response rates for the MBS are as follows: for the production industries, 75% by number of questionnaires and 85% by register turnover.

The ONS National Statistics Release Calendar  is available online and provides twelve months advanced notice of releases. Publication dates are fixed and have never been delayed or missed. In the unlikely event of a change to the pre-announced release schedule, public attention should be drawn to the change and the reasons for the change should be explained fully at the same time, as set out in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.  This dataset is published as an annexe to the Index of Production publication around the 10th working day of the publication month. 

The Monthly Business Survey Turnover in Production Industries is published at 9:30 am on the day of release

Produced in accordance with ESA10 and Eurostat guidance on producing Short-Term Statistics. 

This dataset is not necessarily comparable over time, due to the series being current prices, which do not adjust for the effects of inflation.  In addition, as further series were introduced, the data was not back cast and therefore historic totals will not include the series below:

The majority of data series have data present from Jan 1998 to the latest published period. However, all series relating to SICs listed below have data only from the specified period:

SIC 10.1: Processing and preserving of meat and production of meat products (2010 Jan)

SIC 10.4: Manufacture of vegetable and animal oils and fats (2013 Apr)

SIC 10.5: Manufacture of dairy products (2010 Jan)

SIC 10.6: Manufacture of grain mill products, starches and starch products (2013 Apr)

SIC 10.9: Manufacture of prepared animal feeds (2010 Jan)

SIC 11.01-06 + 12: Manufacture of alcoholic beverages and tobacco products (2010 Jan)

SIC 37: Sewerage (2000 Apr)

Total for UK Production (CSYD) and export, home and total for UK Manufacturing (CDYB, CSYC and JT27 respectively) may therefore introduce discontinuities, and users should approach any comparisons of these totals over time with the above information in mind.

The data are derived from Monthly Business Survey (MBS). There is no internal comparable monthly source, but after two years when annual turnover becomes available from the Annual Business Inquiry (ABI), checks can be undertaken to ensure consistency between the 12 monthly returns and the data returns from large businesses. 

The data are derived from Monthly Business Survey (MBS). There is no internal comparable monthly source, but after two years when annual turnover becomes available from the Annual Business Inquiry (ABI), checks can be undertaken to ensure consistency between the 12 monthly returns and the data returns from large businesses. 

Cost to produce the production turnover in TOPSI is equivalent to that of Index of Production the : Number of units 6500 ; cost (NSI) hours per year 19,521; Burden (respondents) hours per year 3887

This dataset is open for revisions in the prior 12 months in every release from the current reference period. When new statistical methodology are introduced, revisions can be taken back further than 12 months. 

This dataset is open for revisions in the prior 12 months in every release from the current reference period. When new statistical methodology are introduced, revisions can be taken back further than 12 months. In these cases, both users and Eurostat are notified. 

The majority of data used to compile this dataset are collected via the Monthly Business Survey (MBS).  Industries 05, 06, 19, 35.1 and 35.2-3 are provided as volume estimates by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) while 24.1-3 are also volume estimates and provided by the International Steel Statistics Bureau (ISSB).  

Data are collected monthly

Data collection moved to an electronic questionnaire in 2018/19. 

The MBS uses an editing and validation approach known as selective editing. Selective editing is an internationally recognised method that uses a data based approach to assess the influence of business estimates on the aggregate outputs. 

The Monthly Business Survey estimates are based on turnover and export data delivered in £ 000s in GBP, these company returns are grossed up using ratio estimation, with the IDBR registered turnover being used as the auxiliary variable.  Large businesses are fully enumerated and selected to return data every month. Small and medium size businesses are sampled and rotated dependant on the number of employees. 

Adjustments can be made for suspicious returns from businesses which are unable to be confirmed. The registered turnover and previous responses are used as estimates as well as imputation methodology. 

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoraccounts/articles/monthlybusinesssurveyimprovingthemethodforsurveynonresponse/2017-09-29

No Comment.