1. CSO priority focus areas An ESRI perspective Stefanie Haller Economic and Social Research Institute 24 May 2011

2. Desirable information not currently collected Information on finance – Financial services sector – cooperate with Central Bank – Corporate finance, i.e. debt/equity Employment, education/skills and workplace practises – Hours for part-time and full-time staff – Share of high-skilled employees (e.g. with 3 rd level degree) Inward and outward direct investment, trade – Shares of foreign ownership, origin of owners – Regular coverage of outward FDI – Intra-firm trade with affiliates abroad – Trade in sevices

3. Specific items Collect information on – whether person worked abroad (country) in NES – size of business premises (m 2 ) in ASI – public and private grants to firms – R&D expenditure and R&D personnel from all firms Gate-keeping question in CIS introduces selection bias

4. Data attributes and collection Continue lobbying for a unique business identifier, meanwhile ensure CSO data sets can be linked Work on making all survey information available at NUTS 3-digit level at least Geocoding for firms or ED codes that are consistent across CSO Consult with affected users before discontinuing series Retain and store all collected information

5. Presentation and publication of data Make data available at most disaggregate level possible Ensure NACE disaggregation is as consistent as possible over time Ensure tables retain similar format over time Preserve revisions to historical data Keep all published data and supplementary material in public domain

6. Reducing statistical burden Exploit synergies across CSO datasets e.g. could possibly eliminate questions on trade in CIP if external trade data were used Retain a survey element for cross-checking when replacing census/survey information with administrative data Ensure that highest quality data sets in state are preserved Feed back aggregate data to the reporting firms