Description:
The indicator measures the share of high growth enterprises in the VAT/PAYE registered private sector registered enterprise population. The figure includes all private sector registered enterprises that operate in Scotland regardless of where the enterprise is based.
Source of Data:
The Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) provides the number of enterprises registered for Value Added Tax (VAT) and/or Pay As You Earn (PAYE) in Scotland. An IDBR extract from March each year is taken to derive the count of registered enterprises operating in Scotland.
Definitions:
For the indicator we have defined a high growth enterprise (or business) as an enterprise with 10+ employees in the base year (x-3) exhibiting an average of 20% growth over three years in terms of turnover. In practice, average annualised growth of 20% per annum over three years would be equal to 72.8% growth from year x-3 to year x.
Note that there are lags associated with the turnover data used to measure high growth. For example, although the source of the latest data point is an extract of the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) as at March 2023, the underlying business turnover data will largely be from 2021.
An enterprise is the term used to refer to a company or business. A large supermarket chain is considered to be one 'enterprise'. Each individual store that forms part of this supermarket chain is known as a 'business site'.
Private sector enterprises are companies, sole traders, partnerships, public corporations/nationalised bodies and not for profit organisations. This is distinct from central and local government.
An enterprise is considered to be operating in Scotland if it has a business site in Scotland regardless of where the enterprise is based or registered.
Criteria for Change:
The evaluation is based on:
- any difference within +/- 0.1 percentage points suggests that the position is more likely to be maintaining than showing any change.
- an increase of 0.1 percentage points or more suggests the position is improving;
- whereas a decrease of 0.1 percentage points or more suggests the position is worsening.