DCMS Coronavirus Impact Business Survey - Round 2
Survey data on how DCMS Sectors are responding to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Documents
Details
These are the key findings from the second of three rounds of the DCMS Coronavirus Business Survey. These surveys are being conducted to help DCMS understand how our sectors are responding to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. The data collected is not longitudinal as responses are voluntary, meaning that businesses have no obligation to complete multiple rounds of the survey and businesses that did not submit a response to one round are not excluded from response collection in following rounds.
The indicators and analysis presented in this bulletin are based on responses from the voluntary business survey, which captures organisations responses on how their turnover, costs, workforce and resilience have been affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The results presented in this release are based on 3,870 completed responses collected between 17 August and 8 September 2020.
1. Experimental Statistics
This is the first time we have published these results as Official Statistics. An earlier round of the business survey can be found on gov.uk.
We have designated these as Experimental Statistics, which are newly developed or innovative statistics. These are published so that users and stakeholders can be involved in the assessment of their suitability and quality at an early stage.
We expect to publish a third round of the survey before the end of the financial year. To inform that release, we would welcome any user feedback on the presentation of these results to evidence@dcms.gov.uk by the end of November 2020.
2. Data sources
The survey was run simultaneously through DCMS stakeholder engagement channels and via a YouGov panel.
The two sets of results have been merged to create one final dataset.
Invitations to submit a response to the survey were circulated to businesses in relevant sectors through DCMS stakeholder engagement channels, prompting 2,579 responses.
YouGov’s business omnibus panel elicited a further 1,288 responses. YouGov’s respondents are part of their panel of over one million adults in the UK. A series of pre-screened information on these panellists allows YouGov to target senior decision-makers of organisations in DCMS sectors.
3. Quality
One purpose of the survey is to highlight the characteristics of organisations in DCMS sectors whose viability is under threat in order to shape further government support. The timeliness of these results is essential, and there are some limitations, arising from the need for this timely information:
- Estimates from the DCMS Coronavirus (COVID-19) Impact Business Survey are currently unweighted (i.e., each business was assigned the same weight regardless of turnover, size or industry) and should be treated with caution when used to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 across the UK economy.
- Survey responses through DCMS stakeholder comms are likely to contain an element of self-selection bias as those businesses that are more severely negatively affected have a greater incentive to report their experience.
- Due to time constraints, we are yet to undertake any statistical significance testing or provided confidence intervals
The UK Statistics Authority
This release is published in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics, as produced by the UK Statistics Authority. The Authority has the overall objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good. It monitors and reports on all official statistics, and promotes good practice in this area.
The responsible statistician for this release is Alex Bjorkegren. For further details about the estimates, or to be added to a distribution list for future updates, please email us at evidence@dcms.gov.uk.
Pre-release access
The document above contains a list of ministers and officials who have received privileged early access to this release. In line with best practice, the list has been kept to a minimum and those given access for briefing purposes had a maximum of 24 hours.