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APPENDIX 2 COMPARISON OF NPI ESTIMATES


THE NPI SATELLITE ACCOUNT AND DIMENSIONS OF AUSTRALIA'S THIRD SECTOR

The Australian Non-Profit Data Project (ANDP) was established in 1997 as a collaborative research project between the Centre for Australian Community Organisations at the University of Technology, Sydney, and the ABS, to map for the first time the scale and contribution of Australia’s non-profit sector. The results from this project are published in Dimensions of Australia's Third Sector (Dimensions) by Mark Lyons and Susan Hocking. It presents detailed estimates for the third sector, relating mainly to 1995-96, together with a detailed discussion of the concepts, sources and methods used. It has been used extensively as a resource for this current study.

The scope of data published in Dimensions for 1995-96 is wider than that published in this satellite account. Dimensions, in its definition of the third sector also includes organisations that, while generally not allowing distribution of profits, do permit the distribution of assets to members in the event that the organisation is wound up. These are organisations in the finance and insurance industry and trading co-operatives. Data for the what is termed the 'non-profit sector' in Dimensions are more or less comparable with the data in this satellite account at the more aggregative level.

There are some differences that need to be borne in mind when comparing data. Dimensions includes public hospitals administered by religious orders. As these hospitals are in the government sector in the national accounts, they have been excluded from the scope of this satellite account. Dimensions presents data classified by detailed ANZSIC industry, whereas the satellite account uses a broad level of the ICNPO consistent with the recommendations of the UN Manual. There is not a one to one correspondence between ANZSIC and ICNPO. While as far as possible the same data sources were used in each of the studies to estimate for the key groups of NPIs, Dimensions used some data collections (such as the ABS Survey of Other Interest Groups) that have not been conducted since and may not be conducted again for some time. The satellite account therefore had to make use of some alternative data sources that are ongoing but in some cases less satisfactory.

Data for 1995-96 (Dimensions) and 1999-2000 (Satellite account) are presented in the following tables. Non-profit public hospitals have been removed from the Dimensions data so that the scope of the two reports are on a comparable basis. The calculation of value added varies between the two reports. Value added in Dimensions only includes compensation of employees. Value added in the satellite account includes compensation of employees, consumption of fixed capital and other net taxes on production and, for market NPIs, net operating surplus.