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.

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.