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Maximising the use of administrative data in sub-annual business collections
Chen Chen, Statistics NZ 
Vera Costa, Statistics NZ 
*Mathew Page, Statistics NZ 
John Stewart, Statistics NZ 


Keywords: fitness for use, administrative data, quality, desired outcomes

Statistics NZ (SNZ) intends to use administrative data as the primary source of data to produce business statistical outputs. SNZ has undertaken an investigation into developing sub-annual business establishment collections based on Goods and Services Tax (GST) administrative data. The investigation comprised 3 parts: establishing the desirable outcomes from using GST in business collections; producing an assessment of the GST data to determine its fitness for use; and outlining the methodological options available for using GST data within business collections. It was found that the underlying structure of the business units and their GST data characteristics were diverse. As each of the methodological options is suitable for different parts of the business population, there is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution for maximising the use of GST in business collections.