§ Mr. NichollsTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the amount of time businesses are required to take providing data for the Office for National Statistics; and if he will examine ways of reducing it. [155750]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Patrick Nicholls, dated 2 April 2001:
52WAs National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent question on the amount of time businesses are required to take providing data for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and if this can be reduced (155750).The ONS is extremely conscious of its responsibility to reduce the costs to business of complying with its surveys. Minimising the burden on suppliers of data is one of the ONS's key aims. The ONS produces an Annual Compliance Plan which charts the compliance costs by inquiry. This contains details of compliance-reducing initiatives that are either being undertaken, or are in the pipeline, the compliance target for the current year and the profile of compliance costs over a four year timescale. A copy of the Compliance Plan for 1999–2000 is available in the House of Commons Library.Regular reviews of surveys are carried out to examine wither there is a continuing need for them. Long term plans for bringing down compliance costs include greater use of administrative data, collecting data over the internet, developing commercial accounting software to include a statistics module and sharing the burden more equally among medium size firms.Only IT projects with estimated costs of over £250,000, on the basis described above, are included in the table.
§ Mr. NichollsTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the rate of compliance is with the annual business inquiry financial questionnaire circulated by the Office for National Statistics; and what penalties exist for non-compliance. [155749]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Patrick Nicholls, dated 29 March 2001:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent question on the rate of compliance with the Annual Business Inquiry Financial Questionnaire and what penalties exist for non-compliance (155749).In 1999, 86 per cent of the businesses included in the Annual Business Inquiry completed the Financial Questionnaire. The Annual Business Inquiry is conducted on a statutory basis using powers provided by the Statistics of Trade Act 1947. Businesses that do not respond are liable to prosecution under section 4(1) of the Act. The maximum penalty is a fine of £2,500. However, enforcement action is only used as a last resort when all other efforts, such as postal and telephone reminder action, have failed to secure the return.The Office for National Statistics uses statutory powers because voluntary surveys would have very low response rates. This would lead to unrepresentative samples and biased results, larger sample sizes with many more businesses receiving questionnaires, and to those businesses which chose to reply being unfairly burdened.