English Business Survey
The English business survey will provide Ministers and officials with information about the current economic and business conditions across England.
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Details
Overview
The English Business Survey (EBS) will provide ministers and officials with information about the current economic and business conditions across England. By providing timely and robust information on a regular and geographically detailed basis, the survey will enhance officials’ understanding of how businesses are being affected throughout England and improve policy making by making it more responsive to changes in economic circumstances.
BIS has selected TNS-BMRB, an independent survey provider, to conduct the survey, covering approximately 3,000 businesses across England each month. BIS are conscious of burdens on business and therefore the survey is as light-touch as possible, being both voluntary and telephone-based, requiring only 11 to 12 minutes and has been designed to not require reference to any detailed information.
The survey will provide qualitative information across a range of important variables (eg output, capacity, employment, labour costs, output prices and investment), compared with three months ago and expectations for 3 months ahead.
The outputs of the survey should also be useful to businesses, providing valuable intelligence about local economic and business conditions.
The EBS is still in its infancy and therefore full quality assurance of the data is not yet possible. Estimates from the survey have therefore been designated as Experimental Official Statistics. Results should be interpreted with this in mind.
Published edition
EBS statistics are published on a monthly and quarterly basis:
- monthly statistics provide timely statistics that compare business performance in the reference month to 3 months previously and expected performance in 3 months’ time; monthly statistics are published for England and the nine English Regions
- quarterly statistics compare business performance between the reference quarter and the previous quarter, as well as expected performance in the next quarter - quarterly data provide users with a wider range of variables and geographical levels when compared to the monthly statistics; quarterly statistics are published for England, the nine English Regions and the 30 English NUTS2 areas
Detailed results are available from the English Business Survey Reporting tool, see ‘Detailed results’ section, below. The latest statistical releases and monthly statistics are available below, with historic releases and data available from the EBS archive page.
Latest edition
Data from the English Business Survey are published on a monthly and quarterly basis. The exact publication date will be announced four weeks in advance. We are working towards a regular publication cycle, however, due to the experimental nature of the data, the publication date for each month may vary. Future publication dates will be added to the National Statistics Publication Hub.
Detailed results
Detailed results providing the full range of English Business Survey statistics are available from the Reporting Tool. Quarterly (Discrete & Cumulative) data are available for the full range of geographies:
- England
- English NUTS1 regions
- English NUTS2 regions
- local enterprise partnerships
The latest EBS data will be added to the tool on a quarterly basis and cumulative monthly data will be available from the Reporting Tool by early 2013.
Contact details
If you have any questions on the EBS please send us an email at: ebsurvey@bis.gsi.gov.uk
Updates to this page
Last updated 19 December 2012 + show all updates
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First published.
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Removed duplicate attachments.