6 Statistics
(32414)
5053/11
+ ADDs 1-26
COM(10) 774
| Draft Regulation on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union (Text with EEA relevance)
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Legal base | Article 338 TFEU; co-decision; QMV
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Document originated | 20 December 2010
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Deposited in Parliament | 11 January 2011
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Department | Office for National Statistics
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Basis of consideration | EM of 20 January 2011
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Previous Committee Report | None
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Discussion in Council | Not known
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Committee's assessment | Politically important
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Committee's decision | Not cleared; further information requested
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Background
6.1 Each Member State's National Accounts and Regional Accounts
are compiled in line with definitions, accounting rules and classifications
as laid out by the European System of Accounts, ESA 1995, established
by Regulation (EC) No 2223/96. The ESA 1995 system was set up
to meet the requirements of the economic, social and regional
policy of the EU. And it allows monitoring of the economies of
the Member States and of the economic and monetary union, through
the use of comparable, up-to-date and reliable information on
the structure and developments in the economic situation of each
Member State or region.
The document
6.2 This draft Regulation is to revise the existing EU guidelines
for producing National Accounts and Regional Accounts to reflect
the new economic environment, advances in methodological research
and needs of users. The proposal is to embody an updated European
System of Accounts, ESA 2010, revising ESA 1995 to reflect changes
since 1995. ESA 2010 follows on from a revised International System
of National Accounts, SNA 2008, published in 2009 by the IMF,
the OECD, the UN Statistical Division, the World Bank and Eurostat.
It reflects developments such as new industries and products,
the impact of globalisation and the expansion of financial services.
6.3 The revision of the European System of Accounts
has been discussed in several groups:
- a steering group of Directors
of National Accounts;
- an ESA 95 Revision Group, addressing issues of
common interest, alongside the National Accounts Working Group
and Financial Accounts Working Group;
- regular reporting to the European Statistical
System Committee (representative of Member States' National Statistical
Institutes) and the Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance
of Payments Statistics (senior statisticians of the National Statistical
Institutes and central banks of Member States and the other members
of the European Economic Area); and
- Commission Directorates General.
Representatives from the National Statistical Institute
and/or the central bank from each Member State have been involved
in the various fora as appropriate. Both the Office for National
Statistics and the Bank of England have taken a full part in appropriate
meetings and discussions, as well as providing papers to help
resolve methodological issues.
6.4 The draft Regulation has an annex providing
a methodology on common standards, definitions, classifications
and accounting rules. The annex has 24 chapters, dealing with
overarching points, such as "general features and basic principles"
(Chapter 1) or "quarterly national accounts" (Chapter
12), and a range of more detailed matters, such as "distributive
transactions" (Chapter 4) or "contracts, leases and
licences" (Chapter 15). A second annex sets out the programme
required from Member States for transmitting for EU purposes the
accounts, data and tables compiled according to the methodology
to specified deadlines.
6.5 The draft Regulation:
- would be extended to the European
Economic Area;
- is expected to be implemented by Member States
by September 2014 ESA 2010 will gradually replace all
other systems as a reference framework of common standards, classifications
and accounting rules for drawing up accounts of the Member States,
so that results are comparable between Member States; and
- would empower the Commission to adopt delegated
acts for the purposes of amending the two annexes the
Commission would carry out appropriate consultations during its
preparatory work, including at expert level.
In connection with delegated acts various matters
have already been identified:
- a task force has been set up
to examine further the treatment of financial intermediation services
indirectly measured (that is, measuring banks' activity covering
interest paid or received on loans and deposits);
- capitalisation of research and development expenditure,
including a test exercise to establish the reliability of the
data; and
- various studies and work, including the development
of a more comprehensive measurement approach for wellbeing.
The Government's view
6.6 The Minister for the Cabinet Office (Mr Francis
Maude) says that the Government is content with the proposal,
that there are no direct changes to policy but that many of the
economic data series feeding into analyses used to either support
establishing new policy or amend existing policy will change.
6.7 The Minister also says that:
- the financial implications
of meeting the requirements of the draft Regulation will be met
from within the Office for National Statistics resource budget;
- the Office for National Statistics has commenced
work on assessing the impact, developing strategies and a programme
of work including resource requirements to meet the proposed implementation
date of September 2014;
- the impact of this proposal will affect a range
of economic statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics
covering the National Accounts, Regional Accounts, Balance of
Payments, Public Sector Finance, Environmental Accounts;
- given the integrated and centralised manner in
which many economic statistics are produced by the Office for
National Statistics, this change will form a major programme of
work;
- the impact of data changes will affect Office
for National Statistics customers and suppliers including other
government departments, which the Office will reflect as part
of the work programme;
- there are no direct costs on business or the
third sector resulting from the proposal; and
- there will, however, be changes to the data collected
via Office for National Statistics business surveys which may
have an impact on the burden on business in terms of data needed
the Office will be seeking to implement any changes without
increasing the compliance burden.
Conclusion
6.8 This draft Regulation clearly heralds
a significant change for the EU's statistical system. We note
that the Office for National Statistics and the Bank of England
have been involved in the development of the revised European
System of Accounts and that the Government is content with the
draft Regulation. Nevertheless, we wish to be sure that the proposal
remains acceptable during the process of its negotiation. Therefore
we should like a progress report on the negotiations in six months
time. Meanwhile the document remains under scrutiny.
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