Central Statistics Office (CSO)

(i)  Business Statistsics Data Collection Uniit and Services Outputs

(ii) Business Statistics Results, Analysis and Publication

Central Statistics Office, Skehard Road, Cork T12 X00E, Republic of Ireland.

The monthly services value index (MSI) monitors trends in output at current prices of enterprises in the non-financial traded services sector. The turnover indices are deflated by a complex mixture of deflators from various sources eg. Consumer Price Index, Wholesale Price Index, and SPPI to produce Services Production Index that measures gross value added changes at constant prices, i.e. a volume index.

The primary purpose of the MSI is to provide a short-term indication of change in the value of the services sector in Ireland.

Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community, Rev. 2 (2008) (i.e. NACE Rev. 2). 

The Sectors covered are listed below

Transport and Storage (NACE 49-53)
Accommodation and Food Activities (NACE 55, 56)
Information and Communication (NACE 58-63)
Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities (NACE 69-75)
Administrative and Support Service Activities (NACE 77-82)
Other Business Services

• NACE 68 Real estate activities
• NACE 92 Gambling and betting activities
• NACE 93 Sports activities and amusements and recreation activities
• NACE 95 Repair of computers and personal and household goods
• NACE 96 Other personal service activities

Variables:

Net Turnover (Value) and Production (Volume)

Variable 140301 - Net Turnover (value):

For all activities except for NACE 64, 65 and some activities of NACE 66 net turnover consists of all income arising during the reference period in the course of ordinary activities of the statistical unit, and is presented net of all price reductions, discounts and rebates granted by it.

Income is defined as increases in economic benefits during the reference period in the form of inflows or enhancements of assets or decreases of liabilities that result in increases in equity, other than those relating to contributions from equity participants.

The inflows referred to are arising from contracts with customers and are realized through the satisfaction by the statistical unit of performance obligations as foreseen in said contracts. Usually, a performance obligation is represented by the sale (transfer) of goods or the rendering of services, however, the gross inflows can also contain revenues obtained as a yield on the use by others of the statistical unit’s assets.

Excluded from net turnover are:

—     all taxes, duties or levies linked directly to revenue;

—    any amounts collected on behalf of any principal, if the statistical unit is acting as an agent in its relationship with said principal;

— all income not arising in the course of ordinary activities of the statistical unit. Usually, these types of income are classified as ‘Other (operating) income’, ‘Financial income’, ‘Extra-ordinary income’ or under a similar heading, depending on the respective set of generally accepted accounting standards used to prepare the financial statements.

Infra-annual statistics may not be able to take into account aspects such as annual price reductions, subsidies, rebates and discounts.

For the activities of NACE K6411, K6419 and K649 net turnover is defined as the value of output minus subsidies or government grants.

For the activities of NACE K642 and K643 net turnover can be approximated by the total operating costs, if net turnover is not available in the financial statements.

For the activities of NACE K6511, K6512 and K652 net turnover is defined as Gross premiums earned.

For the activities of NACE K653 the net turnover is defined as total pension contributions

For activities of NACE K66 for which net turnover is not available in the financial statements, net turnover is defined as the value of output minus subsidies or government grants. For activities of NACE K66 for which net turnover is available in the financial statements, the standard definition of net turnover applies.

Variable 140101 - Production (volume):

Production in short term business statistics is required as an index. The production volume index is the reference indicator for economic development and it is used in particular to identify turning points in economic development at an early stage. It should be presented in the form of a Laspeyres type index, comparing the current volume of production to the corresponding volume of production in the base period.

Theoretical target of the production volume index:

—     In the view of business cycle statistics, own output should be measured. The terms ‘production’ or ‘output’ in the sense of business cycle statistics do not include inputs from other units.

—     The objective of the production volume index is therefore to measure changes in the volume of value added at close and regular intervals.

—     The changes in volume of value added measured should in general approximate the value added measured by the National Accounts concepts of value added.

—     Principles for the calculation of the production volume index:

—     Data necessary for compilation of index as defined by theoretical target are usually not available on a monthly basis.

—     Therefore, value added at basic prices is calculated only for the base period especially for updating the weights. If value added at basic prices is not available, gross value added at factor cost may be used as a proxy.

—     The monthly continuation of value added in base period is done by suitable proxy values.

Planned changes: None.

Reporting unit: The reporting unit is the enterprise.

Observation unit: The observation unit is the enterprise.

An investigation into the presence of KAUs in the Services sector found none that were statistically significant.  This exercies will be repeated each year.  Therefore KAU = Enterprise.

The statistical population is made up of all enterprises in the non-financial traded services sector covered in the 2015 Annual Services Inquiry (ASI).  NACE 45-63, 69-82, 92-96 excluding Aircraft leasing N7735.  From the 2015 Annual Services Inquiry these sectors were made up of approximately 158000 enterprises.  The list of sectors are listed below. 

H Transport and Storage (NACE 49-53)
I  Accommodation and Food Activities (NACE 55, 56)
J Information and Communication (NACE 58-63)
M Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities (NACE 69-75)
N Administrative and Support Service Activities (NACE 77-82)
and Other Business Services made up of: 

• NACE 68 Real estate activities
• NACE 92 Gambling and betting activities
• NACE 93 Sports activities and amusements and recreation activities
• NACE 95 Repair of computers and personal and household goods
• NACE 96 Other personal service activities

The geographical area covered is the Republic of Ireland.

The first monthly MSI index figures were published in June 2012 which related to the period from 2009 until April 2012.  The MSI has been published continuously since then.

Base year 2015=100. 

Collection : Euro.

Dissemination: Indices and percentage changes.

Calendar Month

The Cental Statistics Office's mandate is built on the Statistics Act 1993 and on EU Regulation 223/2009 and allows for:

• The collection, compilation, extraction and dissemination for statistical purposes of information relating to economic, social and general activities and conditions in the State;
• The co-ordination of official statistics compiled by public authorities.

The Monthly Services Inquiry's mandate is given from the following: 

• National: The MSI is a statutory inquiry, collected under the STATISTICS (MONTHLY SERVICES INQUIRY) ORDER 2018 No. 431/2018.
  • http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2018/si/431/made/en/pdf
• European: Council Regulation (EC) No. 1165/98 and Commission Regulation No. 472/2008 concerning short-term statistics.

Section 34 of the 1993 Statistics Act states:

“The Office may provide, for statistical purposes only, information obtained in any way under this Act or the repealed enactments, in such form that it cannot be directly or indirectly related to an identifiable person or undertaking, to such persons and subject to such charges, conditions and restrictions as the Director General may determine.”

The provision on statistical confidentiality is regulated by Sections 32 and 33 of the 1993 Statistics Act. It states:

Section 32 states:

“All information furnished by a person, undertaking or public authority under this Act shall be used only for statistical compilation and analysis purposes.”

 Section 33 states:

“(1) No information obtained in any way under this Act or the repealed enactments which can be related to an identifiable person or undertaking shall, except with the written consent of that person or undertaking or the personal representative or next-of-kin of a deceased person, be disseminated, shown or communicated to any person or body except as follows:

 (a)   for the purposes of a prosecution for an offence under this Act;

(b)   to officers of statistics in the course of their duties under this Act;

(c)   for the purposes of recording such information solely for the use of the Office in such form and manner as is provided for by a contract in writing made by the Director General which protects its confidentiality to his satisfaction.      

   (2) The Office may, for statistical purposes only, assign codes derived from information collected under this Act classifying undertakings listed in the administrative systems of other public authorities by economic activity and size (persons engaged) categories.

   (3) The Taoiseach may by order prescribe such further prohibitions on the disclosure of identifiable records or information obtained under this Act or the repealed enactments for such periods as may be prescribed.

   (4) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to require any person or undertaking to provide information in relation to a matter on which information was sought in circumstances that would entitle the person or undertaking to decline to give the information in a civil proceeding in any court or on grounds of privilege.”

The services turnover data provided by the respondent enterprises are treated as strictly confidential in accordance with Part V of the Statistics Act, 1993 and cannot be accessed under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, 1997. Data are not disclosed by the CSO to any other Government Department or outside body.

An annual calendar showing release dates is publically available and updated on the CSO website. In addition, a weekly release calendar which contains a schedule of precise release dates for those statistics that are to be published by the CSO during the following week is issued each Thursday by e-mail to the media and all other interested parties.

The annual release calendar can be accessed on the CSO website.

http://www.cso.ie/en/csolatestnews/releasecalendar/

The CSO disseminates the MSI publication on the CSO website at 11am (local time) on the day of publication (see point 8.1).

MSI data is transmitted to Eurostat after 11am on the day of publication or under embargo, if the national MSI publication is scheduled to be published after the deadline for transmission of data to Eurostat.

Monthly.

None.

Data on Monthly Services are released in the following locations on the CSO website:

 HOME / STATISTICS / SERVICES / MONTHLY SERVICES INDEX

https://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/social/monthlyservicesindex/

The data that is published in the MSI monthly publication are also made available on PXStat (CSO Main Data Dissemination Service) with each aggregated index also published as an unadjusted value index on PX Stat only.

https://data.cso.ie/table/MSI02

Microdata are not publicly available.

Data are sent to Eurostat to be used in European aggregates and/or to be released as national data. There are no planned future changes in national dissemination.

These are available at the following internet site, under Surveys & Methodologies’:

https://www.cso.ie/en/methods/services/monthlyservicesinquiry/

This is available at the following internet site:

https://www.cso.ie/en/methods/services/monthlyservicesinquiry/

Response rates are compiled and analysed each month.  Quality checks and validation of data are done throughout the whole compilation process. 

Accuracy and Reliability

 1.1 Sampling Effect & Representivity

The population of service enterprises in Ireland is approximately 158,000. The MSI sample comprises about 2,700 enterprises. This gives an average sampling fraction of 1.7%, however this fraction can differ significantly from sector to sector and within size class.

If coverage is viewed from a turnover perspective, the coverage is considerably higher, with an average sampling fraction of approximately 80%.

1.2 Non-Sampling Effects

Bias may be introduced as a result of the matched sample approach. It is difficult to completely represent the population due to the ongoing births and deaths of enterprises within the sector. This may result in the consistent under-estimation of growth during sustained periods of growth.

 1.3 Register Coverage

The registry is updated annually with relevant enterprises in the relevant services sector. Commencements of businesses, changes of business activity and cessations of businesses are updated at this time. Ad-hoc changes are also made to the register when relevant information becomes available from individual enterprises or from other sources. The registry is a subset of the Central Business Register (CBR). The CBR is updated on an on-going basis using administrative and survey data.

1.4 Non-response (Unit and Item)

High quality of data is ensured due to a high response rate (60%). The response rates for the provisional survey are typically in the order of 50% covering about 85% of the value of the turnover surveyed. The corresponding figures for the final month are approx. 60% covering about 90% of the value of the turnover.

The services index adopts a matched sample approach and therefore there is generally no need to conduct imputation. Occasionally, however, some ad-hoc imputation is carried out for some significant firms. In these cases each firm is looked at individually and an extension of nearest neighbour and last observation carried forward techniques to impute the missing values. Non response bias is not measured in the survey.

1.5  Measurement Errors

Measurement Error is not regarded as a major concern for this survey. The following should be noted:

1. Questionnaire – the questionnaire is clear with the period requested clearly defined. The design of the questionnaire is monitored and changes made if necessary. Occasionally enterprises may provide turnover inconsistent with the period covered. These errors are usually highlighted at the data-cleaning stages.
2. Data collection method – the collection method is by eform and by post. These methods are unlikely to be a source of measurement error.
3. Respondent – survey data can contain sensitive and confidential information due to the fact that it is a short-term survey and may be requested prior to annual accounts being completed. The survey publishes aggregated indices at Sector Level

 1.6 Processing Errors

1. Data capture errors are unlikely as it is mainly an electronic survey

2. No manual coding is done.

3. Data editing- edits are run which test the returns against a range of values, e.g.;

• Turnover is unusually high.
• Large increase/decrease in turnover compared to the corresponding month last year.

4. Contact is made with company to confirm returned figures if required. Data are manually changed if required.

 1.7 Coherence

Consistency checks are done on an ad-hoc basis with the Annual Service Inquiry.

Differences are verified and this leads to improved data quality.

In certain instances comparison with other data sources such as Revenue Commissioners data and Industry data are conducted. These are investigated where necessary leading to better quality data. In general the same trends are evident in the various data sources.  Data coherence checks are done with other areas of the office eg Vehicle licensing compared with Motor Trade data.

The Enterprises with the largest turnover and therefore influence on the Index are dealt with by our LCU Large Cases Unit in Dublin and these are specialists.

Not available.

The primary purpose of the MSI is to provide a short-term indication of changes in the value and of the services sector in Ireland. In doing so the MSI provides a leading monthly indicator on economic activity.  It is also used in the compilation of GDP for national accounts.

 It is mainly of relevance to the following user groups:

1. Eurostat,

2. Government,

3. Economists,

4. Other CSO divisions eg National Accounts,

5. The general public,

6. Professional Bodies,

7. University students and other interest groups for research purposes,

8. Media.

National Accounts were consulted in 2023 and they are pleased with our current methods.

The index is fully compliant with requirements of the Council Regulation (EC) No 1165/98 concerning short-term statistics and the subsequent amendments.

Response rates and coverage are compiled and analysed each month. Quality checks and validation of data are done throughout the whole compilation process.

For interpretation of results, users have to be aware that every index draws a picture of reality in a simplified way.

There is no statistical model which is able to represent the complexity of reality in total.

ICT is a large weight of the overall index and is dominated by some large enterprises which are surveyed each month this helps ensure our overall accuracy is reliable. 

Numerical estimates of MSIs sampling errors are not produced by the CSO. The CSO tries to reduce sampling errors by using a sample of enterprises that is as large as possible while taking burden on enterprises and time and resource constraints into account.

Non-sampling errors are not quantified. The CSO tries to reduce non-sampling errors through continuous methodological improvements and survey processing improvements. Bias may be introduced as a result of the matched sample approach. It is difficult to completely represent the population due to ongoing births and deaths of enterprises within the services sectors. This may result in the consistent under-estimation of growth during sustained periods of growth.

Provisional Results: The preliminary data are published by the CSO within T + 35 days after the end of the reference month.

Final Results: The final data are published by the CSO within T + 65 days after the end of the reference month (i.e. the final results are published at the same time as the provisional results for the subsequent month).

The results are transmitted to Eurostat within T + 35 days after the end of the reference.

MSI has always been published nationally on the pre-announced release dates and the CSO has always endeavoured to transmit to Eurostat within the same day.  

The data sent to Eurostat on a monthly basis is as per Eurostat's recommended methodology and per regulation and is comparable with other MS data.

The national publication of the monthly services index is based on a different weighting scheme. 

To compile the MSI for national publication, each of the published NACE sectors is separated into three distinct cells based on the constituent enterprises’ reported gross value added (GVA) for 2015. Using data taken from the 2015 ASI, GVA baseweights are then calculated for each of these cells and the baseweights are updated each month using a matched sample approach.  

An enterprise’s monthly GVA value is calculated as follows: respondents report their monthly turnover figures which are transformed into estimated GVA figures by applying a firm specific factor based on an individual respondent’s 2015 ASI return.  The factor is calculated for each firm by simply dividing their estimated GVA by reported turnover.  If an enterprise was not on the ASI sample then the relevant cell mean GVA/turnover ratio, calculated from the 2015 ASI, is applied. The reason for this methodology is to reduce the disproportionate impact that some enterprises (which report large turnover figures but have a relatively small GVA) can have on the overall series.

The MSI has been complied in the same way since January 2009.

In certain instances comparisons with other data sources such as Revenue Commissioners data and Industry data are conducted. These are investigated where necessary leading to better quality data. In general the same trends are evident in the various data sources.  

The Large Cases Unit in the CSO send the data for certain enterprises which are very dominant this improves the coherency with other CSO statistics.

Data is tested for coherence at individual enterprise level each month comparing data with the corresponding data from the same month of the previous year and any inconsistencies are followed up with the enterprise.

Consistency checks are done on an ad-hoc basis with the Annual Service Inquiry. Differences are verified, leading to improved data quality.  Coherence checks are done with Vehicle Licensing and other private surveys.

The current reference month's data is always provisional, only becoming finalised the following month.  The seasonally adjusted turnover indices are revised each month as another month’s data is included.  Any national revisions are transmitted to Eurostat at the earliest opportunity.  This usually is on the day of publication or the next transmission date.

Each month the provisional data from the previous month is revised on the receipt of late returns or amendments of existing returns.  The size of the revision varies from month to month but would typically be in the order of +/- 2% of All Services.

No MR or MAR provided.

Type of source:                                                      Statistical Survey

Frame on which the source is based:                    Central Business Register

Sample or census:                                                 Stratified Sample

Criteria for stratification:                                      Nace, Size Class

Threshold values and percentages:                       €20 million turnover and or 100 employees

Frequency of updating the sample:                       Annual

Monthly

Questionnaires used in the survey

Monthly Services Inquiry https://www.cso.ie/en/methods/surveyforms/monthlyservicesindex/

Data collection medium:

Electronic Questionaire - eQ

Planned changes in data collection methodology:

None

The edit checks performed are checks on consistency of data between months.

The following edit check is carried out:

1. Large increase/decrease in turnover compared to the corresponding month last year.

Each member of staff is responsible for a block of enterprises based on Business Groups. Key enterprises have been identified on each block based on turnover and are prioritised regarding edits. Each edit is checked for possible scanning or verification errors and any comment that may explain an inconsistent figure on the return. Returns for the previous months are also checked for indications of a trend. The enterprise is contacted to resolve any discrepancy where necessary. The return is then manually edited on the basis of the explanation from the enterprise. Once all errors are amended a copy is made of the clean dataset.

Reports are run throughout the survey period outlining the number of edits outstanding and also response rates are tracked.

Seasonal adjustment is conducted using the direct seasonal adjustment approach.  Under this approach each individual series is independently adjusted, e.g. aggregate series are adjusted without reference to the component series. Each individual seasonally adjusted series is calculated based on unadjusted data spanning from January 2010 to the current period.

Each individual Monthly Services series or sub-index is seasonally adjusted separately using the model that best fits the characteristics of that series.  Individual series models will be reviewed once every 12 months and series models and parameters are adjusted if required. 

The revised series are published on the CSO web – www.cso.ie .  Distinct seasonal factors are calculated for each Business Group and each Combined Group.  This reflects the different seasonal patterns exhibited by different Business Groups and Combined Groups. For example, sales in G45 Motor Trades are low in December, contrasting with G47 Retail Sales, which usually increase in the lead up to Christmas.  

The adjustments are completed by applying the X-13-ARIMA model, developed by the U.S. Census Bureau to the unadjusted data. This methodology allows seasonal factors to be estimated whilst also taking into consideration factors that impact on the quality of the seasonal adjustment such as:

• Calendar effects, e.g. the timing of Easter,
• Outliers, temporary changes and level shifts in the series.

 Please look at https://www.census.gov/data/software/x13as.Win_X-13.html for additional information on the X-13-ARIMA software.

Identifying and Treating Outliers, Temporary Changes and Level Shifts

Outliers, temporary changes and level shifts are abrupt changes in the underlying series that can affect the quality of the seasonal adjustment if not treated correctly. The X-13-Arima seasonal adjustment program identifies any outliers, temporary changes or level changes and removes them from the original series before the seasonal adjustment factors are calculated.  Once the seasonal adjustment factors are calculated these outliers, temporary changes and level shifts are then re-introduced so they are present in the final seasonally adjusted series.

None.