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Regional Accounts - Frequently Asked Questions

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Some common questions regarding the South West Regional Accounts are answered below. If your question is not listed, or you require further help, please refer to the ECON|i Assistant.  This can be found in ECON|i under 'Accessories' or by clicking the question mark on the toolbar at the top of the page. 

If you still have questions, please contact the Economy Module.

DATA
ONS Regional Accounts exclude certain production activities (such as off-shore oil and gas extraction).  These activities are included in the SW Regional Accounts and, generally, the effect is to lower SW productivity in relation to that of other GB regions.  Regional Accounts and ONS GVA data will also differ because of the different sources and methods used in their construction.  The Regional Accounts attempt to provide estimates which (where appropriate) can be traced to ABI/2.  ONS Regional Accounts use a range of methods such as scaling to UK totals, averaging between years and subjective judgment which are not applied within the SWRAs.  The ECON|i Assistant contains further information on data sources and methods.
Annual Business Inquiry (ABI) employment estimates available on NOMIS only relate to employees in employment.   They do not include self-employment and exclude some employment such as military personnel and, below Government Office level, agricultural employees.  The SW Regional Accounts includes estimates of these workers.  Additionally, whilst the NOMIS figure is a headcount, the SW Regional Accounts figures are expressed as Full-time Equivalents (FTEs).  The FTE is calculated based upon the number of hours full- and part-time workers work in each different industry.  The SW Regional Accounts estimates are therefore a more complete picture of the labour input in each industry. The ECON|i Assistant contains further information on data sources and methods.
For some industries within the Annual Business Inquiry/ 2 (ABI/2), the GVA estimate is either incomplete or inappropriate – the main industries this affects are those with some public sector activity and the property sectors.   Sub-regional GVA may be different to some of the ABI estimates because, in order to avoid disclosure issues, it is obtained at a level of aggregation higher than the Regional Accounts SIC scheme.  It is then shared out to the more detailed Regional Accounts industries.
Negative GVA typically indicates that an industry has sustained a significant loss during the year in question.  The impact model is constructed on the assumption that the observed patterns within the accounts of the given year will exist in the future.  Hence, expanding a loss-making industry would create losses and it is therefore possible for multipliers to be negative.  The negative multiplier may not be desirable/appropriate to use in impact analysis, given that losses are probably short-term whereas the multiplier is a long-run concept.  In such circumstances, the analyst could form a view of the positive value of the multiplier by looking at similar industries and/or similar geographies.
The multipliers and the impact model come from what is known as a ‘type 2’ specification.  This means that household income and spending is part of the multiplier process.  The impacts show the direct effect on the industry, the first round effects show the effect upon immediate suppliers, the indirect effects show the impact on the remainder of the supply chain and the induced effects show household income-expenditure effects.   The ECON|i Assistant (under Accessories on the ECON|i menu) contains a technical discussion of input-output methodologies and provides some numerical examples.
The sub-regional multipliers reflect: direct effects upon the industry; effects on the industry’s direct suppliers in the sub-region; effects upon suppliers of suppliers within the sub-region; effects of additional household spending in the sub-region.

The multipliers are presented in three different forms: the traditional output multiplier; the traditional employment multiplier; a GVA multiplier which shows the total GVA generated per 100 FTE workers created directly in the industry.

The following points should be noted:

  • ‘Output’ refers to gross output at basic prices and is different from the concepts of ‘sales’ or ‘turnover’.  One of the principal differences in between these concepts is that output excludes the cost of goods or services which are resold without processing (e.g. cost of goods for retail sale).

  • GVA is given in the prices of the base year.

  • The employment multiplier has been calculated using full-time equivalent (FTE) workers, where the term ‘worker’ includes employees and the self-employed.

  • The multipliers are not calculated from primary data and therefore give only a rough guide as to the likely size of industry multipliers in each sub-region.

  • A multiplier of zero indicates no presence of that industry in that sub-region

The sub-regional multipliers are derived from the South West impact model.   An additional allowance is made from the SW impact model for greater import leakage at a sub-regional level and hence the multipliers are typically lower than their South West counterparts.  The import adjustments are applied to each supplying industry within each sub-region and reflect: the nature of the industry’s product(s); the availability of supply from the industry within the sub-region; the size and geographical location of the sub-region.  In addition, multipliers are calculated using the specific industry GVA and FTE in each sub-region and therefore reflect differences in productivity between the SW and the sub-regions.

A table within the ECON|i Assistant (under 'Accessories' or ‘?’ on the toolbar) gives this breakdown for the main industries and also for the Priority Sectors.
There is no GVA data from the Regional Accounts project below the 3 digit SIC level.  However, some unpublished data may be available.  Please send details of your request to escr@economicsystems.co.uk.
TECHNICAL
You can download the installation program from the Software Download page of this website.  You may need to contact your IT team in order to allow the file through your security system; you will also need administrator rights on your computer in order to install the program.  Once you have downloaded the file, open the folder and double-click or run the file Setup.exe
This bug may occur on some systems when the software is first executed.  As a workaround to the problem, go to the ECON|i program folder – this is usually on your C drive under Program Files.  In the sub-folder ‘Spreadsheets’ delete the 4 or 5 files that begin ‘SWAccounts’ and restart the software.  The program should update without error from now on.