The 12th meeting of the International Roundtable on Business Survey Frames
Helsinki 28.9. - 2.10.1998
Session No.
1
Paper No.
11
Country: New Zealand
Progress Report
Ian Ewing
Statistics New Zealand
Integration:
Integration of the Balance of Payments (BOP) Directory and Surveys with the
Business Frame:
1.
When the Business Frame (BF) was developed in December 1996, a separate frame
called the Balance of Payments Directory existed for Balance of Payments Surveys.
Statistics New Zealand's Balance of Payments surveys were one of the major set of
business surveys that were not fully integrated with the Business Frame. Price Index
surveys and Building Activity collections are the only remaining sets of surveys not
integrated wit the frame.
2.
The Balance of payments directory along with the Balance of Payments Surveys were
on different servers and used different software. At the end of 1997, a project was
established to merge the Balance of Payments directory with the Business Frame, and to
implement a frame maintenance strategy based on revised questionnaire design, and
extended use of tax data. This project was combined with an IT project that was
underway to integrate Balance of Payments surveys into the general Business Surveys
management system.
3.
Prior to 1998, the BF questionnaires asked only a few general overseas transaction
questions. These questions determined whether a business was involved in overseas
transactions. If the business on the BF indicated for the first time it was involved in
overseas transactions, it was added to the Balance of Payments Directory. A second
questionnaire was then sent out to determine what type overseas transactions the
business was involved in. The detailed overseas transaction information from the
second questionnaire was then captured on the Balance of Payments Directory.
4.
The Balance of Payments Directory and Balance of Payments Survey Management
System (SMS) had no mechanism for detecting when a business began to engage in
new types of Balance of Payments transactions. Although the BF surveyed business
that were likely to be involved in overseas transactions annually, the overseas
transaction questions were not detailed enough to detect new types of Balance of
Payments transactions for businesses that were already involved in overseas
transactions.
5.
To enable the BF to act as a frame for Balance of Payments surveys, additional overseas
transaction variables were added to the Business Frame, and to all the BF
questionnaires.
6.
These questionnaires now contain specific questions on overseas transactions. As it is
no longer necessary to send a second questionnaire, this has reduced both respondent
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load and post out costs. Additional overseas transaction information is also captured on
the BF system. By capturing much more detailed Balance of Payments transactions
annually, the Balance of Payments Survey Management System is now able to use the
BF to detect when a business has begun new types of Balance of Payments transactions.
7.
In addition, Statistics New Zealand has been using annual tax returns to identify
businesses that have overseas transactions so that they can be added to the Business
Frame and the Balance of Payments Surveys.
8.
As the final stage of development the Balance of Payments Survey Management
System has been redeveloped, so that it is part of the new Business Surveys System.
The Business Surveys System is on the same server as the BF and uses the same
operating language as the BF. All surveys that use the Business Surveys System use the
Business Frame as their survey frame.
The integration of BF data into the new Survey Processing Template (SProceT)
9.
A new economic survey processing system has been developed in Lotus Notes
software to run in a client server environment. It was developed as part of our overall
upgrade of Information Technology designed to move all SNZ functions to a clientserver environment. The Quarterly Economic Survey of Manufacturing was the first
survey to use SProceT. Previously, mainframe COBOL systems, SAS, Word and
Excel were used to process, run and analyse data. Now all the data capture, editing,
imputation and treatment of outliers can be done on the one system. One of the main
features of this processing system is the link to the BF system. This integration of the
two systems has allowed direct comparison between survey system values and BF
values. The flexibility of the BF system and its integration with SProceT, has
eliminated the need for costly and detailed 'hard copy' reconciliations of survey
respondents and the frame and has streamlined the sample maintenance procedures.
10.
The main advantages of SProceT are that it is integrated, fast and very easy to use. On
the old mainframe, running estimates would take around two or three hours. Lotus
Notes can process the same information in minutes. The application design team are
currently working on the second survey to utilise SProceT - the November 1998
Quarterly Employment Survey. There is a two year plan for migrating most business
surveys to the SproceT environment.
Frame Coverage Issues:
Ceased Business Investigation
11.
Following a comparison of business details reported by householders in our Household
Labour Force Survey with businesses on the Business Frame (BF), it was found that the
BF contained a number of business that were “ceased“ on the BF but were still
operating (either as employers or non-employing sole traders).
12.
Most of these businesses were correctly ceased at the time, as they had either sold an
existing business activity or had ceased their business activity. However, the existing
frame maintenance procedures, which are based on surveying new tax (GST)
registrations and annually surveying live business on the BF, are unable to detect
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business restarts. For example, a motel owner may sell their motel and keep their GST
registration active, as they intend to start a new business activity within 6 months.
Because the GST registration is kept active and re-registration is unnecessary, if they
start a new business activity, such as building a new motel, the new business activity
may not be detected.
13.
To find those businesses that were ceased on the BF but were still operating, all
businesses that were ceased on the BF were checked to see if they were still registered
for GST (a VAT tax) and were still paying the GST tax.
14.
After allowing for timing differences, and business winding down, etc. it was found that
the head-count under coverage of business on the BF was 4.6%. An investigation into
the ‘character’ of these under-covered businesses has been completed, and a number of
strategies to improve coverage in this area have been implemented.
Respondent Load:
Key Word Strategy
15.
The Key Word strategy represents an effective use of the tax database enabling
Statistics New Zealand to reduce both post out costs and Respondent Load. The strategy
has reduced the post out size of the Business Frame's 'Birth' questionnaire by 25-30%
monthly. The strategy works by matching a predetermined industry descriptor with the
industry descriptor recorded on the tax database. If there is a perfect match, the new tax
registration can be assigned an industry code, and the business is not sent a
questionnaire. The Key Word strategy does not apply to those businesses that are
employing or importing and exporting. It also excludes businesses in the agricultural,
accommodation, manufacturing, retail and wholesale industries. It is anticipated that
further Key Word initiatives will create even more respondent and cost savings for
SNZ in the future.
Other Business Frame Developments:
Taxation Data:
16.
When the Business Frame was developed, the Taxation Office Registration Records
and the Goods And Service Tax (GST) information was able to be viewed from the
Business Frame. At the end of 1997, additional data, in the form of the Annual Salaries
and Wages tax deduction return and the Annual Accounts return (a profit and loss
account form with selected balance sheet items) was added to the BF system. This has
enabled survey staff to carry out more detailed analysis of BF units, to make use of this
data directly in compiling quarterly compensation of employees component of GDP and
to monitor changes in business size, offering potential to further reduce the level of
annual surveying required for frame maintenance.
Geocoder
17.
Up until March 1998 the Business Frame (BF) was still using a mainframe (off-line)
based location coding tool called autocac. As all our systems are expected to be
removed from the mainframe by December 1998, the BF needed a location coding
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system that is able to operate in the BF's client server environment. As the BF had
already successfully used Search Software America (SSA) “Names“ for its name and
address matching system, the SSA names was used again, as the bulk and on-line
location coding tool. The new Geocoder:
 is able to assign a location code from a given address to a high degree of accuracy
(76% match compared with the 64% with the previous system), in both on-line and
bulk operations;
 is intelligent enough to return location codes on unformatted addresses and cope with
minor misspellings; and
 screen displays all required information - road side indicator, address, meshblock
(location code), area unit, narrative, urban area, regional council & post code.
Business Frame International
18.
SNZ has supplied its Business Frame system to the Irish Central Statistical office last
year. The system is due to go live in December 1998. Further expressions of interest
have been received from the South African and Fijian statistical offices. A project team
will arrive in South Africa to assist Statistics South Africa undertake an evaluation of
the SNZ system. The Fijian project will involve a scaled-down version of the system
designed to run in the Fiji environment.
Development of a Strategy to assign classifications to smaller businesses
19.
A project is underway to assign industry and sector classifications to businesses that are
not 'maintained' by the BF, but are held on the tax database. One of the aims of the ‘tax
data coding project’ is a fully coded data set that is able to be consistently coded over
time.
20.
Extending use of taxation data requires consistent comprehensive classification. If
appropriate classifications are able to be applied to the tax database it may be possible
to:
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21.
Create Inter-(population) Census estimates of internal migration and population growth
Investigate Small Business penetration rates
Create Owner Profiles for Small Business Owners (AGE, SEX)
Create Household Income Estimates, etc.
The project is still in its early stages.