Administrative Simplification of the Structural Business Statistics

Transcription

1 on Burden and Motivation in Official Business Surveys Statistics Netherlands, Heerlen, March 22 & 23, 2011 Administrative Simplification of the Structural Business Statistics Olivier Goddeeris and Kevin Bruynooghe Attache, Statistician, Abstract The process of administrative simplification in business statistics is aimed at the reduction of the response burden for enterprises and has a very high priority in Belgium. Several measures of administrative simplification have been taken: the necessity of every question in the questionnaire was cautiously reviewed, the sample size was substantially reduced by the introduction of a rotation scheme, and data collection was modernised by the introduction of an XBRL based websurvey. This paper gives an overall view of the simplification process and its results and elaborates on the use of the XBRL based web survey. XBRL (extensible Business Reporting Language) is an open standard based on for the electronic collection and transfer of business economic data through the internet. Use of the XBRL technology has made it possible to develop programs that automatically search all the data for the Structural Business Statistics from the accountancy data of the enterprise and organize these data in an XBRL file that can be uploaded. Keywords: response burden, administrative simplification, XBRL 1 Introduction The Directorate General Statistics and Economic Information (Statistics Belgium) carries out a mandatory yearly survey on the structural characteristics of businesses (employment, activity, production, costs and investments). A similar survey is organised in many countries of the European Union. These statistics are essential to pursue an enterprise policy at European, national and regional level. In the middle of 2007 the Federation of Enterprises in Belgium published a study in which the administrative burden caused by surveys was examined. The study showed that the structural business statistics survey is one of the five most burdensome enterprise statistics, which translates to a yearly cost of 6,412,800 (see figure 1). 167

2 Study Federation Of Enterprises in Belgium (2007) Waste survey Labour cost survey Turnover in retail ICT survey Structure of earnings Construction statistics Statistics Transport by road 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,5 1 1,4 1,6 Structural Business Statistics Balance of payments 10,9 11 Prodcom 13,2 intrastat 25,1 social balance 34, % burden Figure 1: Study Federation Of Enterprises in Belgium on administrative burden caused by statistics, 2007 In an attempt to reduce the response burden for the enterprises, the structural business statistics survey was subject to administrative simplification for the first time in Two simplification techniques were used at that time: the deletion of sections of which the value was already known in an administrative (authentic) source (e.g. CBSO, Central Social Security Database, ); a first limited e-government initiative that enabled the transfer of a number of documents by floppy disk to Statistics Belgium. This simplification resulted in a restriction in the size of the questionnaires (for some forms up to 40% of the sections were deleted) and 8% of respondents used the e-government option. In 2008, a second project for the administrative simplification of the structural business statistics has started. The aims of the simplification project were: to reduce the number of surveyed enterprises; to adjust the periodicity of survey annexes; to delete sections and make more use of authentic sources; to offer a full electronic (web) survey. 168

3 2 Various simplification techniques 2.1 Questioning fewer enterprises Until survey year 2008, the sample of the structural business statistics survey was compiled as follows: all enterprises with more than 20 employees or a turnover of more than 8 million euros were surveyed exhaustively; enterprises below this threshold were selected randomly. The second simplification brought with it the following changes: the exhaustive limit was raised: all enterprises with 50 employees or more are still surveyed exhaustively. When these enterprises at NACE 4-digit level do not cover at least 50% of the total turnover from that sector, a number of enterprises with 20 to 49 employees or a turnover of more than 8 million euros is added. Small- and medium sized enterprises (SME s) are included in a rotating sample. The enterprises are divided in 3 main groups: industry and construction, commerce, hotel and catering, and services. Each year (T), the SME s from one of the three sample groups are surveyed. For the years T+1 and T+2, the SME s from the sector that are surveyed in T are readded to the sample by a positive coordination but they do not receive survey forms. Based on their declarations from year T and data available from administrative (authentic) sources an estimate is made. In T+3 all sectors are surveyed and the non-exhaustive group receives a negative coordination, which tries to avoid SME s that were surveyed in T. This method guarantees SME s a minimal exemption of two years and spreads the burden optimally over all SME s. During the preparations, it became clear that because of the reduced number of surveyed enterprises, it would be of utmost importance that the remaining enterprises send Statistics Belgium the required information. To guarantee this, the politicians and business sector agreed to an administrative fine system in exchange for administrative simplification. Enterprises that do not respond after several reminders can be fined up to 10,000 euro and are included again in the survey sample for the next year. 2.2 Avoiding double questioning The aim of avoiding double questioning is to avoid asking the same information to an enterprise twice. Public authorities need to make maximum use of the data they already possess. This can be done by using authentic sources. These are monitored databases, acknowledged and managed by the government and in which an entire range of information is available on both enterprises as well as citizens (e.g. annual accounts from Central Balance Sheet Office, Central Social Security Database, National Register of Persons, Central Company Database,...). 169

4 2002 saw the deletion of a number of sections from the survey. It appeared however that by deleting numerous sections, the logical form structure similar to the pre-2002 simplification forms had disappeared and the link with the accounting structure (annual accounts) had faded. The result was that the surveyed enterprises lost a great deal of time by working out what value needed to be reported and many inconsistencies arose when Statistics Belgium matched data from the declarations with data from administrative sources. In 2008, it was decided to reintroduce these sections but to pre-fill them with the data from the annual accounts, and to control whether the total from the subheadings matches the prefilled total from the annual accounts. In addition, analyses showed that there were still a number of personnel sections that could be deleted if the possibilities from the Central Social Security Database were used. 2.3 Reducing survey frequency Until survey year 2008 enterprises filled in up to 5 annexes to the SBS survey form each year. This increased the survey burden on enterprises considerably. These annexes to the structural business statistics survey are used by the federal planning agency to make up the national accounts and the input output tables. In order to lower the response burden for the enterprises, the frequency of the survey annexes was reduced in 2008 from yearly to five-yearly. An estimation model will be used to estimate figures for the non surveyed years. 2.4 E-government The aforementioned simplification techniques mainly focus on avoiding questioning enterprises and / or limiting the survey by what Europe deems strictly necessary or by not asking for the same information twice. The question remains, however, what should be done if questioning an enterprise is unavoidable and the necessary information is not yet known to public administration? The answer is e-government. E-government mainly stresses the simplification of the B2G information transfer by limiting the actions or research for enterprises to comply with the statistical requirements. 3 E-government through XBRL As mentioned above, the possibility to fill in a limited number of forms electronically and send them to Statistics Belgium on a disk was introduced in This was not a major success (it was used by 8% of respondents) because the procedure was time-consuming and 170

5 there was no possibility to send all forms electronically. The result was that an enterprise could send the SBS form electronically but still needed to send the annexes on paper by post. In 2008, Statistics Belgium decided to develop a web survey based on XBRL. 3.1 What is XBRL? XBRL is an electronic language that has been specially developed for the exchange of business economic information through the internet. Throughout the years many ways of exchanging information have surfaced, aimed at single or specific needs, which led to many different formats. Because of a lack of harmonisation the spaghetti model (below left) is the unfortunate result; the information exchange is slow, difficult and expensive. Figure 2: Spaghetti model vs integration through XBRL XBRL (extensible Business Reporting Language) is an open standard based on XML (Extensible Markup Language) for the electronic collection and transfer of business economic data through the internet. The idea of the XBRL language is to identify each concept (e.g. turnover ) and add it to a taxonomy, which is similar to a dictionary. These concepts, brought together in a structured way, can be recognised, processed and represented in different ways, depending on the intended use (e.g. annual accounts or SBS ). 3.2 Brief overview of the different taxonomy elements As mentioned above, a taxonomy can be compared to a dictionary, in which elements are defined once and re-used afterwards by other users. The essence of the XBRL format is the unique/single identification of each data element in the taxonomy. Technically speaking a taxonomy consists of a schema (.xsd file) in which Every element receives a unique 171

6 name and its basis characteristics are defined, and a number of linkbases (.xml files), that contain links between and with the schema elements. Linkbases are xml files that contain more information about the elements of a schema. Five linkbases are distinguished: Label linkbase: the Label linkbase contains the name in four languages (English, Dutch, French, German) for each element that appears in the Schema. A definition can also be added for each element. Presentation Linkbase: The Presentation linkbase sets the hierarchy and the order of elements. It establishes the tree structure of a document. Reference linkbase: This linkbase is used to link elements from the "XSD schema" to a reference. This can be a legal provision (for example a European Regulation or a Royal Decree), a reference from the accounts or any other reference. Calculation linkbase: The Calculation linkbase describes how elements need to be added up or subtracted. Definition linkbase: the Definition linkbase" contains predefined or self-defined links between elements. This linkbase is currently not used by the DGSEI. 3.3 Standardisation through XBRL XBRL allows standardisation because it is an open standard and taxonomies can be incorporated. For instance, in Belgium XBRL is already being used by the national bank (annual accounts, the NSI (structural business statistics) and will be used very soon by the taxes administration (enterprise taxes) and the national planning agency (national accounts). The taxonomy for the structural business statistics incorporates elements from the taxonomy of the annual accounts and the taxonomy for the structural business statistics is, in turn, incorporated into the taxonomy for the national accounts. In the Belgian NSI, an application has been developed that automatically generates a websurvey from the XBRL taxonomy. With the introduction of XBRL, enterprises now have three possibilities to fill in the structural business statistics questionnaire: they still have the possibility to fill in the paper form, they can fill in the websurvey online, or they can upload an XBRL file that has been created by the enterprise s information system. A lot of information required by statistical surveys is electronically available in the information system of the enterprise (for instance accountancy data, data on personnel ) That information can be put in an XBRL file (instance) and that file can then be uploaded. For the structural business statistics in Belgium for instance, two major accountancy software developers have developed a module that extracts all information for the structural business statistics survey from the firms accountancy and puts this information in an XBRL file. All the enterprise has to do then is upload this file. 172

7 XBRL will also be used to further standardise the data transmission between the NSI and the Belgian enterprises: the XBRL application can and will be gradually expanded to other surveys within the NSI, starting with the structure of earnings survey and tourism survey. 4 Project results The simplification project contains 7 result areas: Sample size By introducing a rotation mechanism and raising the exhaustive limit an average sample reduction of 32% was achieved. Electronic data transfer Until 2007 only 8% of the enterprises used the possibility of sending the survey forms in electronic format. The majority sent the paper version of the survey form to Statistics Belgium. In the first year of the simplification, 90% of respondents immediately switched to the web survey and slightly less than 10% still used the paper version. The following figure gives an overview of the percentage by answer modus. Response Rate web papier upload Modus Figure 3: Response rate by modus SBS

8 We have further investigated which enterprises use which declaration method. As the results in table 2 indicate, the paper form is being used by the smaller enterprises and the upload procedure by the larger enterprises (compared to the websurvey). Table 1: enterprise characteristics by declaration method Median Turnover Median no employees Mean session length Paper % / Websurvey % 17 mins proce- Upload dure % filled in by external accountant % 8 mins Another important factor in determining the method of declaration is whether or not the questionnaire is filled in by an external accountant. Very often, the structural business statistics survey is not filled in by the enterprise itself, but by the accounting agency hired by the enterprise. External accountants that fill in the structural business statistics survey very often make use of the upload procedure. This result comes not unexpected, as the investment in the XBRL upload system is very profitable (the investment can be reused for many clients). The upload procedure is particularly interesting for enterprises that regularly have to fill in the same questionnaire. We also calculated the mean session length (the total time the enterprise is online to fill in the questionnaire) by method of declaration. This mean session length can serve as an indicator of response burden, with the precautions that session length does not cover the time enterprises spend to look up the data, and that due to technical problems, the session length was not always reliably calculated. As can be seen in table 2, the session length for enterprises that use the XBRL upload procedure is less than half of the session length for enterprises that use the websurvey. Deletion-pre-fill The 2002 reforms saw a deletion for some forms of up to 40% of the sections. A large part of the deleted sections was re-introduced and pre-filled in the SBS form in Additionally, since 2008 it is also possible to upload a XBRL file directly from the accounting software. Enterprises that have their accounting software expanded still need to manually complete only a marginal number of sections (the structural business statistics survey is automatically completed when the annual accounts are drawn up). 174

9 Data treatment process Partly because until 2007 a large proportion of enterprises still used the paper form for the survey, processing of the data took a considerable amount of time. The time span between sending out the survey and delivering the results to Eurostat reached on average 11 months. Due to e-government a considerable amount of time could be saved on the input and correction of individual declarations. Additionally enterprises tend to answer more quickly (see figure 4 below). Figure 4: Response over time Cost for enterprises The combination of different simplification techniques resulted in a considerable reduction of the administrative burden on enterprises. After simplification, the burden that was initially estimated at 6,412,800 in 2007 was reduced to 4,282,800 or in other words a burden reduction by 2,130,000. Staff The simplification process not only reduced the burden on enterprises but also the costs for Statistics Belgium. While previously an entire team was needed to ensure the input and correction of paper questionnaires, the amount of work has been reduced drastically by the success of the electronic declaration. Consequently, more than half of the staff is now assigned other tasks. 175

10 Table 2: summary of the results Summary Before simplification After simplification Sample size deletion-prefill (upload) 40% 40% (95%) Electronic datatransfer 8% 90% Paper questionnaires 92% 10% Data treatment process (in months) 11 7 Cost for enterprises Staff (in FTE) 31,3 13,6 5 Future Until recently, data collection and data processing in the Belgian NSI have been organized per survey. This vertical organisation of the different production lines has resulted over the years in the implementation of a great variety of data collection tools and software: Blaise, xls files, txt files, xml files, coolgen, cobolt, Java, XBRL This mix makes the entire data collection process inefficient and rigid. Statistics Belgium will therefore give new impulse to the entire process in the coming years. The following actions will be taken: In the future web surveys will be based on only 3 tools: Blaise, XBRL and Java. All existing surveys that do not use one of these three formats will be converted. In accordance with the rationalisation of the web survey tools, the number of internal processing systems will also be reduced as much as possible. A single declaration platform will be created for all web surveys which will use e- ID as an identification tool. The integration of surveys in existing software systems will be further investigated and implemented. The B2G information flow should be web-based as much as possible. Paper forms should gradually disappear. The use of XBRL for the collection of statistical data must be expanded further. (Structure of earnings, tourism, road transport, ) Standardisation of the export of processed data to the data warehouse of Statistics Belgium. 176