1. Contact |
1.1 Contact organisation |
| Organisation |
Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT)
Division for Short-term Economic Statistics
Viale Liegi 13
I-00198 Rome |
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1.2 Contact organisation unit |
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1.3 Contact name |
1.4 Contact person function |
1.5 Contact mail address |
Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT)
Division for Short-term Economic Statistics
Viale Liegi 13
I-00198 Rome |
1.6 Contact email address |
1.7 Contact phone number |
1.8 Contact fax number |
2. Metadata update |
2.1 Metadata last certified |
05/08/2013 |
2.2 Metadata last posted |
18/11/2014 |
2.3 Metadata last update |
18/11/2014 |
3. Statistical presentation |
3.1 Data description |
| Name of indicator/source |
Gli indici del fatturato dei servizi |
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3.2 Classification system |
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3.3 Coverage - sector |
| Activities covered |
Divisions 45, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55 and 56 and Section J of NACE Rev. 2. |
| Size classes covered |
Enterprises with more than 2 employees are covered exept for groups 45.1, 49.1, 49.2 and division 52 where the threshold is 5 employees. |
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3.4 Statistical concepts and definitions |
| List and definition of variables |
The main variables collected on the questionnaires are turnover and number of employee, as auxiliary variable.
Turnover comprises the totals invoiced by the observation unit during the reference period, and this corresponds to market sales of good and services supplied to third parties. It is valued excluding VAT.
Employment data correspond to the total number of persons employed at the end of the reference quarter. This total includes all persons linked to the enterprise by a direct work contract, on the basis of which they receive a payment. |
| Planned changes in information collected |
None. |
| Accounting conventions |
The target variable is measured as a flow during the calendar quarter. |
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3.5 Statistical unit |
| Reporting unit |
Enterprise. |
| Observation unit(s) |
Enterprise. |
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3.6 Statistical population |
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3.7 Reference area |
| Geographical area covered |
The area covered by the indexes is the whole national territory. |
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3.8 Coverage - Time |
| Date of first use as a source |
1999 |
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3.9 Base period |
| Base (reference) year |
2010 |
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4. Unit of measure |
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5. Reference Period |
| Reference year of this report |
Quarterly |
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6. Institutional Mandate |
6.1 Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements |
| Legal basis |
Compulsory surveys fixed every year by a Decree of the President of the Republic (D.P.R.). |
| Obligation on units to provide data |
Surveys are mandatory. Penalties are foreseen for non-response. |
| Planned changes in legal basis, obligation to respond and frame used |
None. |
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6.2 Institutional Mandate - data sharing |
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7. Confidentiality |
7.1 Confidentiality - policy |
| Dissemination of terms and conditions under which official statistics are produced, including confidentiality of individual responses |
Confidentiality provisions are explicitly stated in the ISTAT President¿s letter attached to data collection questionnaire along with references to different acts on statistics. Links to relevant acts on statistics are presented on the website of Sistan - National Statistical System - (http://www.sistan.it/index.php?id=203). |
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7.2 Confidentiality - data treatment |
| Treatment of confidential data |
There are no confidentiality issues at the present time. |
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8. Release policy |
8.1 Release calendar |
| Advance dissemination of release calendar |
Every year in December ISTAT publishes a release calendar providing the precise release dates for the coming year. The calendar is distributed to the press and is available free of charge to interested parties. The calendar is also disseminated on ISTAT's web site |
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8.2 Release calendar access |
http://www.istat.it/en/information/journalists/press-calendar |
8.3 Release policy - user access |
| Simultaneous release to all interested parties |
Data are released simultaneously to all interested parties by issuing the press release Fatturato dei servizi which is provided, on an embargo basis, to the media at a press conference (using ¿locked room¿ method) 30 minutes prior to general release. The press release (Italian version and short English version) is subsequently posted on the ISTAT Internet website |
| Identification of internal government access to data before release |
No pre-release access. |
| Transmission to Eurostat and further use of the statistics |
Data are sent to Eurostat via Edamis within 60 days from the end of the reference quarter |
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9. Frequency of dissemination |
Quarterly press releases are disseminated as provisional at about 70 days after the end of the reference quarter. Final data are released 160 days after the end of the reference quarter. |
10. Accessibility and clarity |
10.1 Dissemination format - News release |
| Identification of ministerial commentary on the occasion of statistical releases |
No ministerial commentaries. |
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10.2 Dissemination format - Publications |
| Name of national paper publications |
Fatturato dei servizi (quarterly press release) and Annuario statistico italiano (yearly). |
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10.3 Dissemination format - online database |
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10.4 Dissemination format - microdata access |
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10.5 Dissemination format - other |
| Planned changes in national dissemination methods |
None. |
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10.6 Documentation on methodology |
| Dissemination of documentation on methodology and sources used in preparing statistics |
Short description of the methodology and characteristics of the survey is contained in the technical explanatory note attached to the press release updated regularly.
A description of methodology and sources used in preparing statistics is also contained in the Information System for Survey Documentation and Quality Control (Siqual); it is available on ISTAT's Internet website http://siqual.istat.it/SIQual/welcome.do. This system manages qualitative information related to each single phase of a survey's production process. |
| Description of standard tables produced |
The standard tables contain the quarterly turnover indexes (2010=100, gross data) for the observed Divisions and for Group 45.2 and Groups within the wholesale trade division. Data are provided also in unadjusted and seasonally adjusted form. |
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10.7 Quality management - documentation |
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11. Quality management |
11.1 Quality assurance |
| Summary description of quality criteria calculated for national purposes |
Every questionnaire is checked during data entry; every variable is checked through a comparison with past values according to a coherence criterion. Outlier observations are excluded from calculations and are identified: a) for most of the divisions according to the analysis of individual time series; b) for the other indicators, on the basis of the Hidiroglou-Berthelot method (based on quartiles of the empirical frequency distribution) and a macro-editing technique. |
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11.2 Quality management - assessment |
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12. Relevance |
12.1 Relevance - User Needs |
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12.2 Relevance - User Satisfaction |
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12.3 Completeness |
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13. Accuracy |
13.1 Accuracy - overall |
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13.2 Sampling error |
The sampling error is mesaured in terms of coefficient of variation and is set equal to 3% for all the estimates domain except for division 55 where is equal to 5%. |
13.3 Non-sampling error |
| Response rate |
The response rate for the Divisions 50, 51 and 53 is about 90% for provisional estimates and near to 100% for final estimates. The average response rates for the other activities are around 70% for provisional estimates and 90% for finale estimates. |
| Actions to speed up or increase the rate of response |
Non-responding enterprises are contacted by fax and email reminders; later the most important enterprises in terms of turnover are contacted by telephone. |
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14. Timeliness and punctuality |
14.1 Timeliness |
| Timeliness |
Quarterly press releases are disseminated as provisional 70 days after the end of the reference period. Final data are released 160 days after the end of the reference period.
Data are transmitted to Eurostat 60 days after the end of the reference period as confidential until dissemination in Italy. |
| Timetable of data collection |
The questionnaires are sent to the reporting units at the beginning of the year. The deadline for their replies is three weeks after the end of the reference quarter. The survey data collection is closed definitively about six months after the end of the reference quarter, when final data are released. |
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14.2 Punctuality |
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15. Coherence and comparability |
15.1 Comparability - geographical |
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15.2 Comparability - over time |
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15.3 Coherence - cross domain |
| Dissemination of information that support statistical cross-checks and provide assurance of reasonableness |
None |
| Confrontation with other data sets |
The levels estimated coming from the survey are compared with the annual structural business statistics. |
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15.4 Coherence - internal |
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16. Cost and Burden |
10 persons work at ISTAT on the Services Turnover Index unit . |
17. Data revision |
17.1 Data revision - policy |
Quarterly press releases are disseminated as provisional 70 days after the end of the reference period. Final data are released 160 days after the end of the reference period. |
17.2 Data revision - practice |
| Provision of information about revision and advance notice of major changes in methodology |
The data are provisional at the time of the Press Release in which they are reported. Generally, major changes in methodology, sources and statistical techniques are announced in ad hoc publications.
Advance notification of methodological changes is also provided through seminars and papers disseminated throughout the scientific community. |
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18. Statistical processing |
18.1 Source data |
| Type of source |
The sources are 3 different statistical surveys |
| Frame on which the source is based |
Business register managed and yearly updated by ISTAT (Archivio Statistico delle Imprese Attive ¿ ASIA). |
| Sample or census |
The surveys for Divisions 50, 51 and 53 are carried out on the basis of a non-random sample, selecting the enterprises in order to have a turnover coverage of about 80-90%. For other divisions a stratified sample is extracted. The overall sample size is about 19.000 enterprises. |
| Criteria for stratification |
Two criteria are taken into account: economic activity (Group or Class) and size (number of employees). |
| Threshold values and percentages |
Not available. |
| Frequency of updating the sample |
At the beginning of every year the samples of the surveys are updated to manage panel attrition. A sample rotation of a fixed percentage of respondents is not adopted. |
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18.2 Frequency of data collection |
| Periodicity of data collection |
The data are collected quarterly. |
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18.3 Data collection |
| Questionnaires used in the survey |
A standardised one-page questionnaire is sent to enterprises by postal mail. This covers both turnover and employment variables. |
| Planned changes in national questionnaires |
None. |
| Data collection media |
The media used for the basic data collection from the reporting units are fax and electronic tools (web data capturing). |
| Planned changes in data collection methodology |
None. |
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18.4 Data validation |
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18.5 Data compilation |
| Estimates for non-response |
Non responses are estimated at micro-level by modelling. |
| Estimates for grossing-up to population levels |
The results are grossed up using sample weights applied to each respondent unit in each estimation domain. Weights are given by the inverse of inclusion probabilities, with a correction factor for total non-response. Of course this procedure is applied only for the probabilistic sample surveys. |
| Type of index |
Laspeyres index with fixed base (2010=100). |
| Method of weighting and chaining |
For all indicators a weight system is derived from the structural business statistics for the base year. |
| Planned changes in production methods |
The production of other indicators referring to the sectors not covered. |
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18.6 Adjustment |
| WDA, SA and other calculations |
Seasonally adjusted data are released for the longer series available |
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19. Comment |
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