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National reference metadata

Denmark

Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.

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Building permits

National Reference Metadata in Euro SDMX Metadata Structure (ESMS)

Compiling agency: Statistics Denmark

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The construction statistics is register based statistics of all building activities requiring a building permit. The statistics is based on the municipalities' reports to the The Central Register of Buildings and Dwellings (BBR), in cases where construction of new buildings or extension/conversion of existing building increase the the floor area or number of dwellings. This means, that building activities, which do not result in an increase in the floor area or number of dwellings, e.g. demolition and modernization, not is included in the statistics. The scope and the demands for the information to be reported to BBR are defined by public authorities. Due to delays in the municipalities reporting to the register both non-adjusted figures as well as figures adjusted for delays in reporting are published.

The construction statistics for non-adjusted figures are published as quarterly time series, measured as activity in total floor area (m2) and total number of dwellings. The statistics are grouped by phase of construction, building use, type of builder, type of building project and geography. The statistics - in principal figures and without geography - goes back to 1981/82.

The statistics for adjusted figures is also published quarterly, but in monthly time series and without geography. This time series are published with and without seasonal adjustment and goes back to 1998.

14 June 2024

Phase of construction: The phase of construction is an expression of the stage of construction. The stages are divided into the following phases:

  • Building permits: The permit given by the municipality for starting a construction within a given period. The building permit will be annulled, if the construction is not started within a year. Some construction did not require a building permit, but only a notification. In a statistical context, the building permit and the notification are considered to be the same.
  • Start of construction: The date for the physical start of the construction. For non-residential buildings used for agricultural purposes etc. and small buildings (garages, carports and outhouses) the date of the building permit and the date of the construction started are similar. This kind of building is treated less strictly according to the Act.
  • Completion of construction: A certificate for use or provisional use is given or for reasons where the construction is completed and no certificate is needed.
  • Under construction: A building stock of building activities, which have started but not yet completed at a certain time (normally, at the end of the reference period).

Central variables: In the Central Register of Buildings and Dwellings each building permit has several variables with information. The most important variables are:

  • Main use of the building: The actual use is registered. If the building is used for several purposes, the use accounting for the greatest space is registered. The classification has 5 classes and 27 objects. The classes are residential buildings (weekend cottages excluded), production buildings, warehouses, farm buildings, industry and manufacturing buildings, public works etc., buildings for administration and trade, transport, personal services, buildings for cultural purposes plus institutions and other buildings.
  • Type of builders: Private, housing societies and public builders (determined by the ownership).
  • Construction materials: external cladding, type of roof and type of heating.
  • Geography: Counties/Regions and municipalities.

Population: - Property/Site (= land register) - Building - Unit in Building

In the "old" BBR, the property unit identifies the public tax assessment of real property. In the changed BBR "property" is replaced by site and ownership as the superior identification. The building is defined as a coherent construction built on a separate real property, and which is mainly constructed using uniform materials and with approximately the same number of floors. Furthermore, there must be entrance facilities from the street. A unit in a building is defined as one or several coherent rooms etc. used for residential or non-residential purposes. It is decisive that the unit can be independently addressed.

The counting unit is the building, measured as:

  • Total floor space: All floor space, incl. roof space, but excl. basement (all areas are measured to the outside of the external wall or to limited roof area).
  • Ground space (area built on): Equal to the ground floor space
  • Number of dwellings: The sum of dwellings with kitchen and individual rooms for habitation - the dwellings shall be approved for habitation

The population consist of the construction activities, which demands a building permits. The construction activities can be new construction, bigger extensions and conversions and demolitions. The statistics include only building cases/permits which include a supply of area and/or dwellings, that means demolitions are not included.

Denmark.

The time of reference is the quarter.

A survey of the overall accuracy of the statistics has never been conducted. In general, the latest figures for the construction must be regarded with reservations, because the data source is uncertain. The statistics on construction are based on the database (the Central Register of Buildings and Dwellings/BBR) which contain all building cases and buildings in Denmark. The main source of inaccuracy is the delays in the municipality's data registrations in the BBR.

Therefore, the "raw" figures (uncorrected figures) are marked by great uncertainty in connection with their first publications. The delays varied widely, depending on the building phase and if it is total construction or construction of dwellings. Analyses show that most of the delays are received after 6 months and after 18 months and figures are regarded as "final", because there are only few and minor revisions after that time.

Generally, the quality can be evaluated to be of a reasonable quality which with some reservations can be used to estimate the market trend in construction. Normally, there are some different degrees of underestimation until the figures are being "final" after 18 months.

The units of measure are:

  • Total floor space (square meters)
  • Number of dwellings

When the "raw" figures (not adjusted for delays) are enclosed in the BSR, an updating of the buildings address is carried out. Delayed reports from the municipalities are the construction statistics greatest problem.

Statistics Denmark has since 1996 established models for estimation, which corrected the "raw" figures for these delays. In connection with the publication of 1. Quarter 2019 employed (the former model was from 2017). The model estimates the extent of the delays and corrected the reported figures for this in the last 18 months. The greatest challenge in the project has been to find a permanent pattern in the delays. The definition of a delay is, when a reported building case does not concern the actual counting month, so it is delayed. In http://www.Statbank.dk the changes between the first reported figures and the current figures are published by phase of construction in table BYGVFORS.

The latest model for estimation is from 2012. It is based on the original model from 1996. The starting point for the model is, at analyses showed, that after 18 months there are very small revisions in the reported figures. Therefore, these are regarded as "final", but are still revised. Analyses also showed that the phase of construction, use of buildings, type of building case and type of builders were good variables for explanations. At the same time, it was clear, that it was not possible to make estimations on municipality level. There were too few data in particular the small municipalities.

The new model for estimation is building on the former model which takes into account:

  • The state of the building permit, e.g. permitted or completed building.
  • Floor area or number of dwellings, which have different pattern of delays.
  • The classification: Use of Building (15 main groups) .
  • New building or conversion/extension of buildings, etc.
  • The classification: Ownership (private, non-profit building society or public)
  • An ongoing revision at the times of publication, taking into account the delays observed. For each state of building project a raising-factor is estimated using analyses of regression for delays.
  • No estimate is made for the geography and the number of buildings.

The model: The groups of variables gives total 90 different groups to consider for every of the 8 phases of construction. On basis of historical data is there for every group and phase of construction calculated an average delay. After that, the most relevant groups are selected. This reduced the total number of different groups which are included in the model to 33 which represent about 95 p.c. of all the delays. In the remaining groups are raw data inserted. As a last aid variable is historic information used (use data back to 2012) about how long time, it takes from the date of permission to the date of started for a building case. The criteria for success are still that the 1st estimate of a month must range inside +/- 5 p.c. of the "final" estimate for the same month (18th estimate).

Compared to the model from 2017 are there 3 major changes: 1. The actual model is a so-called generalized linear model of quasipoisson-family (previous was used linearly regression analyses). The model is trained from new for every running and will therefore be wiser and wiser as time goes and more data will be available. 2. The extra variable, "trend", is removed and replaced with interactions and a non-lineare expansion of the time variable through ”natural splines” 3. The calendar month enter again into as a factor, because analyses shows a clear variation in the delay pattern through the calendar year.

Small buildings: The government pass into law that small buildings (typically garages, carports and outhouses) until 50 m2 not - under certain conditions - longer are obliged to report construction (new construction, extension/rebuilding or demolishing) to the municipality. The event shall alone recorded in master data, in other words there will be no building project. In the construction statistic will these cases be picked up in master data and imposes a "building project" which handled similar other building project.

For updating a building statistics register Statistics Denmark receives monthly data from the Central Register of Buildings and Dwellings.

The statistics are published quarterly.

There is no distinction between provisional and final figures, because all figures after 1997 are regarded as provisional.

Every month figures for permitted construction are submitted to the statistical office of EU, Eurostat. Data for all EU countries can be found in the Eurostat database. The statistics are produced following the principles of an EU regulation, so the results are comparable

Full data comparability over time is only possible from the year 1980. Before 1980 the statistics for construction were compiled on the basis of surveys and there are different geographic degrees of coverage and some differences in definitions. There are conducted different projects where attempts are made to carry the comparability longer back in time:

For the completed construction activities, estimates are available (the coverage compared with BBR):

  • January 1950 - March 1960: The metropolitan area plus the 5 largest towns and their suburbs (degree of coverage: around 35 p.c.).
  • April 1960 - December 1968: The metropolitan area plus the 18 largest towns and their suburbs (degree of coverage: around 50 p.c.).
  • January 1969 - March 1970: Urban areas with more than 10,000 inhabitants (degree of coverage: around 50 p.c.).
  • April 1970 - December 1972: Urban areas (degree of coverage: around 70 p.c.).
  • January 1973 - December 1979: All Denmark (degree of coverage: 100 p.c.)

Furthermore, for the year 1979 the statistics of construction activities, based on questionnaires, are compared with the statistics based on the Central Register of Buildings and Dwellings. The new method proved to have 20 p.c. more floor area and 5 p.c. more dwellings, measuring the start of constructions.

There are established some historical series in Statistikbanken, see Historical summaries:

  • BYGV04: Total construction back to 1939, by phase of construction and use
  • BYGV05: Residential construction back to 1917, by phase of construction, use and builders
  • BYGV06: Average floor area in new-constructed dwellings back to 1916, by use

Since the publication of 3th Quarter 2010, the statistics are based on a changed BBR, which has resulted in some correction in the figures back to 1998.

The main consequences are seen within construction of dwellings:

  • 1998-2002: a reduction in number of permitted, started and completed dwellings of about 1 p.c.
  • 2002-2005: a reduction in in number of permitted, started and completed dwellings of about 4 p.c.
  • After 2005: a rise in number of permitted, started and completed dwellings of under 2 p.c.

For the total construction the rise has only be under 1 p.c. for permitted, started and completed construction.

The change of method in connection with publishing 2nd quarter 2015 where temporary buildings are removed back to 1st quarter 2010 is the estimate that it will have minimal consequences because there are very few registered temporary buildings before 2010. The corrections back to 2010 are about 1 p.c. per. year for both construction of dwellings and area.

Since 31. August 2016 become the codes for use for both buildings and units more detailed and standardized. Until the changes are completely implemented, will the old codes for use been used, with some exceptions: - The level of building: The valuation is that the break in data will be minimal, because it by and large only is in connection with the creation of the new codes for annex there will be relocation between subcategories, e.g. from detached houses to Other residential buildings. For the main categories of use there will not occur changes. The statistics for construction is based on the level of building - The level of unit: It has been necessary to make a break in data - however inside the main category, commercial units, when 3 old codes (340, 350 and 360) are closed and are gathered in a new code (321, office)

In June 2017 came a new version of BBR. This has result in new methods, altered data structure and new, removed or changed variables etc. compared to the replaced version of BBR. This had resulted in two forms for data break (for the present, because the new version is first implemented in 2019): 1. A "temporary" data break concerning permitted and started construction, in particular for dwellings. This is a result of, that the information about "expected number of dwellings" first is re-establish in February 2018, i.e. after the publication of the construction statistics for 4Q 2017. It is expected ahead that it will increase the number of permitted and started dwellings in the first reporting, so that they - as minimum - will come on the level, as they have been before. 2. A minor data break in the time series, because there now come in more square metre in the construction statistics. This is the result of the changed method concerning small buildings (see 3.05) which lead to more square metre (catch more small buildings) and primary a changed duplicate searching, where fewer duplicates are removed. The changed duplicate searching has the effect that in the period 2006-15 there is coming 2.3 pct. more started square metre and 5.8 p.c. more started dwellings in average for all the years (test, February 2018). The consequence of the extension/change in including types of dwellings (all dwellings in residential institution and only legal permanent habitation in summer cottage) uncertain, because they pull different ways, namely more dwellings in residential institutions and fewer dwellings in summer cottages