Statistics Canada
Marie Brodeur
Daniela Ravindra
SESSION 2a #1
Statistics Canada’s New Use of Administrative Data for
Survey Replacement
Table of Contents
Statistics Canada’s New Use of Administrative Data for Survey Replacement ................. 1
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 2
2. Current Use of Administrative Information ................................................................ 2
3. Overview of the Corporate Business Architecture ..................................................... 3
3.1.
Overview of the Integrated Business Statistics Program .................................... 4
3.2.
Proposed Plan...................................................................................................... 5
4. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 7
5. Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 7
Statistics Canada
Marie Brodeur
Daniela Ravindra
SESSION 2a #1
1.
INTRODUCTION
Reducing the administrative burden of collecting statistical information has always been
an important preoccupation of Statistics Canada (StatCan). The Agency has been
formally measuring response burden on business respondent since 1991. This is done
mainly through asking the respondent to provide an estimate of the number of hours and
minutes taken to fill in the questionnaire. This information is available for most business
surveys and it is tabulated in an annual report.
For the majority of StatCan business surveys the response burden (measured in hours)
has been on a downward trend since the late 1990s. This is due for the most part to the
aggressive use of administrative information in lieu of survey data.
Recently, the organization has embarked on a five year project to improve its corporate
business architecture. Many projects are being funded to develop integrated survey frame
operations, generalized systems and multimodal data collection. The most significant
project, called the Integrated Business Statistics Program (IBSP), aims at completely
redeveloping the design of annual and sub-annual business surveys. This project will
optimize, through standardization and use of corporate services and generalized systems,
the production of business statistical output. New ways of reducing response burden are
also being explored through this new initiative.
This paper will provide a short overview of the Corporate Business Architecture and the
IBSP project, with a focus on the proposed approaches of tackling response burden.
2.
CURRENT USE OF ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION
StatCan has a long history of using administrative data in its programs (see Yung W. and
Lys P.). There has been a steady evolution over the years in the type of data used and in
the ways in which these data are utilized. As a result, nearly all business programs now
rely heavily on tax data. They include manufacturing, retail trade, services industries,
agriculture, balance of payments, finance and international trade.
Although a large variety of administrative data files are used by Statistics Canada to
produce estimates, this paper will focus on the use of business tax data as defined to
include the income statements filed by firms for taxation purposes, as well as information
from the payroll deduction system. Business tax data are received by StatCan from the
Canada Revenue Agency, the federal government department responsible for
administering tax laws and various social and economic benefit and incentive programs
delivered through the tax system for the Government of Canada
The most advanced use of business tax data is to replace surveyed units. The tax
replacement strategy was put in place without modifying the survey design. Two methods
are used for this: direct replacement used for annual surveys and replacement aided by a
model for sub-annual surveys.
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Statistics Canada
Marie Brodeur
Daniela Ravindra
SESSION 2a #1
For the direct replacement most surveys use the following approach:.
-
very small units accounting for less than 10% of total revenue are excluded from
sampling; tax information is used to estimate for this portion of the universe Once
a sample is selected from the remaining units, a certain portion of them are tagged
to be replaced by tax records. The structure of these units is simple: only one
establishment in operation.
For monthly and quarterly surveys, administrative data from the goods and services tax
files (equivalent of VAT) are used.
Between 2002 and 2008 StatCan has gone from replacing 10,700 to 59,000 units in the
sample with tax data.
Now, as StatCan embarks on an ambitious project of redesigning its approach to
collecting and processing business surveys, the tax replacement strategy is also under
review with the objective of expanding the scope.
3.
OVERVIEW OF THE CORPORATE BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE
Statistics Canada recently tabled its first Corporate Business Plan for the fiscal years
2009-2010 to 2011-2012. The plan stipulates that Statistics Canada is expected to deliver
four things to Canadians in an exemplary manner (called the “expected results”): access
to data; information that responds to Canada’s evolving, highest-priority needs now and
in the future (relevance); information that well represents the world it seeks to describe
(quality); and all that with an organization that is highly efficient so that information is
produced at the lowest possible cost (organizational efficiency).
The Corporate Business Plan also talks about an important initiative, the Corporate
Business Architecture (CBA). Statistics Canada has historically focused its efficiency
targets at the individual program level. With growing financial pressures and decreased
capacity for further local efficiencies, the Agency has launched an initiative to review its
business processes and systems with a goal to achieve further organizational efficiency
by changing the way Statistics Canada does business.
The CBA relies on 12 principles:
1. Emphasize corporate (rather than local) optimal decision making;
2. Metadata should be created at the beginning of every process and used throughout the
project life cycle;
3. Optimize the use of corporate services such as informatics, methodology support and
frame infrastructure, collection, data capture and imaging, statistical processing, and
dissemination;
4. Maximize re-use:
a. Use the smallest possible number of distinct business processes
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Statistics Canada
Marie Brodeur
Daniela Ravindra
SESSION 2a #1
Use the smallest possible number of enabling computer systems;
Minimize the number of software packages and tools used to support business
processes;
Encourage widespread training on corporate business applications and tools;
Create a strong statistical information management framework;
Eliminate duplication of effort;
Focus on Statistics Canada’s core business (developing, producing and disseminating
statistical information and analysis);
Separate development from ongoing operations (teams responsible for the
development, or for the substantial redesign, of statistical programs should be
separated from those responsible for ongoing operations);
Promote electronic data collection;
Reorganize if necessary to promote efficient operations.
b.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

Remove structural obstacles to efficient operations: Organizational structure
should be aligned to facilitate process flows and any overlapping or unclear
mandates should be resolved.
A total of 16 projects were identified and must be completed within 5 years. Several
efficiencies will be achieved. The most significant project is the Integrated Business
Statistics Program (IBSP).
3.1. OVERVIEW OF THE INTEGRATED BUSINESS STATISTICS PROGRAM
The IBSP is to be based on the existing model used in the Unified Enterprise Statistics
program (UES) which had been conceptualized in 1996 and implemented through
different phases up until 2008. See Brodeur et al (2006).
The UES marked an important development for StatCan of its business survey programs.
Rather than meeting demands for increasing the quality and quantity of available business
statistics through a scaling-up of its existing surveys, StatCan opted for a general
restructuring of its business statistics programs. This restructuring was to bring greater
integration, consistency and coverage, while controlling the operating costs and allowing
for better management of response burden.
The UES started by integrating 7 surveys in 1997 and now comprises 58 surveys
covering the manufacturing, retail, wholesale, services, aquaculture sectors and head
office. They are integrated in terms of content, collection and data processing. The
surveys were integrated progressively in the early years and the model has worked fairly
successfully since. However, with this step by step approach, the program has applied its
basic principles of harmonization and standardization slightly differently. This was due to
the introduction of better practices along the way and a governance model that allowed
local, rather than global optima. This translated into a high degree of customization for
each processing step in order to accommodate specific survey requirements.
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Statistics Canada
Marie Brodeur
Daniela Ravindra
SESSION 2a #1
As part of the CBA initiative, it was decided to take stock of the best practices and to
address the many aspects on which StatCan could significantly improve its business
survey processes through a redesign.
At this juncture, due to a desire to increase efficiency, robustness and responsiveness to
outside demand, StatCan would like to take the UES to the next level by developing a
model that could apply to a much larger array of business surveys than the UES currently
does. (See Ravindra et all 2009). The model is based on the following six pillars:
1. Increased governance across all areas involved in statistical data output
2. Use of tax data universe for the estimation of financial information in replacement
of survey data
3. Use of common editing strategy for automated and manual editing
4. Implementing active collection management strategies
5. Use of Electronic Data Collection as the principal mode of collection and
6. Establishment of a Data Service Center for warehousing statistical information
Over the past few years StatCan has made great progress in improving the quality and
timeliness of tax data information. The time is now ripe to use these data to their full
potential. Tax data information should be used to estimate financial information for all
enterprises, except for a small number of very complex ones (a complex enterprise
operates in more than one province or more than one industry). This will ensure a
significant decrease in response burden and important efficiencies associated with
collection. The next section will provide more details about the proposed approach.
3.2. PROPOSED PLAN
The IBSP will make a much more ambitious use of tax data. Instead of using tax data for
a sub-sample of the sampled units, tax data will be used as the backbone of the
estimation of financial information for all eligible units1. By relying on administrative
data as the primary source of financial information, the sample will be designed to
measure information, such as commodities produced, business practices and other
characteristics.
The use of the administrative data will now be fully integrated in the new sampling
design. This design will be unified, harmonized and flexible.
The following approach is envisaged for each survey conducted within the IBSP:

The population of interest to the survey would be divided in two parts:
1
Some collection of survey data might still be required in those cases where micro data needs to be shared
with other federal departments, unless the tax legislation is amended.
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Statistics Canada
Marie Brodeur
Daniela Ravindra
SESSION 2a #1

o
the very complex enterprises (approximately 2,000 for which tax data cannot
be used easily) and
o
small and medium enterprises for which tax data can easily be used for most
financial variables directly, or through allocation.
A sample of the very complex enterprises would be selected to collect both financial
data and other characteristics. Since such enterprises can be selected in more than one
survey, and often are, StatCan will coordinate its collection operations to reduce their
response burden. A sample of the simple enterprises would be selected to collect only
the other characteristics. Sample rotation and coordination should be introduced to
ensure that the response burden on the small and medium businesses is better
managed.
This sampling approach would mean that only large units would report financial
information, while the rest would be estimated through tax. The sample would be geared
towards optimizing the estimation of characteristics information.
The sample design will need to be complemented by estimators and associated quality
indicators that efficiently reflect the design in place in order to produce the best estimates
possible with the available data.
The objective of utilizing tax information to its full potential will also guide the
development of the questionnaire content which is at an advanced stage already.
Specifically, the revenue and expense variables in the questionnaire mimic fairly closely
information available on tax files. This, in turn, will allow StatCan to eliminate the need
of collecting this information for small and medium enterprises.
However, there are a number of issues that must be taken into considerations and
analyzed in order to determine if the above initiatives could be implemented. For
example, although tax information is used extensively, survey data is still an important
component of the estimates for the small and medium (SMEs) sized enterprises. Analysts
routinely use the survey-based trends in order to validate the tax component of the
estimate. By essentially eliminating the survey component for financial variables for the
SMEs the question becomes: is the quality of the tax information solid enough to become
the sole source for SME financial estimates? A number of studies and comparison are
being conducted to answer this question.
The second issue is that of accounting versus production concepts. StatCan has developed
a Chart of Accounts (see StatCan (2004)) that represents the concordance between these
two sets of concepts. However, with the proposed expansion of the use of tax information
the issue that is being explored is whether the information sought from respondents ought
to be based on the accounting concepts.
The plan provides for continuing to survey the large and complex enterprises for all the
information required. This is a requirement since StatCan publishes financial information
by detailed industry and geographical area. Administrative information is not available at
this level of detail for enterprises with activities in more than one industry or more than
one province. In an effort to reduce the burden of reporting, StatCan is looking at
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Statistics Canada
Marie Brodeur
Daniela Ravindra
SESSION 2a #1
developing a survey tool that will allow these large and complex enterprises to only
report once through one combined questionnaire for all of their activities. Currently,
enterprises receive a myriad of industry specific questionnaires that arrive at different
times of the year and in some cases contain duplication.
The current collection mode has also, in some cases, led to incoherence in the data
reported at the establishment level versus information available for the enterprise. During
the last year StatCan has developed an automated process of comparing these different
data sources and quickly identify incoherences. It is hoped that by introducing a more
enterprise centric collection strategy the incoherence will be substantially reduced.
4.
CONCLUSION
Reducing response burden has always been an important consideration on how StatCan
conducts its business. In that spirit the new Corporate Business Architecture continues to
support the development of new approaches of obtaining data from alternative sources
(other than surveys) and streamlining our collection methods to minimize burden on
respondents.
The initiatives described above are in the process of being developed and tested to
determine their feasibility. Assuming that they are proven to be effective based on the
testing, the implementation is scheduled for 2014.
5.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Brodeur M., Koumanakos P., Leduc J., Rancourt E. and Wilson K. (2006). The
integrated Approach to Economic Surveys in Canada. Statistics Canada, Catalogue
no. 68-514-XIE.
2. Ravindra et all (2009.) Integrated Business Statistics Program Blueprint
3. Statistics Canada. (2004). Statistics Canada’s Chart of Accounts (COA).
4. Yung W. and Lys P. (2008). Use of Administrative Data in Statistics Canada’s
Business Surveys – The Way Forward
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