National Statistics Office (NSO) - Malta

Unit B1 - Structural Business Statistics

Lascaris, Valletta

VLT 2000

Malta

Structural business statistics (SBS) describes the structure, conduct and performance of economic activities, down to the most detailed activity level.

 SBS covers all activities of the non-financial business economy except for agricultural activities and personal services. Limited information is collected on banking, insurance and pension funds.

  Main characteristics (variables) of the SBS data category include: 

• Business demographic variables (e.g. Number of enterprises);
• "Output related" variables (e.g. Turnover, Value added);
• “Input related” variables: labour input (e.g. Employment, Hours worked); goods and services input (e.g. Total of purchases); capital input (e.g. Material investments)., funds and similar financial entities.

The classifications used in this subject area are the NACE Rev. 2 classification for the Economic Activities.

 The product breakdown is based on the Classification of Products by Activity (CPA) as stated in the Regulation establishing CPA 2008. 

The SBS coverage was limited to Sections C to K of NACE Rev.1.1 until 2007. Starting from the reference year 2008 data is available for Sections B to N and Division S95 of NACE Rev.2. With 2013 as the first reference year information is published on NACE codes K6411, K6419 and K65 and their breakdown.

The statistical characteristics are defined in Annex I of Commission Regulation (EC) No 250/2009

Structural Business Statistics (SBS) refer to enterprises operating in the Maltese geographical territory. The enterprise is the smallest combination of legal units that is an organisational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may be a sole legal unit. Up till reference year 2020, SBS data are reported according to the legal unit. Work on the transformation from legal unit to enterprise unit is underway.

 For detailed information on statistical units, please see Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93 of 15 March 1993 on the statistical units for the observation and analysis of the production system in the Community (Section III).

SBS cover selected market activities; more specifically NACE Rev. 2 Sections B to N (NACE K is partially covered) and NACE Division S95. SBS data includes branches of foreign enterprises and excludes data of Maltese enterprises with foreign activities. The target population is selected from the Statistical Business Register maintained by the NSO. Enterprises which generate a Turnover below €7,000 during the reference period are excluded from the statistical population.

SBS data covers the active resident enterprises in Malta and Gozo. The data are not broken down by regions.

2009-2020.

Not applicable.

• Number of enterprises and number of local units are expressed in units.
• Monetary data are expressed in thousands of €.
• Employment variables are expressed in units.
• Per head values are expressed in thousands of € per head.
• Ratios are expressed in percentages.

2020.

Year 1995 was the first year for the implementation of the Council Regulation No 58/97 (SBS Regulation).

The Council Regulation No 58/97 has been amended three times: by Council Regulation No 410/98, Commission Regulation No 1614/2002 and European Parliament and Council Regulation No 2056/2002. As a new amendment of the basic Regulation it was decided to recast the Regulation No 58/97 in order to obtain a new "clean" legal text. The European Parliament and Council Regulation No 295/2008 was adopted on 14/02/2008 and the provisions of this Regulation are applicable from the reference year 2008. Regulation No 295/2008 has been amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No 446/2014.

Not applicable.

At National level:

The NSO requests information for the compilation of official statistics according to the articles of the MSA Act – Cap. 422 and the Data Protection Act – Cap. 586 of the Laws of Malta implementing the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Article 40 of the MSA Act stipulates the restrictions on the use of information while Article 41 stipulates the prohibition of disclosure of information. Furthermore, Section IX of the Act (Offences and Penalties) lays down the measures to be taken in case of unlawful exercise of any officer of statistics regarding confidentiality of data.

Since its inception, the NSO has always assured that all data collected remains confidential and that it is used for statistical purposes only according to the articles and derogations stipulated in the laws quoted above. The Office is obliged to protect the identity of data providers and refrain from divulging any data to third parties that might lead to the identification of persons or entities.

During 2009, the NSO has set up a Statistical Disclosure Committee to ensure that statistical confidentiality is observed, especially when requests for microdata are received.

Upon employment, all NSO employees are informed of the rules and duties pertaining to confidential information and its treatment. In line with stipulations of the MSA Act, before commencing work, every employee is required to take an oath of secrecy which text is included in the same Act.

An internal policy on anonymisation and pseudo-anonymisation is in place to ascertain that adequate methods are used for the protection of data which the office collects and shares with the public in its capacity as the National Statistics Office. The policy is meant to safeguard confidentiality of both personal and business data entrusted to the NSO. The document provides guidance for all NSO employees who process data on a daily basis as to how anonymisation and pseudo-anonymisation methods should be applied. The policy applies to all confidential, restricted and internal information, regardless of form (paper or electronic documents, applications and databases) that is received, processed, stored and disseminated by the NSO.

At European level:

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

Primary confidentiality is flagged on either too few enterprises (where the number of units is less than 3), or if the information of a single business unit is able to derive an estimate of a particular component of another business unit within 10% of its true value (i.e. the p% rule).

Secondary confidentiality is flagged to protect primary confidential data, which are suppressed so that sensitive information is not revealed. These are identified and flagged by NSO using a common methodology applied by other statistical agencies.

The NSO publishes and disseminates news releases at 1100 hrs as scheduled in the Advance Release Calendar. The calendar is published on the NSO website and includes a three-month advance notice (the current month and the forthcoming two months). This calendar is sometimes subject to changes.

Access to the release calendar is granted through the following link: NSO Malta | Calendars - NSO Malta (gov.mt)

An internal policy on dissemination is in place to govern the dissemination of official statistics in an impartial, independent and timely manner, making them available simultaneously to all users.

The NSO’s primary channel for the dissemination of official statistics is the NSO website. Tailored requests for statistical information may also be submitted through the NSO website.

Annual.

News releases directly following the SBS results can be found on NSO Malta | Structural Business Statistics - NSO Malta (gov.mt)

The results emanating from the SBS are used by other statistical domains and are reflected in other related news releases and publications.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

The data are sent to Eurostat, either to be used in European aggregates or to be used for ad-hoc analyses and/or satellite accounts.

Work processes and procedures for the compilation of Structural Business Statistics are documented in a standardised reporting template and aligned to the GSBPM model. The model covers all phases of the statistical production process, from the initial stages of identifying what statistics are needed and the scope of the particular survey, to the final stages of dissemination and evaluation. The GSBPM report is only available internally and may be accessed by all NSO employees

Although the Recommendations Manual on SBS has not yet been published, EC Regulations No. 250 and 251/2009 provide a set of guidelines for SBS data.

Dedicated SIMS reports are available to the public on the NSO’s metadata website including concepts related to metadata and quality.

Moreover, a quality report on SBS is produced every year as a requirement from Eurostat.

The SBS quality reports for data series within Annexes I-IV and VIII for the reference period are transmitted through the ESS Metadata Handler. In addition, the Structural Business Statistics Unit annually documents specific details about the work processes and procedures for internal purposes.

The NSO has developed an internal Quality Management Framework (QMF) which is built on common requirements of the ESS Code of Practice (ESS CoP). A document was prepared to include a set of general quality guidelines spanning over all statistical domains. Assuring methodological soundness is an integral part of the QMF, nonetheless, the document spans also on other areas related to institutional aspects.

As from reference year 2008, Member States have been providing Eurostat with regular (annual) quality reports covering most of the categories of the ESS Standard for Quality Reports. Eurostat prepares a summary quality reports which is discussed in a yearly meeting with Member States.

Moreover, the final process of quality assurance involves comparing the results of the SBS at macro level with previous years’ data. Large deviations in the main variables are investigated and the reasons for such fluctuations are documented. When available the data are re-checked with an administrative source for confirmation.

The NSO ensures the accuracy of data released to the public and prepares clear methodological notes which explain the processes involved in the collection and production of official statistics.

Every five to seven years, the NSO participates in a Peer Review exercise through which the compliance of its operations with principles of the ESS CoP is assessed by an expert team. Peer Reviews are indeed part of the European Statistical System (ESS) strategy to implement the ESS CoP.  Each NSI is expected to provide information as requested by a standard self-assessment questionnaire. An expert team subsequently visits the office to meet NSI representatives and main stakeholders. Peer Reviews result in a compliance report and the listing of a set of Improvement Actions which need to be followed up by the NSI. The latest round of Peer Reviews was carried out in 2022.

SBS data are compiled according to the ESS principles related to Relevance, Accuracy, Timeliness and Punctuality, Coherence and Comparability. As such, measures are taken into consideration to assure that the data are of good quality. At enterprise level, checks are carried out to test the validity of the data provided. Enterprise data are also compared with data available for the previous year. These validation checks generally identify both data-entry errors as well as errors related to the respondent’s judgment when filling in the questionnaire. More importantly, validation checks are carried out at NACE industry level. All data received are checked against administrative sources when available.

The main users of SBS data are Eurostat, the Commission, researchers, students, international organisations focusing on SMEs and other units within the NSO.

The last User Satisfaction Survey was held in 2014 with the aim to collect information about key users’ satisfaction with statistical output.

The NSO keeps record of the number of News Releases and publications disseminated on its website; the users to whom statistical products are provided; as well as the number of requests that are processed every year.

News Releases and tailor-made statistical outputs were assessed on account of their quality, timeliness, and on their ability to meet users’ needs.

All data requested in the SBS Regulation and which is relevant to Malta are regularly provided. The completeness assessment is rated in the EU-wide Quality Report produced by Eurostat.

Malta is exempted from sending variables that are less than the one percent of the European Community total and thus makes use of the 1% rule (exemption) and the CETO flag.

Preliminary SBS data, which is transmitted to Eurostat 10 months after the end of the reference period, is not published on the NSO (Malta) website. A summary of the full SBS results are published after the full transmission to Eurostat, 18 months after the end of the reference period. The main sources of error are assumed to be linked with the non-response rate, a controlled level of sampling error, and the respondents’ understanding of the questionnaire (non-sampling errors). 

Quality indicators related to the response rate and the Coefficient of Variation (CoV) are transmitted annually to Eurostat as stipulated by the regulation. The CoV is compiled on selected variables but may have no real bearing on the accuracy of the results or the sampling error.

The sources giving rise to non-sampling error include the following:

-        Data providers providing data for a reference year different than the one required;

-        Data not converted to Euro;

-        Improper record-keeping of important variables (such as hours worked);

-        Number of employees not provided as an average for the year; and

-        NACE misclassifications.

Imputations are usually carried out based on an administrative source and, in extreme cases, data from previous years (for both unit and item non-response). In some cases, large enterprises are checked with financial statements when available or with an administrative source. Alternatively, if no information from administrative sources is available for item non-response in key variables, the sector and the size of the unit in question are considered, and an intelligent hot-deck imputation method is applied. 

SBS is provided at T+18 months. 

SBS 2020 was delivered to Eurostat on time.

The data are comparable across other EU countries due to common definitions and methodology of data.

The length of comparable time series is between SBS 2008 and SBS 2020.

In general, SBS data follows the same principles as Short-term business statistics, Statistical  business registers, and National accounts. Differences in outputs can occur mainly due to diverging objectives, timeliness and range of possible inputs.

Computed fields are consistent across all years.

The SBS for the 2020 reference year required the response of 6,163 enterprises. The SBS Unit constantly seeks ways to reduce administrative burden primarily by shortening the questionnaire for specific groups and replacing the answers of several questions using available administrative information.

At the NSO, the revisions policy may be accessed from this link.

At the SBS Unit, the revision policy set for the SBS domain is set to revise all data one year after the target date. This review at T+30 (months) concept is a voluntary action programmed as a measure of quality for boosting the accuracy of SBS results to Eurostat and concurrently enhance the coherence between the National Accounts Statistics and the Structural Business Statistics.

SBS data are scheduled for review at T+30 months and transmitted to Eurostat. After such review exercise, data are considered final. 

SBS data are collected through a statistical survey and heavily supplemented and checked with various administrative data sources and observations from other NSO departments. The sampling strategy adopted for the reference year is the Neyman Allocation of counts per strata. The strata are calculated according to employment size classes and NACE Divisions. A threshold is set which excludes any units with a turnover value of less than €10,000 (from the sampling frame). The sampling frame is based on the Statistical Business Register.

Annual data collection.

The SBS questionnaire is presented to the statistical units in an electronic format. A letter is sent to the business address of the business units to verify the email addresses and the unique links and passwords to access the e-questionnaire are sent by email a few days later. For business units which do not have access to the internet, a paper questionnaire is mailed by post. A .pdf copy of the paper questionnaire is also available on the NSO website

Non-respondents are sent reminders (by emails and letters) and followed-up by telephone calls. Data on credit institutions is compiled by the Central Bank of Malta and transmitted by the NSO.

The NSO validates the data before they are published. In general, at the vetting stage, the data are checked for the most obvious mistakes or for item non-response and compared with the financial statements. In addition, the information provided is analysed and compared to previous years for any significant fluctuations. A number of logical checks are carried out through the use of the application software which shows the validations needed to be checked or confirmed.

In case of non-response, administrative sources are used to replace the questionnaire information. In the absence of administrative data, cold-deck imputations are normally applied for some strata. The weighting structure is based on NACE Rev.2 (predominantly at two-digit level) and employment size classes. All information received is compared to the Financial Statements (where available) and to administrative sources, when available. Queries that require checking or confirmation are clarified with respondents and contact is usually made by email or by telephone.

The NSO adjusts responses of hours worked that do not make reasonable sense and are above a certain threshold. Responses that are above 2,100 hours per full time equivalent employee would imply that the employees worked more than 40 hours during every week of  the year, without consuming any vacation leave or sick leave. In principle such responses may indicate that the respective businesses do not have an accurate measurement tool for actual hours worked. These responses are updated with more reasonable values that reflect the more likely actual hours spent at the place of work. Such adjustments are based on the results and indicators of the labour force survey (LFS) for the reference year.

Not applicable.