Official Statistics

Statistics on DIT export support objectives (2019 to 2020)

Published 6 July 2020

1. Purpose

This ad-hoc release covers statistics and metrics related to DIT’s performance and processes in advance of a National Audit Office (NAO) report on DIT and UK Export Finance’s support for exporters. Many of the figures reported in this release will also feature in DIT’s Annual Report and Accounts (ARA), scheduled for publication in July 2020. This release contains information on:

• the value of export wins supported by DIT in the financial year 2019 to 2020
• market access statistics, including the number of barriers recorded, the number of barriers for which impact assessments have been completed and the number of barriers which have been fully or partially resolved
• the response ratio to DIT-published export opportunities
• HR figures detailing internal headcounts for overseas regions, sector cluster and full time equivalent (FTE) on market access analysis, increases in resourcing from EU Exit funding and staff reprioritised in Europe

2. Export wins during financial year 2019 to 2020

An export win is a deal, contract, sale, or other specific type of agreement for an eligible UK company which has resulted from support provided by the DIT network. Export wins are just one of the metrics through which DIT’s objective to promote and provide support to UK exports through a range of products and services, is monitored. This is along with external macroeconomic data and export opportunities.

The final export wins outrun for the 2019 to 2020 financial year was £24.4 billion. This is a decrease of £2.8 billion from the £27.2 billion recorded in the previous financial year.

2.1 Export wins background

An export win is a deal, contract, sale, or other specific type of agreement for an eligible UK company which has resulted from support provided by the DIT network.

During financial years 2016 to 2017 and 2017 to 2018, export wins were the primary measure of export promotion performance and used for setting performance targets. From financial year 2018 to 2019, in line with the evolution of the department, and greater autonomy for our overseas network in delivering their regional trade plans against the full set of DIT objectives, including identifying and reducing barriers to trade and investment, emphasis on performance against export wins alone was reduced.

2.2 Export wins methodology and production

An export win record is created using a digital framework which registers information entered by a lead officer from the DIT network. Lead officers are responsible for the quality and accuracy of the data they enter. Once the win has been entered, the UK customer who received support in exporting is required to confirm the win through a separate online form. A win counts once it has been confirmed by the customer and this must be done within 12 months of the company winning the deal.

2.3 Export wins coherence and comparability

DIT records export deals, contracts, sales or agreements where there has been support provided by our export promotion operations as an export win. Moreover, the metric only captures customers DIT has assisted who have realised a deal, not those DIT has worked with but have not reached a deal.

The metric is a departmental performance measure and does not capture exporting activity on the same basis as measured in official trade statistics. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) both publish exporting data at the UK level. For more information, visit www.ons.gov.uk and www.uktradeinfo.com.

2.4 Export wins accuracy and definitions

An export win is a deal, contract, sale, or other specific type of agreement for an eligible UK company which has resulted from support provided by the DIT network. The export win is self-reported by the UK company and captures the expected value of the win up to a 5-year period.

The export win metric contains some inherent characteristics that will always present challenges in assuring value and data accuracy. The metric relies heavily on the relationships DIT staff have with customers, and the information customers are prepared to share. Values of wins include specific expectations and forecast values up to a 5-year period, these are subjective. Some deals are very complex, involving global supply chains and in-market requirements for local supply or presence and the ask of customers to separate UK export value from others is a distinction that is artificial for them. The information captured, therefore, represents a snapshot at a certain point in time based upon what the customer is willing or able to provide.

The metric has been subject to a review to enhance understanding of the quality and robustness of the data. From financial year 2017 to 2018, new validation processes aimed at delivering a proportionate but systematic validation approach have been introduced. These validation approaches continued through financial year 2019 to 2020 and focussed on wins led by, or contributed to by, DIT teams in the English regions and wins over £50 million. Wins that failed either validation process are amended or deleted from the system. During financial year 2019 to 2020 all wins over £50 million were validated and English regions wins were validated for quarter 1 to quarter 3. Due to coronavirus (COVID-19) quarter 4 English regions validation was cancelled to reduce the burden on business in the first weeks of the pandemic in the UK. However, we do not believe this will have had a material impact on the reported figures.

3. Digital Market Access Service (DMAS)

In the financial year 2019 to 2020, DIT recorded 1,238 barriers, of which 175 (14%) had been fully or partially resolved by 31 March 2020. DIT completed economic assessments on 465 barriers to help it prioritise which barriers to tackle. Please note that the number of barriers reported in financial year 2019 to 2020 which have completed economic assessments is not available – this figure represents the total number of economic assessments completed between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2020 and will include barriers reported prior to financial year 2019 to 2020.

3.1 DMAS methodology and production

The Digital Market Access Service (DMAS) is a digital platform used to record information on barriers UK businesses face when exporting to and investing in overseas markets. DMAS is used by officials across HMG to collaborate in capturing, assessing, tracking and attempting to resolve selected barriers. Barriers are added to DMAS by government officials, usually based in overseas posts. Businesses can also notify DIT of barriers they face using the online ‘Report a Trade Barrier’ service on great.gov.uk.

Once barriers have been added to DMAS they are assessed according to a number of factors which consider the economic importance and resolvability of the barrier, as well as wider strategic considerations.

Entries onto DMAS are regularly updated with progress updates and additional information relevant to the specific barrier to allow registered users across domains to track and update.

Status indicators are used to provide a broad indication of the latest position with the specific barrier identified, including marking it as resolved when the issue has been addressed.

3.2 DMAS coherence and comparability

Barrier entries on DMAS are a good means to understand the range and nature of specific obstacles faced by UK firms in exporting to a particular country. However, they are not representative or designed to be a comprehensive measure of all barriers that may restrict UK exports to or investment in that country. As the system matures it will become an increasingly comprehensive repository of known barriers. However, there are a vast range of regulatory and legislative practices and processes that govern exporting to any country. DMAS serves to capture and assist the active resolution of barriers where there is a clear report or expectation of a restrictive or prohibitive effect.

Aggregate measures such as the number of barriers, provisional ratings of barriers and counts of resolved barriers can nevertheless provide a valuable indication for performance analysis purposes on the efficacy of market access activity through suggesting, broadly, the extent to which reported barriers have been addressed across countries and their significance as interpreted by overseas Posts. However, it is not reasonable to draw conclusions about wider impacts from considering these aggregate measures alone. Additional quantitative and qualitative analyses, including of specific barriers, are required to develop more definitive and broader conclusions – the methodology for doing so is currently being reviewed.

3.3 DMAS accuracy and definitions

Market access activity is defined as that which aims to reduce individual tariff barriers, non-tariff barriers and ODI (outward direct investment) restrictions which impede the ability of all firms to trade and invest effectively. This essentially means any legal, regulatory or administrative barriers caused by another government or regulator that can get in the way of a business exporting or investing overseas.

A wide range of rules, practices and processes can infringe, restrict or prohibit a firm’s ability to export to or invest in a particular country and increase the cost of doing so. Many of these ‘infringements’ do not have trade restriction or market protection as a primary purpose. Individual businesses also face specific issues when exporting or investing overseas. Sometimes these relate to practices or information specific to their individual case, while in other cases they stem from a more systemic barrier which could affect a range of UK companies. DMAS contains entries of each type, although the activity required to resolve each or the potential disruptive/restrictive effect of each will vary. Results are reported at an aggregate level.

Resolved barriers are identified according to the status field on DMAS. This is updated by the market access team to signify whether activity has been completed to reduce or remove the identified barrier. Barrier statuses are not routinely verified, as DMAS is an operational system.

To enable a reasonable allocation of resources and effort to tackle the most significant issues, barriers are assessed according to a range of considerations including resolvability, economic importance and wider strategic factors.

4. Response ratio to DIT published export opportunities

The number of businesses responding to export opportunities that DIT published online was 2.39, as an annual average for 2019, down from an average of 2.97 responses per published opportunity in 2018.

4.1 DIT export opportunities methodology and production

DIT provides a service to businesses whereby export opportunities are published online. Export metrics are tracked through an administrative page. ‘Published opportunities’ relate to the number of export opportunities that have been posted on the service by DIT and ‘enquiries submitted’ relates to the number of times a user of this service has clicked ‘submit’ to enquire about an export opportunity. The admin page is updated automatically every time an export opportunity is uploaded or a user clicks submit to enquire about an export opportunity. Enquiries for DIT published opportunities are collected so that civil servant users can respond to expressions of interest in the opportunities.

Published opportunities can be DIT sourced or provided by third parties. The response ratio does not include opportunities provided by third parties. Over time the number of opportunities published has increased overall, with the majority coming from third parties. As a consequence, the response ratio has dropped mostly due to a parallel fall in DIT sourced opportunities.

5. HR data

DIT has an overseas network of more than 1,400 staff. The following table reports the number of DIT staff (headcount) by region and employee type as at 31 March 2020.

Region	UK-based staff	Local staff	Local staff (intern)
Africa	21	81	0
Asia Pacific	29	191	1
China and Hong Kong	23	156	0
Eastern Europe and Central Asia	10	62	0
Europe	15	294	5
Latin America and the Caribbean	13	129	37
Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan	24	91	0
North America	5	145	11
South Asia	18	102	0

Notes:

1. UK-based staff are civil servants working overseas employed by DIT.
2. Local staff are employed locally by the embassy.
3. Local interns are employed locally by the embassy on a short-term basis.

DIT has 6 over-arching sector clusters to provide advice and support. The following table shows headcount figures for each of these sector clusters.

Sector	Civil servants	Specialists
Creative, lifestyle and learning	55	17
Defence and security	96	31
Energy and infrastructure	51	21
Financial and professional services	22	7
Healthcare, life sciences and bio-economy	60	25
Technology, entrepreneurship and advanced manufacturing	53	31

Notes: Headcount data as at March 2020 includes civil servants working in the UK and on DIT payroll, staff on loan to DIT from other government departments but who remain on their home departments payroll, contractors, people on secondment from other organisations, UK based civil servants paid via FCO payroll and locally employed staff working overseas and who are currently engaged in delivering DIT objectives.

DIT has re-prioritised its activity in the Europe region, making changes to the roles of nearly 20% of staff UKEF has developed online training on export finance to help DIT staff better understand its products. By March 2020, 503 DIT staff had enrolled and 154 (31%) had completed the training.

6. Further details

The UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT) has overall responsibility for promoting UK trade across the world and attracting foreign investment to our economy. We are a specialised government body with responsibility for negotiating international trade policy, supporting business, as well as delivering an outward-looking trade diplomacy strategy.

This publication was produced by the Statistics and Data Science Team, if you have any enquiries about the content please contact Daniel Ainsley at statistics@trade.gov.uk

6.1 Disclaimer

Whereas every effort has been made to ensure that the information in this document is accurate the Department for International Trade does not accept liability for any errors, omissions or misleading statements, and no warranty is given or responsibility accepted as to the standing of any individual, firm, company or other organisation mentioned.