London Business Survey, 2014: Secure Access

The Greater London Authority (GLA) commissioned the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to design and run the <i>London Business Survey</i> (LBS) 2014 on behalf of the Mayor of London, the GLA, the London Enterprise Panel (LEP) and London and Partners. The survey took place in March-April 2014 (pilot stage) and in May-July 2014 (main stage). The aim was to collect evidence to help inform policies for London businesses. The LBS had also been run in 2006.<br> <br> When the GLA approached ONS to run the survey, it had three key requirements:<ul><li>that the survey should be representative of London, specifically of private sector businesses in the main sectors of London’s economy</li><li>that the survey should cover the topics of interest to those commissioning the survey, including how London is rated as a business location, ease of access to finance for Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), employment, skills and training, the economic outlook, international trade and innovation</li><li>that it should be possible to analyse the results by enterprise size (comparing SMEs with large firms) and by industry sector</li></ul>ONS selected a sample using the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR), the<br> sampling frame which is used for most official business surveys. The LBS enterprise size bands are:<ul><li>micro enterprises: 0 to 9 employees</li><li>other SMEs: 10 to 249 employees</li><li>large enterprises: 250+ employees</li></ul><i>Linking to other business studies</i><br> These data contain IDBR reference numbers. These are anonymous but unique reference numbers assigned to business organisations. Their inclusion allows researchers to combine different business survey sources together. Researchers may consider applying for other business data to assist their research.<br> <br>