Number and rate (per 10,000 adults) of VAT/PAYE registered stocks and sites operating in Scotland.
|
Entire dataset
This is a very large dataset. Lock some dimensions using the links above, or use the data cart to build a custom download. Please contact us if you require a full download. |
Estimates about the number of VAT/PAYE registered businesses (stocks) and sites operating in Scotland, broken down by various groupings including industry sector, business size, local authority area, intermediate zone areas, and locality are produced by Scottish Government within the Businesses in Scotland publication. The Businesses in Scotland publication data are largely sourced from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR). The IDBR is maintained by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and is a database of all registered businesses operating in the UK i.e. businesses that are registered for VAT and/or PAYE.
Statistics from the Businesses in Scotland publication are used to provide insight into the characteristics of Scotland’s business stock, and how Scotland’s business stock has changed over time.
The estimates also include information about business employment and turnover (£ millions). The function of these data is to act as ‘auxiliary variables’ that can be used to (i) classify businesses by employee/turnover size band and (ii) calculate shares of employment and turnover across industrial sectors, local areas, business sizes etc. The nature of the underlying processes used to update these variables on the IDBR means that direct comparisons made using the absolute values are less reliable. Note the estimates do not include turnover information for financial and insurance businesses as it is not available on a comparable basis.
A business (business stock) can be defined as the smallest combination of legal units (generally based on VAT and/or PAYE records) that is an organisational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. Note a business carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. Businesses are counted only once in Scotland-level estimates or once each in each of the geographical areas.
A local unit (business site) is a business or part thereof (e.g. a workshop, factory, warehouse, office, mine or depot) situated in a geographically identified place.
The estimates also include unregistered businesses. A large number of very small businesses are not VAT/PAYE registered because they are small sole traders/partnerships with no employees and an annual turnover of less than the VAT threshold. The estimates for unregistered businesses are estimated primarily using data from the Labour Force Survey, which is subject to sampling error – this should be considered when making year on year comparisons between the number of unregistered businesses.
The estimates also include two National Indicators: “The number of businesses” and “High growth businesses”. The registered business stock rate, the total stock of private sector registered businesses per 10,000 resident adults in Scotland, is the basis of the Scotland Performs National Indicator: “The number of businesses”. The high growth business stock count is the basis of the Scotland Performs National Indicator: “High growth businesses”. We defined a high growth business as a business with 10+ employees in the base year (x - 3) exhibiting an average of 20% growth over three years in terms of turnover. In practice, average annualised growth of 20% per annum over three years would be equal to 72.8% growth from year x - 3 to year x.
More detailed information can be found on the Businesses in Scotland website.
The population estimates used to form the rates are sourced from the Mid-Year Population Estimates, published by the National Records of Scotland. The term “per 10,000 adults” is defined as people aged 16 or over resident in Scotland.
Any cell which is blank contains confidential data. This is data which has been withheld from publication in order that no information relating to an individual business is disclosed. Caution should therefore be exercised if summary data is calculated; it may include blank cells in which case it will not be a true representation of industry or area totals.
For information on quality management, please see Businesses in Scotland – Methodology.
For information on quality measures, please see Businesses in Scotland – Methodology.
Data can be compared between different industries, legal status, local authority areas and to look at trends over time. Note “Registered – Private Sector” in the legal status refers to all businesses that are not defined as Central and Local government. Also, employee sizeband type (Scotland or UK) refers to the number of employees that the business employs in Scotland only or across the UK.
For comparisons with other UK regions, business stock estimates for the UK and all regions of the UK (including Scotland) are published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). A key difference between the UK series for Scotland and the Businesses in Scotland publication estimates is that Businesses in Scotland data includes all businesses that operate in Scotland regardless of where the business is based. There are other differences between the publications, and for these please see Businesses in Scotland – Methodology.
For other tables, commentary and more methodology please see the Businesses in Scotland – Methodology website.
Businesses in Scotland data is produced from an extract taken from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) recording the position of units at March of the reference year. However, prior to 2005, the extract recording the position of units at November of the reference year was taken instead.
It is the aim to publish statistics on business stocks and sites for Scotland, Scottish Local Authority Areas, and other geographical dimensions as soon as possible after the release of the Scottish Government’s Businesses in Scotland publication, which is published each year in early November.
In general, the figures for registered businesses should be final and should not be revised in future, since they are based on a snapshot in time from the IDBR which cannot change. However sometimes, when quality assuring the data for the latest year, errors in terms of the industry classification applied to businesses may come to light in which case we may correct the erroneous business classifications in previous years.
Revisions to previously published population estimates are generally planned, although there can be occasions when they are unplanned, and are the result of either improvements in statistical methods or the availability of additional data. Corrections are unplanned and may occur when errors in either the statistical data or methodology are found after release of the data. For the list of all population estimates that have recently been revised or corrected, please visit the National Records of Scotland’s Revisions and Corrections.
This is a linked data resource: it has a permanent unique uri at which both humans and machines can find it on the Internet, and which can be used an identifier in queries on our SPARQL endpoint.
A linked data-orientated view of dimensions and values
| Dimension | Locked Value |
|---|---|
|
Business Estimates
http://statistics.gov.scot/def/dimension/businessEstimates
|
(not locked to a value) |
|
Industry Sector (Sic 07)
http://statistics.gov.scot/def/dimension/industrySector(sic07)
|
(not locked to a value) |
|
Legal Status
http://statistics.gov.scot/def/dimension/legalStatus
|
(not locked to a value) |
|
Number Of Employees
http://statistics.gov.scot/def/dimension/numberOfEmployees
|
(not locked to a value) |
|
Reference Area
http://purl.org/linked-data/sdmx/2009/dimension#refArea
|
(not locked to a value) |
|
Reference Period
http://purl.org/linked-data/sdmx/2009/dimension#refPeriod
|
(not locked to a value) |
|
Measure Type
http://purl.org/linked-data/cube#measureType
|
(not locked to a value) |
Linked Data is stored in graphs. We keep dataset contents (the data) separately from the metadata, to make it easier for you to find exactly what you need.
The data in this dataset are stored in the graph: http://statistics.gov.scot/graph/business-stocks-sites
The data structure definition for this data cube dataset is stored in the same graph as the data: http://statistics.gov.scot/graph/business-stocks-sites
All other metadata about this dataset are stored in the graph: http://statistics.gov.scot/graph/business-stocks-sites/metadata
A breakdown by type of the 1,334,838 resources in this dataset's data graph.
| Resource type | Number of resources |
|---|---|
| Collection | 2 |
| Component specification | 17 |
| Data set | 1 |
| Data structure definition | 1 |
| Observation | 1,334,817 |
In addition to this bookmarkable html page, this dataset metadata is also available for our robot customers in the following machine-readable formats. Please refer to the API documentation for more details.
| dataset metadata | JSON RDF/XML Turtle N-Triples Atom |