Evaluating frame coverage and activity of micro-businesses in sawmilling in the UK - ARCHIVED

This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.

The Sawmill Survey is a voluntary census of sawmills in Great Britain. It is limited to fixed mills using domestically-grown timber. Three approaches to assess the coverage of this survey are described:

(1) A sample survey of the sawmilling industry from the UK's business register, excluding businesses already sampled in the Sawmill Survey, is used to assess the undercoverage in the list of known sawmills; (2) A non-response follow-up using local knowledge of regional officers of the Forestry Commission, is used to estimate the sawmills that do not respond (mostly the smaller mills); and (3) A survey of small-scale sawmills and mobile sawmills (many of these businesses are micro-enterprises) is conducted to analyse their significance.

These three approaches are synthesized to give an estimate of the coverage of the original survey compared with the total activity identified, and to estimate the importance of micro-enterprises to the sawmilling industry in Great Britain.