Accuracy and reliability

Overall accuracy

For a few single units, the lack of references may imply that economic and employment data are not correctly linked. Attempts are made to remedy this problem by subjecting, especially the largest enterprises to a manual check and data editing. In the case of enterprises with employees, the data on where the employees have been in employment during the course of a year are applied, as an overall shift of workplace for several employees may imply that an activity has been transferred to another enterprise.

The rate of coverage is almost 100 per cent for all enterprises which are obliged to register according to the Danish tax and customs legislation or the business legislation. Units, which might have been engaged in a major financial activity, but are not obliged to register according to the Danish VAT legislation and have no employees, are in a few single cases not recorded on the Central Business Register, and are consequently excluded from the Statistics on business demography.

Sampling error

Not relevant for this statistics.

Non-sampling error

The uncertainty associated with the statistics is related to the mechanical and manual processing of special employment information that attempts to eliminate companies that are not really new in the corporate structure, but have only arisen or ceased as a result of demographic events such as acquisitions or split-offs.

Quality management

Statistics Denmark follows the recommendations on organisation and management of quality given in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and the implementation guidelines given in the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF). A Working Group on Quality and a central quality assurance function have been established to continuously carry through control of products and processes.

Quality assurance

Statistics Denmark follows the principles in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and uses the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF) for the implementation of the principles. This involves continuous decentralized and central control of products and processes based on documentation following international standards. The central quality assurance function reports to the Working Group on Quality. Reports include suggestions for improvement that are assessed, decided and subsequently implemented.

Quality assessment

The uncertainty associated with the Business Demographic statistics is associated with the references between the entities which mainly comes from T & S's Business System, and lack of knowledge of the transfer of activity from one company to another, including the separation of activity. Failure to do so can result in economic and employment data are not correctly linked to the individual units. The problem is being tackled by subjecting, especially the largest firms, to a manual control and error recovery. For businesses with employees, the knowledge on where the employees have been employed during the year. A large shift of employees can mean the transfer of activity to another unit.

Data revision - policy

Statistics Denmark revises published figures in accordance with the Revision Policy for Statistics Denmark. The common procedures and principles of the Revision Policy are for some statistics supplemented by a specific revision practice.

Data revision practice

The number of deaths is revised annually for the preceding period, when the number of re-activations are known.