John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Question 86: To ask the Taoiseach his view and his Departments policy regarding small firms or family businesses that have reduced staff numbers and do not now have the capacity to continue to complete Central Statistics Office survey forms; if such business can be exempted from completing CSO forms for a period; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42941/10]

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Article 13 of the Statistics Act, 1993 makes clear that the Director General of the Central Statistics Office has sole responsibility for and independence over all decisions regarding statistical methodology and statistical standards adopted by that Office.

Consequently the Taoiseach has no input into operational matters within the CSO, including the selection of enterprises for statistical surveys.

Minimising respondent burden, especially that placed on small businesses, is a corporate priority for the Central Statistics Office. The Central Statistics Office has published a number of reports, all of which are available on the CSO website, on the administrative burden imposed on businesses by CSO surveys. These reports show that typically 70% of small businesses (i.e. those enterprises employing less than 20 persons) do not receive any questionnaires from the CSO. A further 20% of small businesses only receive a single questionnaire. The overall administrative burden imposed by the CSO on businesses (as measured using the Standard Cost Model) is less than €11m per annum; this accounts for less than 1% of the total administrative burden imposed on Irish business by Government regulation, which was estimated at €2 billion in the 2007 Report of the Business Regulation Forum .

Approximately 94% of Irish enterprises are small businesses employing less than 20 persons. As the dominant size class in Irish business, small businesses must be correctly represented in official statistics, both to comply with precision standards prescribed in EU legislation but also so that robust information can be provided to policy makers to support decision making in Ireland. Not only are these data important in showing the contribution of small business to the wider economy, they are essential building blocks in the calculation of GDP and Gross National Income. At a time when very significant decisions are being made, it is more critical than ever that estimates of economic performance are accurate and credible and that policy decisions are informed by robust information.

While the majority of the data is collected by the CSO in compliance with EU legislation, those same data are also demanded by Government and other national users. In fact, recent reports such as the 2008 Building Ireland's Smart Economy, Catching the Wave (2008), Trading and Investing in a Smart Economy (2010) and the 2010 Report of the Innovation Task Force are just some of the examples, where recommendations have been made that CSO collect additional data.

In an attempt to comply with the increasing demands for official statistics, arising from both EU legislation and national requirements, while also addressing the need to minimise the administrative burden placed on survey respondents, the CSO have in recent years introduced a range of burden-reduction measures specifically targetting small businesses. A number of survey questionnaires have been redesigned, with a reduced number of questions now being asked. In addition, the sample sizes of surveys have been decreased wherever feasible; in some cases, such as that of the Business Register Inquiry, surveys have been discontinued altogether. The CSO are also increasingly using administrative data, obtained from the Revenue Commissioners and other Government bodies, to both reduce existing burden to business or to avoid imposing additional burdens on business in compliance with new EU legislative demands. It is expected that this will lead to significant reductions in the number of small businesses being surveyed by the CSO's major structural inquiries.