Number of business deaths (quarterly) - WMCA

This is the number of business deaths in the area for the quarter. Business closures are those removed from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR). A business is removed from the IDBR if its turnover and employment are zero for several periods, or if the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is notified that the business has ceased trading through an administrative or survey source.

An enterprise can be defined as the smallest combination of legal units that is an organisational unit producing goods or services, that benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may also be a sole legal unit.

For business closures, the registration process can take a little longer because the death of a business may be long and complex. The effective death of a business may occur several months before its actual death from a legal perspective. A business is removed from the IDBR if information from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), ONS business surveys, or Companies House indicates it is no longer active.

An unspecified geography category has been introduced to deal with the distorting effect of multiple registrations at the same site. These apply where there are 250 plus creations or closures at the same postcode. Any creations or closures that happen at one of these postcodes are taken out of their geography and placed into the unspecified category. These cases still count towards the UK totals and may account for up to 4 per cent of the overall total.

Figures for each period are rounded independently to the nearest 5 using controlled rounding. The ONS statistics presented are "Experimental Statistics", so care needs to be taken when interpreting them. Care should be taken interpreting figures for a single period, therefore the annual business demography publication is a more accurate reflection of business births and deaths.

Data is Powered by LG Inform Plus and automatically checked for new data on the 3rd of each month.