Data regarding Scottish Construction sector: FOI release

Information requested

Data on the Scottish Construction sector.

1. The most recent data showing a breakdown of market share within Scotland’s construction industry for medium sized SME’s vs Micro?
2. Number of new entrants in the last 12 months.
3. Any recent legal constraints, including environment rules re CO2 emissions etc?
4. Stats on effect of Brexit?
5. Is there any statistical information which provides a breakdown of market share between, haulage, quarrying, Civil engineering project construction,  commercial building construction, building project construction for Scotland only?
6. Any data on what these organisations consider the most challenging external factors
7. Anywhere I can find a comprehensive directory of all construction businesses currently operating in Scotland?

Response

Attached is a copy of some of the information requested. 

You asked for the most recent data showing a breakdown of market share within Scotland’s construction industry for medium sized SME’s vs Micro. This can be found in Table 1 of the attached spreadsheet.

You asked for the number of new entrants in the last 12 months. This data will not be available until the next Business Demography statistical release by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), expected toward the end of 2021. The latest data are available from:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/datasets/businessdemographyreferencetable

You asked for any recent legal constraints, including environment rules re CO2 emissions etc. The building standards system is one example of legislation which imposes rules/constraints on how building work is delivered (at an individual building/development level). A link to the landing page for this system is below. It should be noted however that there are many pieces of legislation on a number of topics that currently affect construction in Scotland, such as planning, procurement, heat and energy regulation and housing policy as examples of devolved areas. There will also be other UK legislation that has an effect on aspects of construction such as manufacturing and products.
https://www.gov.scot/policies/building-standards/

You asked for statistics on the effect of Brexit. HMRC regional trade statistics (RTS) are available from:
https://www.uktradeinfo.com/trade-ata/regional/2021/uk-regional-trade-in-goods-statistics-first-quarter-2021/

You will also find useful information from the latest release of the weighted Scotland estimates using the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS’) Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS), and in particular the tables under the following sections: Exporting, Importing, Access to Goods and Materials, Stock, EU Transition Period, Movement of goods to/from Northern Ireland, International Trade in Services, Rules of Origin and UK Conformity Assessed (UKCA) Marking. Further data of interest on this matter can also be found in the tables entitled EU Workers, FinPerfReason and CapExpReason.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/bics-weighted-scotland-estimates-data-to-wave-34/

The ONS’ BICS is a voluntary fortnightly business survey, which captures businesses’ responses on how their turnover, workforce, prices, trade and business resilience have been affected by current conditions, including the coronavirus (COVID- 19) pandemic and the end of the EU transition period. This publication focuses on businesses’ responses from Wave 7 to Wave 34 of the survey. In relation to the BICS, you asked what “waves” are – waves are the fortnightly time periods covered by the survey e.g. for Wave 7 the survey was live in the fortnight 15 June 2020 to 28 June 2020 and for Wave 34 the survey was live in the fortnight 28 June 2021 to 11 July 2021.

You asked for any statistical information which provides a breakdown of market share between, haulage, quarrying, Civil engineering project construction, commercial building construction, building project construction for Scotland only. This can be found in Tables 2 to 6 of the attached spreadsheet.

You asked for any data on what these organisations consider the most challenging external factors. Some data on this is available from the aforementioned BICS survey, and can be found specifically in the tables entitled Exporting Challenges and Importing Challenges.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information. You asked for a list of the names of all construction businesses currently operating in Scotland. Unfortunately, we cannot supply business names from the statistical sources that we have access to because an exemption under section 26(a) of FOISA (disclosure prohibited by an enactment) applies to that information. The reason why that exemption applies is explained in the Annex.

However, information on businesses is available from the Companies House website, and data on postcodes is available from the National Records of Scotland website (both as below), which may be helpful to you.

Companies House: http://download.companieshouse.gov.uk/en_output.html

National Records of Scotland: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/geography/nrspostcode-extract

ANNEX
REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

An exemption applies
An exemption under section 26(a) of FOISA (disclosure prohibited by an enactment) applies to all of the information requested because Section 9 of the Statistics of Trade Act 1947 prohibits the disclosure of this information. This exemption is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

The main source of the Businesses in Scotland 2020 report (https://www.gov.scot/publications/businesses-in-scotland-2020/) is the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR). The IDBR is maintained by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and is a database of all enterprises that are registered for VAT and/or PAYE in the UK. All data on the IDBR are treated as RESTRICTED COMMERCIAL and are protected by the Code of Practice for Official Statistics and by specific legislation. The disclosure of data relating to individual undertakings without consent is prohibited under the Statistics of Trade Act 1947.

The IDBR can only be used for valid statistical research purposes and the confidentiality of the data has to be preserved in outputs and publications. The main users of the IDBR are government departments and local authorities that are permitted to receive the IDBR information. However, it is possible for other researchers to apply for access to the IDBR for statistical analyses – guidance on how to request access is available, from the ONS, at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/whatwedo/paidservices/interdepartmentalbusinessregisteridbr

About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI202100225830 - Information released

File type

Excel document

File size

17.2 kB