• Summary
• Downloads
• Explanatory Notes
• Related Information
• Past Releases

TECHNICAL NOTE 1 METHODOLOGY
TECHNICAL NOTE 2 DATA RELIABILITY
TECHNICAL NOTE 3 RELATIVE STANDARD ERRORS

INTRODUCTION

1 The industry estimates in this publication are produced using a combination of ABS directly collected data and Business Income Tax (BIT) data sourced from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

2 The directly collected data have been reported by a sample of utilities businesses, as recorded on the ABS Business Register (ABSBR). The ABS uses an economic statistics units model on the ABSBR to describe the characteristics of businesses, and the structural relationships between related businesses. Within large and diverse business groups, the units model is used also to define reporting units that can provide data to the ABS at suitable levels of detail.

STATISTICAL UNITS DEFINED ON THE ABS BUSINESS REGISTER

3 The current economic statistics units model was introduced in mid 2002, to better use the information available as a result of The New Tax System (TNTS). This units model allocates businesses to one of two sub-populations. The vast majority of businesses are in what is called the ATO maintained population, while the remaining businesses are in the ABS maintained population. Together, these two sub-populations make up the ABSBR population.

ATO MAINTAINED POPULATION

4 Most businesses and organisations in Australia need to obtain an Australian Business Number (ABN). They are then included on the whole-of-government register of businesses, the Australian Business Register (ABR), which is maintained by the ATO. Most of these businesses have simple structures; therefore, the unit registered for an ABN will satisfy ABS statistical requirements. For these businesses, the ABS has aligned its statistical units structure with the ABN unit. The businesses with simple structures constitute the ATO maintained population, and the ABN unit is used as the statistical unit for all ABS economic collections.

ABS MAINTAINED POPULATION

5 For the population of businesses where the ABN unit is not suitable for ABS statistical requirements, the ABS maintains its own units structure through direct contact with the business. These businesses constitute the ABS maintained population. This population consists typically of large, complex and diverse businesses. The statistical units model described below caters for such businesses.

Enterprise group: This is a unit covering all the operations in Australia of one or more legal entities under common ownership and/or control. It covers all the operations in Australia of legal entities which are related in terms of the current Corporations Law (as amended by the Corporations Legislation Amendment Act 1991), including legal entities such as companies, trusts and partnerships. Majority ownership is not required for control to be exercised.

Enterprise: An institutional unit comprising:
(i) a single legal entity or business entity, or
(ii) more than one legal entity or business entity within the same enterprise group and in the same institutional sub-sector (i.e. they are all classified to a single Standard Institutional Sector Classification of Australia (SISCA) sub-sector).

Type of activity unit (TAU): The TAU comprises one or more business entities, sub-entities or branches of a business entity within an enterprise group that can report production and employment data for similar economic activities. When a minimum set of data items are available, a TAU is created which covers all the operations within an industry subdivision (and the TAU is classified to the relevant subdivision of the ANZSIC). Where a business cannot supply adequate data for each industry, a TAU is formed which contains activity in more than one industry subdivision.

6 For more information about the effects of the introduction of this economic statistics units model, refer to Information Paper: Improvements in ABS Economic Statistics [Arising from The New Tax System] (cat. no. 1372.0).

CONTRIBUTION OF THE STATISTICAL UNITS TO THE ESTIMATES

Comparison over time

7 The units model described above replaced one in which the statistical unit was known as the management unit. This earlier model was last used in the utilities collection for the 2000-01 year.

8 For 2001-02 and later years, the contributing statistical units are:

• the ABN unit for businesses with simple structures
• the TAU for businesses with complex structures.
  (In most cases, employing ABN units / TAUs concorded with the management units used prior to the 2001-02 year.)

• many large and complex employing businesses have more than one legal entity, making it difficult to identify all legal entities for that business in the BIT data
• BIT data do not include all of the detailed information that the ABS requires from large and complex businesses.

• First, ABN units with annualised Business Activity Statement (BAS) total sales (used in lieu of EAS total income) at or greater than the cut-offs set for individual ANZSIC categories were eligible to be selected for direct collection of data by the ABS. If selected, they were sent the same mail out questionnaire for completion that was sent to selections from the ABS maintained population.
• Second, ABN units with annualised BAS total sales below the cut-offs were excluded from direct collection. For these units, BIT data were obtained and added to the directly collected estimates to produce the statistics in this publication.

12 The current cut-offs are:

• $1,005,000 for ANZSIC Subdivision 36
• $1,000,000 for ANZSIC Subdivision 37.

• A mail-out survey (which included a sample component for businesses classified to Water supply, sewerage and drainage services) was used to estimate the contribution of:
  • all businesses in the ABS maintained population
  • those businesses at or above the cut-offs in the ATO maintained population
  • 'tax exempt' businesses, that are not required to complete business income tax returns (and so would otherwise not contribute to the statistics).
• For the balance of businesses (i.e. in the ATO maintained population below the cut-offs for their ANZSIC category), their contribution was sourced from BIT data, with some more detailed breakdowns produced using proportional relationships derived from the sample survey. The derivation of employment estimates is discussed in the Appendix.

Contribution to sales and service income(a)
	ELECTRICITY SUPPLY UNITS USING			GAS SUPPLY UNITS USING			WATER SUPPLY, SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SERVICES UNITS USING
	ATO BIT data	Directly collected data	Total	ATO BIT data	Directly collected data	Total	ATO BIT data	Directly collected data	Total
ABSBR unit	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
ABN unit	0.5	3.1	3.6	0.4	14.3	14.7	1.3	5.7	7.0
TAU	-	96.4	96.4	-	85.3	85.3	-	93.0	93.0
Total	0.5	99.5	100.0	0.4	99.6	100.0	1.3	98.7	100.0
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
(a) Includes rent, leasing and hiring income.

SAMPLE ERROR

2 The majority of data in this publication have been obtained from a sample of utilities industries businesses. As such, these data are subject to sampling variability; that is, they may differ from the figures that would have been produced if the data had been obtained from all utilities industries businesses in the population. The measure of the likely difference as used by the ABS is given by the standard error, which indicates the extent to which an estimate might have varied by chance because the data were obtained from only a sample of units. There are about two chances in three that a sample estimate will differ by less than one standard error from the figure that would have been obtained if the data had been obtained from all units, and about 19 chances in 20 that the difference will be less than two standard errors.

3 The standard error can also be expressed as a percentage of the estimate, and this is known as the relative standard error (RSE). RSEs at the industry group level for selected data items representing the full range of data contained in this publication are shown in Technical Note 3. Detailed RSEs can be made available on request.

4 Note that RSEs for ANZSIC Groups 361 Electricity supply and 362 Gas supply are generally very small: this is because the only sampled contribution to these estimates has been from BIT data. See Technical Note 1 paragraph 13 for details.

5 The size of the RSE may be a misleading indicator of the reliability of some of the estimates for trading profit, OPBT, EBIT and IVA. Estimates of these variables may legitimately include positive and negative values, reflecting the financial performance of individual businesses. In these cases, the aggregated estimate can be small relative to the contribution of individual businesses, resulting in a standard error which is large relative to the estimate.

NON-SAMPLE ERROR

6 All data presented in this publication are subject to non-sample error.

7 The imprecision due to sampling variability, which is measured by the standard error, should not be confused with inaccuracies that may occur because of inadequacies in available sources from which the population frame was compiled, imperfections in reporting by providers, errors made in collection such as in recording and coding data, and errors made in processing data. Inaccuracies of this kind are referred to collectively as non-sampling error and may occur in any enumeration, whether a full census or a sample.

8 Although it is not possible to quantify non-sampling error, every effort is made to reduce it to a minimum. Collection forms are designed to be easy to complete and assist businesses to report accurately. Efficient and effective operating procedures and systems are used to compile the statistics. The ABS compares data from different ABS (and non-ABS) sources relating to the one industry, to ensure consistency and coherence.

9 There are also non-sampling errors associated with the BIT data sourced from the ATO. For example, the ATO treats any non-response by either bringing forward the previous year's data for a non-responding business, or imputing the data as zero if there are no previous data to use.

TECHNICAL NOTE 3 RELATIVE STANDARD ERRORS


361 ELECTRICITY SUPPLY

	Employment at end of June	Wages and salaries(a)	Sales and service income(b)	Industry value added
	%	%	%	%
NSW	-	-	-	-
Vic.	0.1	0.1	-	0.1
Qld	-	-	-	-
SA	-	-	-	0.1
WA	-	-	0.8	0.7
Tas.	-	-	-	-
NT	-	-	-	-
ACT	-	-	0.1	0.2
Aust.	-	-	-	0.1
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
(a) Excludes the drawings of working proprietors.
(b) Includes rent, leasing and hiring income.

362 GAS SUPPLY

	Employment at end of June	Wages and salaries(a)	Sales and service income(b)	Industry value added
	%	%	%	%
	0.1	0.1	-	2.2
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
(a) Excludes the drawings of working proprietors.
(b) Includes rent, leasing and hiring income.

370 WATER SUPPLY, SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SERVICES

	Employment at end of June	Wages and salaries(a)	Sales and service income(b)	Industry value added
	%	%	%	%
	2.6	3.2	3.1	2.9
(a) Excludes the drawings of working proprietors.
(b) Includes rent, leasing and hiring income.