Reducing the effort of doing business
with Statistics New Zealand
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Citation
Statistics New Zealand (2014). Reducing the effort of doing business with Statistics New
Zealand. Available from www.stats.govt.nz.
ISBN 978-0-478-42932-9 (online)
Published in September 2014 by
Statistics New Zealand
Tatauranga Aotearoa
Wellington, New Zealand
Contact
Statistics New Zealand Information Centre: [email protected]
Phone toll-free 0508 525 525
Phone international +64 4 931 4610
www.stats.govt.nz
Contents
List of tables and figures ................................................................................................... 4
Reducing the effort of doing business with Statistics New Zealand........................... 5
Purpose............................................................................................................................ 5
Summary.......................................................................................................................... 5
Better Public Services programme provides context ...................................................... 5
Current situation for contact with businesses .................................................................. 5
Lessening respondent load at Statistics NZ .................................................................... 6
Progress towards lessening the load on businesses ...................................................... 7
Future initiatives to continue to reduce respondent load .............................................. 10
References..................................................................................................................... 12
Appendix – additional information and definitions ...................................................... 12
3
List of tables and figures
List of tables
1. Percentage reduction in number of businesses surveyed .......................................... 8
2. Percentage reduction in total time taken / anticipated to complete Statistics NZ
business surveys ............................................................................................................. 9
3. Proportions of businesses, by size ............................................................................ 12
List of figures
1. Number of businesses surveyed and estimated total businesses, 2002 to 2021 ....... 8
2. Businesses surveyed as a percentage of total businesses ........................................ 8
3. Aggregate time taken and number of businesses surveyed ..................................... 10
4. Average hours per business to complete all surveys ................................................ 10
5. Percentage of businesses surveyed, by size ............................................................ 13
6. Proportion each business size makes up of all businesses surveyed ...................... 13
4
Reducing the effort of doing business with
Statistics New Zealand
Purpose
This paper provides information on Statistics NZ’s achievements for reducing the cost
and effort to business of participating in our surveys, and our future plans.
Summary
We have already been successful in reducing the respondent load on New Zealand
businesses over the last decade, reducing the number of businesses surveyed by 51
percent between 2002 and 2012.
 Our ability to make further load reductions in the future is diminished due to
significant gains already made. However, we forecast that the number of
businesses surveyed will reduce by a further 25 percent between 2012 and 2021
and the overall time taken will reduce by 33 percent over the same period.
 We will contribute a share to the Better Public Services for Business: Result 9
target of a 25 percent reduction in the cost of doing business with government by
2017.
 We will focus future effort on improving the respondent experience for the
businesses that we still need to survey.
Better Public Services programme provides context
The government-wide Better Public Services programme was announced in March 2012.
It aims, within tight financial constraints, to provide New Zealanders with services that
better meet their needs. Theme 5 of the programme is ‘improving interaction with
government’.
In March 2012, Cabinet approved the Better Public Services for Business Result 9 Action
Plan, outlining how government agencies will improve the way they interact with New
Zealand businesses. The plan set two targets for the improvements to achieve:
 Cut the cost of dealing with government by 25 percent by reducing the effort
required to work with agencies by 2017.
 Government services to business to have similar key performance ratings as
leading private sector firms by 2017.
Result 9 has a close association with Better Public Services Result 10: Digital by Default
and the All-of-Government ICT Strategy and Roadmap.
Customer insight research done by the Result 9 team indicated that Statistics NZ is
number 4 of the top 5 agencies interacted with, at 33 percent of contacts. Inland Revenue
(95 percent), ACC (81 percent), and NZ Transport Agency (41 percent) are ahead, with
the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment having 28 percent of the contacts.
However, Statistics NZ was not in the top 5 agencies with the highest compliance costs.
Current situation for contact with businesses
We define respondent load as “The effort, in terms of time and cost, required for
respondents to provide satisfactory answers to a survey”. This equates to the concept of
‘compliance cost’ used within other government agencies.
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Reducing the effort of doing business with Statistics New Zealand
At Statistics NZ, we face a significant challenge to balance the needs of customers
against those of respondents. Finding this balance is increasingly difficult as evidencebased policy development requires more and more information about businesses and
individuals, information that is currently gathered by surveying. This burden of surveying,
along with busier lifestyles and more competitive business practices, means the value
exchange associated with people giving up time or money to provide information is no
longer readily accepted.
A 2013 Research New Zealand survey of businesses on the effort required of them in
dealing with government agencies found that 33 percent had contact with Statistics NZ
during the last 12 months (contact includes seeking help or to complain). This differs from
our figures, which indicate that only 18 percent of all New Zealand businesses received a
statistical survey.
Of the surveyed businesses that had contact with us, the majority (76 percent) rated the
effort at either low or medium level. The majority (78 percent) also only had to interact
once to complete the interaction.
The February 2014 results of the Kiwis Count Survey showed we achieved a significant
increase in perceived service quality in the June 2013 quarter, and maintained this into
the September quarter. However, it is important to note that the Kiwis Count Survey
contacts individuals as individuals, so includes interactions on social surveys, while the
Research New Zealand survey only contacted representatives of businesses.
Lessening respondent load at Statistics NZ
In 2002 Statistics NZ introduced initiatives to reduce respondent load, and adopted a
more formal Respondent Load Strategy in 2008. The aim of the strategy was to:
 reduce respondent load
 balance the needs of users against those of respondents
 meet respondents' reasonable expectations of Statistics NZ
 responsibly manage the Official Statistics System (OSS) to ensure the ongoing
trust and participation of the New Zealand public
 promote the value exchange of the supply of data.
We also established the Respondent Advocate role in 2008. The advocate’s annual
report, tabled with the Government Statistician’s, covers all aspects of interactions with
respondents.
Focus on respondent experience
While we continue to attempt to lessen respondent load, we have also recognised the
need to take a broader approach to interactions with respondents, and to consider the
entire respondent experience.
In 2011, we published a Collections Strategy for 2010–20. It acknowledged various
internal and external challenges to sustaining our collections and cited, as the strategy’s
first theme, “improving the respondent experience”.
Respondent experience refers to the perceptions, feelings, and reactions a person has to
completing our surveys. Their experience is important as it affects both their willingness
to comply with our requests for data and their perception of how onerous it is to do so.
Highlighting this in the Collections Strategy acknowledged we would only improve
respondents’ experience by significantly addressing the reasons behind reluctance to
comply.
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Reducing the effort of doing business with Statistics New Zealand
The resultant Respondent Experience Strategy (2013) built on the Collections Strategy,
and replaced the 2008 Respondent Load Strategy while incorporating many of its
elements. It supports:
 the transformation sought through our organisational change programme –
Statistics 2020 Te Kāpehu Whetū
 our leadership of the OSS, through how we engage with and support respondents
and other data suppliers across the OSS
 improved interaction with government for businesses and individuals (key results
sought through the Better Public Services programme)
 maintenance of public trust and confidence in how we manage respondent
information.
Administrative data first
The strategy recognises that surveys will continue to be a key part of our collection
activities, so a focus on respondents is important, but it also strongly supports the
corporate direction to use administrative data first. This approach aims to make better
use of existing data sources (admin data), reduce the number of questions asked in
surveys, and to use surveys only to fill any gaps.
Help for large businesses
In 2013 we adopted the Large Unit Initiative, which aims to reduce the burden on large
businesses by working one-to-one with them to address the survey burden.
It is still too early to measure the impact this initiative will have on the overall level of
respondent burden.
Progress towards lessening the load on businesses
Number surveyed falls
Figure 1 shows the total number of businesses we surveyed each year declined from
about 268,000 in 2002 to about 131,000 in 2012, a decrease of about 51 percent.
The spikes in 2002, 2007, and 2012 are due to the Agricultural Production Census being
undertaken, and the lack of a dip in 2005/06 is due to a new survey being introduced –
the Business Operations Survey. We predict a further reduction in the number of
businesses surveyed by 2021 (down about 64,000, or 25 percent since 2012 and 76
percent since 2002).
Figure 2 shows the number of businesses surveyed as a percentage of the estimated
total number of businesses, while table 1 shows the percentage reduction over two time
periods.
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Reducing the effort of doing business with Statistics New Zealand
Table 1
Percentage reduction in number of businesses surveyed
2012 and 2012
1. Percentage reduction in number of businesses surveyed
Year
Businesses
surveyed
Percent
Reduction from
Reduction from
2002
2012
Percent
2002
62
…
…
2012
49
51
…
2021
24
76
25
Symbol: … not applicable
Figure 1
1. Number of businesses surveyed and estimated total businesses, 2002 to 2021
Number of businesses surveyed and estimated total
businesses
(actual 2002–12, projected 2013–21)
Number of businesses (000)
60
50
40
30
20
10
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
No. businesses surveyed
Projected no. businesses to be surveyed
Total no. businesses
Projected total no. businesses
Source: Statistics New Zealand
Figure 2
2. Businesses surveyed as a percentage of total businesses
Businesses surveyed as a percentage of total businesses
(actual 2002–12, projected 2013–21)
70
Percent
60
Actual
50
Projected
40
30
20
10
0
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Source: Statistics New Zealand
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Reducing the effort of doing business with Statistics New Zealand
Time to complete surveys varies
Figure 3 shows that the total time for all businesses to complete their surveys fell 22
percent – from about 170,000 hours in 2002 to about 130,000 hours in 2012 (no 2013
data is available at the time of writing). We project a further reduction to about 88,000
hours in 2021, down another 33 percent from 2012.
Table 2 shows the percentage reductions over two time periods.
Table 2
Percentage reduction in total time taken / anticipated to complete Statistics NZ
business surveys
2012 and 2021
2. Percentage reduction in total time taken / anticipated to complete Statistics NZ business surveys
Year
Total hours to
complete survey
Reduction from
Reduction from
2002
2012
Percent
2002
170,000
…
…
2012
131,000
22
…
2021
88,000
48
33
Symbol: … not applicable
Between 2002 and 2012, the average time to complete a survey (see figure 4) increased
from about 38 to about 60 minutes, up about 58 percent.
This increase indicates the situation is reasonably complex and that a number of factors
are interacting. While the total number of businesses surveyed has declined, due to the
use of more administrative data, the main beneficiaries of this change have been small to
medium-sized businesses (see appendix for definitions). The number of large businesses
surveyed has not declined as steeply, which led to the Large Unit Initiative mentioned
earlier.
Collection Operations internal data indicates that large businesses require proportionally
more time to complete surveys than small and medium-sized businesses. However, this
varies and frequency of survey has a major impact (eg the accommodation survey is
monthly). While it looked like large businesses’ load had increased, detailed analysis
found this was not the case.
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Reducing the effort of doing business with Statistics New Zealand
Figure 3
3. Aggregate time taken and number of businesses surveyed
Figure 4
4. Average hours per business to complete all surveys
Identifying businesses with high respondent load
In 2009, we began monitoring how many surveys an individual business received during
a year and took active steps to avoid any particular business being overloaded. In 2011,
we identified 68 businesses and gave full or partial relief from one or more surveys to 52
of these. Since July 2009, we have provided this relief to 361 businesses.
Future initiatives to continue to reduce respondent load
Figure 4’s forecasts of future respondent load levels indicate the steep decline of the last
10 years will not continue. Not all data required for our outputs can be obtained solely
from administrative data, and there is a ‘base’ level of surveying that we require to
maintain accurate and credible national economic statistics.
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Reducing the effort of doing business with Statistics New Zealand
More action planned
We intend to continue to address both the load we place on respondents and the
experience they have of our requests. By increasing the value exchange of interacting
with us and improving the respondent’s experience, we can reduce the extent to which
they feel burdened by our requests.
The Respondent Experience Strategy describes how we will achieve this by focusing on
five themes:
 advocacy (advocating for respondent rights)
 compliance (adopting a fit-for-purpose approach to compliance)
 get people on board (building the value proposition of participation)
 make it easy (reducing what we ask for, and making it easier to do what we ask)
 high quality and tailored communications (built on good relationship management).
Possible ways to do this are to:
 ensure the ‘respondent experience’ is considered alongside cost, quality, and
timeliness when corporate decisions are made
 learn from compliance models and approaches used by other organisations (eg
Inland Revenue and other national statistics offices)
 train and empower front-line staff to communicate about the use and value of the
collection (and our other activities)
 continue to minimise burden across government by sharing sample frames.
 ask for existing data that people (especially businesses) can supply easily (ie
'found' data)
 better accommodate people’s communication preferences through:
o being responsive to tikanga (and other culturally appropriate behaviour)
o using languages other than English, particularly te reo
o offering different modes or media (eg Internet, audio for people with reading
difficulty) while guiding people towards the most efficient options.
Service quality measures
Currently Statistics NZ does not specifically measure service quality, but we use the data
gathered from other sources (eg Kiwis Count Survey). We are working (and represented
on) the Target and Measures Experts Group with the Better Public Services for Business:
Result Area 9, which is investigating such measures.
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Reducing the effort of doing business with Statistics New Zealand
References
Research New Zealand (September 2013). Better Public Services for Business Result 9:
effort required in dealing with government agencies: baseline 2013 (unpublished
document).
State Services Commission (March 2014). Kiwis Count Survey.
Statistics NZ (2012, 2013). Annual report of the Respondent Advocate to the Government
Statistician (unpublished document).
Statistics NZ (2013). Collection Operations quarterly reports (unpublished documents).
Statistics NZ (2013). Respondent Experience Strategy 2013 (unpublished document).
Statistics NZ (2008). Respondent Load Strategy for Statistics New Zealand. Available
from www.stats.govt.nz
Appendix – additional information and definitions
Table 3
Proportions of businesses(1)
By size (February 2013)
3. Proportions of businesses, by size
Rolling mean
employment
Annual GST(3)
Small
0–5
$0 to $1.115 million
Proportion of
businesses
(percent)
86.0
Medium
6–19
$1.115 > $4.929 million
10.5
Large
20–99
$4.929 > $39.4 million
3.0
Very large
100+
$39.4 million +
0.6
Business size
(2)
1. Includes all enterprises eligible for selection into surveys at some time in a year.
2. RME and GST provide two separate measures of business size. We use the measure that results in
the larger business size to assign size. For example, one with 3 employees and $2 million annual GST
would be a medium-sized business.
3. Based on data for 2011 calendar year. GST strata are adjusted annually to ensure they correlate with
RME strata, which are fixed. Note: Annual Enterprise Survey and IR10 income data are also used for
determining size in financial sector businesses (Division K); GST and RME are not always the best
indicators for these businesses.
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Reducing the effort of doing business with Statistics New Zealand
Figure 5
5. Percentage of businesses surveyed, by size
Figure 6
6. Proportion each business size makes up of all businesses surveyed
Figure 6 shows that small and medium-sized businesses made up 94 percent of all
businesses that Statistics NZ surveyed in 2002.
In 2012 these businesses made up 89 percent and in 2017 they are projected to make up
87 percent. The proportions are higher than for other years because we ran, or will run, a
census for the Agriculture Production Survey in these years. However, in 2018 when a
sample is run for this survey, small and medium-sized businesses will still make up 81
percent of businesses that we survey.
13