What do these statistics cover?
Scottish Corporate Sector Statistics provides information about the number of enterprises operating in Scotland broken down by various groupings including industry, company size, local authority area, and country of ownership. The publication includes all enterprises that operate in Scotland regardless of where the business is based.
Data is also provided on enterprises' employment and turnover. However, there are time lags associated with these variables so any comparisons should be made with caution.
The results are used by the Scottish Government to inform government policies. Other users of SCSS include local authorities, the enterprise networks, academics and consultants. A consultation on the use of SCSS, carried out in the Spring/Summer of 2010, showed that the results are used extensively to inform sectoral policy and regional/local economic development.
The 2011 publication contains several methodological changes. For the first time, all data has been published using the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2007 only. Furthermore, a number of changes have been made to the methodology used to estimate the number of unregistered enterprises. The impact of these changes on the unregistered enterprise estimates contained in the publication is relatively low. See the 'Methodology Changes' information note that accompanies the publication for more details.
What year do tables relate to?
The latest figures relate to March 2011 and were released on 12th October 2011.
Up to and including the 2010 publication, data on enterprises (registered and unregistered) were classified according to the 2003 Standard industrial Classification (SIC). Scottish Corporate Sector Statistics 2011 is the first time that all data has been classified according to SIC 2007 only.
The following data is available on the Scottish Corporate Sector Statistics website:
| Standard Industrial Classification 2007 | |
|---|
| Total Enterprises | 2010 - 2011 |
| Total Registered Enterprises | 2000 - 2011 |
| Registered Enterprises by Industry | 2008 - 2011 |
| Standard Industrial Classification 2003 | |
|---|
| Total Enterprises | 2000 - 2010 |
| Total Registered Enterprises | 2000 - 2011 |
| Registered Enterprises by Industry | 2000 - 2010 |
When will the figures be updated?
It is the aim to publish the 2012 Scottish Corporate Sector Statistics as soon as possible after the release of the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) UK Business Activity and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills' Business Population Estimates for the UK and Regions publications, which are due out in Autumn 2012.
National Statistics
Scottish Corporate Sector Statistics is a National Statistics publication. It has been produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics and the Pre-release Access to Official Statistics (Scotland) Order 2008.
Latest News
Please note that "Table 8 - Number of business sites by Local Authority area, sector and employee size band of site" was corrected on 17 November 2011. This correction leads to the total number of business sites, at the Scotland level, increasing from 182,640 to 182,995. The impact of this correction is minimal - especially given that the additional 355 sites are spread across local authority areas, sectors and employee size bands.