Quarterly Acquisitions and Disposals of Capital Assets Survey, 2015-2020: Secure Access

The <i>Quarterly Acquisitions and Disposals of Capital Assets Survey (QCAS)</i> is the new name for a more detailed <i>Quarterly Survey of Capital Expenditure</i> (available from the UK Data Archive under Secure Access conditions from SN 6708 (1998-2014). From quarter one 2015, this new survey will collect the value of capital assets bought and sold, which is important information for the UK National Accounts. It is a statutory survey with a stratified random sample of approximately 27,000 businesses selected from the Inter-Departmental Business Register, where the strata are defined by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2007 and employment size of the business.<br> <br> Results from the survey provide essential information for the UK National Accounts and feed into the compilation of Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF). GFCF is a major component of the expenditure measure of UK Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which shows the total economic activity taking place in the country. It is used to monitor the UK's financial health and prosperity over time and in comparison to other countries.<br> <br> The main reasons for the changes to the survey are to move to the updated European System of Accounts (ESA) 2010 manual, the international guidance for national accounts. Several presentational issues have been addressed but the main changes to the survey are:<ol><li>new questions have been added (increase from 11 to around 30) to improve the quality of estimates and to meet the latest European legislation requirements (ESA 2010) </li><li>the lower limit of £500 for the value of reported assets has been removed, so all relevant assets (even those below businesses’ Asset Register threshold) should be reported </li><li>small tools used in production have been included within the definition of GFCF</li><li>improvements have been made to the questionnaire’s layout with new sections and headings, designed to make completing the questionnaire easier </li></ol>The data from the new questions will not be included in estimates of GFCF and its components until 2017, when 2 years of data will be available for quality assurance.<br> <br> <i>Linking to other business studies</i><br> These data contain Inter-Departmental Business Register 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> For the third edition (April 2020), data for quarter 2, 2016 to quarter 1, 2020 have been added, along with a data dictionary covering the same time period.<br> <br>