EX-POST EVALUATION OF NACE REVISION REPLIES€¦EX-POST EVALUATION OF NACE REVISION - REPLIES BY...

EX-POST EVALUATIONOF NACE REVISION

REPLIES

EX-POST EVALUATION OF NACE REVISION - REPLIES BY QUESTION

1 a) Do you think the phase of consultation of users and different stakeholders was organized properly?

EUROSTAT was only responsible for the consultation of users and stakeholders at the European level. But more coordination and cooperation between EUROSTAT and the NSI would have been preferable.

Austria

The consultation was successful, but collaboration with the NSI’s could be improved.

Bulgaria

We are the opinion that the consultation of users and different stakeholders was correctly organized.

Croatia

No Consultation took place between CYSTAT and the relevant users and stakeholders. The decision was taken by the Statistical Service. The users were given all the necessary information for updating their classification system.

Cyprus

Yes.Czech RepublicOK - as far as the Member States (MS) are concernedDenmarkThe consultation period of users and different stakeholders was organized properly. Suggestions for improvement are not necessary, because support from Eurostat was good.

Estonia

Clamour -project 2002 was succesfull and well organized.FinlandThe Member States were not much aware of the users and stakeholders consultation aspects at the European level.

It is difficult to bring an answer to 1 b) as we do not know who was consulted. An option for improvement would be to associate the Member States, or those who volunteer, to the consultation issue. More generally, we would like to get more information about the output of these consultations.

Another important point is that the European consultation must be consistent with national consultations (in time and scope) . More generally, the schedule for national consultations needs attention as these consultations provide input for NACE revision and not only for national levels of the European classification.

France

As far as the consultation of the Member States is concerned the process was o.k. Concerning the consultation of others by Eurostat, especially the European federations, we don’t know enough about the consultation process. On national level we had 14 rounds of consultation concerning NACE Rev. 2 and CPA 2008 between 2002 and 2006, in which all departments in the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) and about 300 external institutions (States’ Statistical Offices, Federal Ministries, professional associations, research institutes, etc.) were involved. Professional associations were encouraged to make proposals and comments to Eurostat via their European association. It is important to have sufficient time for such rounds of consultation (including an analysis of answers in the FSO and the preparation of a consolidated answer to Eurostat), which has been the case mostly.

Germany

We think that the consultation phase was well organized.Greece

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However, in our opinion the efficiency can be further improved, if the cooperation with the stakeholders will be more transparent. We propose to reconsider the following steps of the coordination process:

- mapping of stakeholders- discussion at WG level: what users should be involved and in which way should it be done, timing, - call upon the EU level representatives of the stakeholders to cooperate with their organisations in the MSs. - the Eurostat sends its proposal on the subjects for discussion to the NSIs, which express their opinion based on their experience of practical application and give feedback to the WG, which will decide.- the Eurostat continuously informs the MSs on the process of the consultations. In case the procedure of consultations is documented, we would like to ask for your guidance on finding this information.

Hungary

Yes, however the deadlines could have been longer in some instances.IrelandYes. Consultations of NSIs and business and trade associations began in time and in the proper way.

Italy

Yes.LithuaniaAll the users of the statistical office and some important users outside of the statistical office have been informed about the NACE revision and had the opportunity to propose additionnal national subdivisions up to a certain expiry date. However, due to the lack of human resources it was not possible to contact each user individually

Luxembourg

Yes.MaltaYes, it was allright. To prevent too much change in a future revision we should work with more "closed" questions. Everyone could ask anything, causing too much detail-changes which made the implementation of NACE very complicated.

Netherlands

Yes, we think that the phase of consultation of users and different stakeholders was successful.

Norway

Yes, according to paragraph 1c,PolandWe think the phase of consultation of the users and different stakeholders were properly organized.

Portugal

The consultations were organized properly.RomaniaYes, we consider that the consultations were organized properly.SlovakiaYES; a vast information and co-ordination campaign was organised mostly by SORS (institution responsible for the classification of activities and SBR) and also by AJPES (institution responsible for the administrative business register); Ministry for public affairs and other institutions- holders of administrative evidences related to business subjects and their activity, were also involved.

Slovenia

Yes.SpainYes.Sweden

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It would be advisable to collect a list of issues which have arisen since the classification was agreed. There probably is a central list but it would be worth picking up issues from individual countries now rather than wait until the next review is started since we lose corporate memory.

United Kingdom

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1 b) Where all the relevant users consulted

We do only know that Eurostat consulted the European professional organizations, but do not know in detail which ones they were and how they have communicated with their national branches.

Austria

- Food manufacturing, especially prepared dishes;

- Borderline between the Manufacturing industry and Waste management and remediation activities;

Bulgaria

We had the picture that all relevant users were consulted.CroatiaYes.Czech RepublicDon't know.DenmarkThe consultation period of users and different stakeholders was organized properly. Suggestions for improvement are not necessary, because support from Eurostat was good.

Estonia

The Member States were not much aware of the users and stakeholders consultation aspects at the European level.



France

As mentioned in the answer on question 1 a) we conducted a consultation process on national level at each stage of the development process of NACE Rev. 2 / CPA 2008. Hence we think that all relevant users were involved.

Germany

Users consulted our office and website. They consulted EUROSTAT website too.

Greece

However, there are some domains, where more intensive cooperation would have been needed, because certain parts of the nomenclature did not become as updated as it should be. For example:- Printing industry: explanatory notes are outdated, they do not consist of the new technologies, besides the boundary between the office activities and printing industry is not clear.- Waste management and remediation activities: the boundary between these activities and the manufacturing is hardly to determine.

Hungary

Yes.IrelandYes.ItalyYes.LithuaniaYes.Luxembourg

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Mostly yes as other national non statistical institutes were not apparently aware of the revision to NACE rev. 2.

Malta

Yes.NetherlandsWe also think that all the relevant users were consulted both on EU level and national level.

Norway

In our opinion, we should have made greater use of the experienced expert‘s from the various trades.

Poland

Yes, all the relevant users were consulted.RomaniaYes.SlovakiaYes.SloveniaYes, at least at national level.SpainYes, at least we can’ t think of any one else.SwedenLooking at our archive documents, it seems that all national users were consulted by the FSO and the compiled answer returned to the international level by FSO. In future, this strategy can be maintained.

Switzerland

It would be advisable to collect a list of issues which have arisen since the classification was agreed. There probably is a central list but it would be worth picking up issues from individual countries now rather than wait until the next review is started since we lose corporate memory.

United Kingdom

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1 c) What could have been improved ?

There should be a better coordinated consultation process at the European and national level (exchange of consultation plans, information on issues raised, etc.).

Austria

Proposal:

- consultations with MSs to be more active during the revision process;

- better information policy for the decisions taken relating to new classifications at the international level;

Bulgaria

From our point of view, consultations were very well organized and you should continue to work like that.

Croatia

See bellow.Czech RepublicThe Member States were not much aware of the users and stakeholders consultation aspects at the European level.



France

Originally it was planned to provide an extensive documentation of proposals, their initiator and the reasons why they were accepted or rejected. This has not been done, probably for capacity reasons. But such a documentation would be a good tool for future discussions and for explaining data users the decisions made. For the next update / revision such a documentation would be desirable.

Germany

Proposal: In these sections more intensive consultation is needed, involving the professional associations and the data users as so as to assure the accordance between the rulings/acts referring different domains and in order to be able to provide relevant statistical data based upon updated classifications.

Hungary

Not aware of any.IrelandToo much time was spent on consultations, therefore, left too less time to harmonize items of classifications and related classifications (ISIC and CPA). In order to avoid classification inaccuracies should be given more time to harmonize them.

Lithuania

Some meetings could have been organized in order to better inform the users about the changes in NACE Rev. 2.

Luxembourg

At the national level there are still governmental departments using NACE rev 1.1

Malta

The coördination ISIC-NACE could have been improved.Netherlands

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Therefore we can not see what could have been improved.NorwayWe have the impression that we didn’t receive answers to all of our comments. Sometimes our arguments have not been commented on and rejected as well.Applied terminology should be consulted with experts of the domain.

Poland

The consultation must included users, associations and different stakeholders for each classification area.

Portugal

The decision of SORS to include the explanatory notes into the national legal act (as annex to the national regulation on the classification of activities) prolongued the procedure for the application (sprejetje?) of the national legal act and consequently the preparation of the national publication.

Slovenia

We think the consultation process was properly organised.SpainNo opinionSwedenNo specific needs here.SwitzerlandIt would be advisable to collect a list of issues which have arisen since the classification was agreed. There probably is a central list but it would be worth picking up issues from individual countries now rather than wait until the next review is started since we lose corporate memory.

United Kingdom

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2 a) Was the content of the legal acts sufficient ? In a future revision should we keep a similar content ?

Basically, the general content of the legal acts was sufficient.However, all statistics which were affected by the NACE revision should have been covered.Also the requirements for double coding, double reporting and back-casting were not really seen and comprehensively covered in the legal acts.

Austria

Yes, content of the legal acts was sufficient.BulgariaThe intention of the working group was to simplify the legal act as much as possible and to give more attention to the preparation of methodologies and the usage of the classification and that was succeeded.

Croatia

Yes it was quite sufficient.CyprusYes.Czech RepublicOK.DenmarkWe did not have problems with translation of NACE. We support to keep similar content for future.

However, we would like to point out that at same time we were having problems with the translation of CPA due to the timeliness. The quality of translation was not sufficient either.

Estonia

The content of the legal acts was sufficient.FinlandThe NACE legal act consists of 2 items : the NACE itself and all the changes its implementation implies. We agree with the legal act content, and even if the listing of the amendments of all references to old NACE and the various regulations involved was long and had a constraining nature, it created an excellent frame to carry out all implementation processes in a consistent way.

France

The legal act covers both, the new classification and its application. It was not easy to deal with the text. But if both things are combined in one regulation it is a bit regrettable that not all demands were mentioned already in this regulation. For the additional demand of back casting also for SBS data no capacity has been budgeted and especially no appropriate arrangements have been made.

Germany

Generally, the content of the NACE legal acts was sufficient. Since it has been only few years we use the new classification, we are not in the position to think of our future needs.

Greece

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Essentially the content of the legal acts was sufficient.

After all we propose to reconsider the enouncement of the direct linkage to the ISIC (see point (8) in the Preamble of the Regulation) from a special point of view: what kind of obligation does this linkage mean exactly in a legal sense? How large range does it provide for the member states in the interpretation and for the necessary amendments, corrections?

Problem: According to the Eurostat’s standpoint the structure and explanatory notes of ISIC Rev.4 are – which is in a legal sense a „recommendation”– binding. In spite of all, in the meanwhile, during the elaboration of CPA there are some classes created with such breakdowns, which do not correspond either to the explanatory notes of ISIC Rev.4 or the NACE Rev.2 (for example CPA 28.21 Ovens, furnaces and furnace burners).

That is the reason for that some of the classification problems/boundary questions – debated at the Task Force on NACE critical classes– cannot be solved at all.

Besides it should be considered, that the quality of a newly reworked classification can only be judged after gathering practical experiences of a minimum 2 or 3 years.

Proposal: - The Statistical Committee of the UN should place these questions of the critical classes on its agenda and make the decision. (Such problematic fields are for e.g.: waste collection, treatment and disposal activities; materials recovery; bioenergy; trade and intermediation of services, logistics etc.)

- It would be effective, if the regulation disposed of a so called „Sunset” clause, which enacts the revision and an incidental future abolishment/annulment after a certain period of time.- Regarding the future, the connection/linkage between the structure of ISIC and NACE should be reconsidered, in order to solve the classification problems originating from incompatible principles, definitions. This is implicating the rethinking of the way of cooperation with the UN Experts in the problem solving process. We propose that the NACE /CPA WG should place this subject on its agenda.

Of course we agree with the principle that the European classification should perfectly fit into the structure of the world level classification. The problem is, that – due to the many years long consultation process – several divisions of the NACE Rev.2 was turned out to be already outdated at the very first moment of its implementation.Therefore, regarding future revisions, it should be laid more emphasis on the consultation should not be confined to solve the questions arising at the beginning of the process, but it should strive to cope with the problems emerging during the whole duration of the revision process as well.

Hungary

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Hence the NACE is directly linked to the ISIC, so the quality of this European classification depends directly on the world level ISIC. In order to preserve and develop the usability of the NACE, the methodological principles and conceptions should be defined unitedly and consistently. This requires a feedback of a world wide range in a more flexible and proactive way, which is very challenging for the present system of a three level consultation system (memberstates/NSIs, Eurostat and UN).Yes.IrelandThe form of the European Regulation was sufficient and absolutely necessary for the future revisions.

Italy

Yes.LithuaniaYes.MaltaYes, for Statistics Netherlands it was sufficient.NetherlandsThe legal act was sufficient and it is difficult to see if a future revision should be done in another way. When we took NACE Rev. 2 in use we could see that some activities were outdated and that new activities had arised during the revision, but this will always be a problem which is difficult to solve.

Norway

Yes.PolandThe contents of the legal act were sufficient, but for a better interpretation of the scope of the structure in a future revision, the introduction of a summary of the explanatory notes should be studied.

Portugal

We appreciated that the content of the legal acts were sufficient.RomaniaYes, the content was sufficient and can be used in a future.SlovakiaThe content is sufficient. The articles on the national subdivisions are not sufficiently clear.

Slovenia

Yes. Yes.SpainYes.SwedenYes. Yes.SwitzerlandThe approach taken worked well. It would have been helpful to have brought the relevant working groups in earlier in the process to discuss the impact, plans and how it would impact on their timing.

United Kingdom

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2 b) Was the timing between the publication of the NACE legal act and the implementation sufficient ? If not what would be in your view the ideal period of time necessary ?

In general the timing was sufficient. STS had problems with the timetable because the time frame for implementation was viewed as too short.

Austria

The timing was appropriate.BulgariaIf not what would be in your view the ideal period of time necessary ?Maybe to publish all legal acts as it was done for ISCO classification, but than the explanatory notes of the classification and the methodology should be prepared at the same time including CPA.

Croatia

There were no problems concerning the timing of the publication of the NACE Legal Act and the implementation of the new classification.

Cyprus

Timing between the publication of the legal act and implementation of the NACE was sufficient. Unfortunately we can say the same about the CPA. The CPA is valid from 1. 1. 2008 but the legal act has appeared 4. 6. 2008.

Czech Republic

The delay in the adoption of the legal act meant that the MS had to start the practical preparations before the legal act was adopted (and before the introductory guidelines were ready - that was the main problem for DK).

Denmark

We were generally satisfied with translation process. We believe, that the time for recoding was sufficient, but it would be better to have some spare period just in case.

Estonia

From our point of view, the time between the NACE legal act and the implementation was not sufficient. The classification was still under definition while for example the Finnish business register had to start using it. In other words, we did not have enough time to work with our national version.

Furthermore, on national level we find it quite difficult that the classification structure is included in the NACE legal act before theexplanatory notes for the classes are available. The titles of the classes are not always self-explanatory and, therefore, in some cases it was time-consuming to validate the translation of a certain class title when the explanatory notes for that class were not yet available.

In our opinion, it would be better if NACE legal act would not be published before the explanatory notes would be available and fixed as well. In this way the quality and coherence of the classification would be better and the work done at the national offices easier and more efficient.

Finland

The time between the publication of the NACE legal act and the implementation is sufficient unless there are unexpected events occuring; we have to mention the late change in the outsourcing rules in April 2007. In this respect, it was impossible to implement the new rule on outsourcing as soon as January 2008.

France

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The timing between the publication of the legal act and the implementation was sufficient. More problematic was the timing between the finalisation of the explanatory notes and the implementation. It would be desirable to have the explanatory notes also ready two years in advance. Please see also answer to question 4 a).

Germany

The timing between the publication of the NACE legal act and the implementation was good.

Greece

Was the timing between the publication of the NACE legal act and the implementation sufficient? If not what would be in your view the ideal period of time necessary ?

Yes, the timing was appropriate. The regulation on NACE Rev.2 was published in December 2006 and the statistical units had to be recoded in the Business Register till 01.01.2008, so there was enough time to prepare well. Preceding the publishing the regulation the Operation 2007 project helped to prepare for the implementing the NACE Rev.2.

Hungary

Yes.IrelandConsidering the official milestones, end of 2006 and 1st January 2008 (around one year), time would not be sufficient to organize internal training sessions, complete the Business Register in double coding system for the first reference year and finalize the National version. In practice, we succeeded only because we started before with Operation 2007. Especially for the development of the National version we began the activities in the first months of 2006 with the provisional versions of NACE inserting from time to time the updates. So the ideal period is larger than the official one, about two years.

Italy

No.LithuaniaYes.MaltaYes, we hadn't to change legislation for the revision.NetherlandsWe look upon the timing between the publication of the NACE legal act and the implementation as sufficient.

Norway

Yes.PolandThe timing between the publication of NACE legal act and the implementation were sufficient.

Portugal

Yes, the timing between the publication of the legal act of NACE and the implementation was sufficient. In fact the timing allow us to ensure enough time for preparing the implementation of the national version of NACE Rev.2, respectively CANE Rev.2.

Romania

No, the timing was insufficient. The ideal time period is at least 18 months.SlovakiaIt was sufficient.SloveniaYes.SpainWe managed to implement in time, but in order to do so, we had to start the implementing work before NACE Rev. 2 came inte force legally.

Another four to six months would be ideal. It is important that the decided time table is kept as resources are planned ackordingly.

Sweden

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The approach taken worked well. It would have been helpful to have brought the relevant working groups in earlier in the process to discuss the impact, plans and how it would impact on their timing.

United Kingdom

24/10/2011 14 / 44


2 c) Are the translations of the legal act (NACE Rev. 2 structure) accurate ? Do you think that something could be improved on the preparation of the translations ?

The translation was not accurate. Especially, the Eurostat principle of a word-by-word translation was inadequate.Austria coordinated the translation with the other German speaking countries (Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland) to find the appropriate German language expressions. However, the translation undertaken by the MS were afterwards still questioned in the legal process and some changes had to be made back to a word-by-word translation.Translation of draft versions should be given to the MS as soon as possible. Similarly, this also applies to the final classification version.

Austria

The translations of the legal act as a whole was accurate, but the first version of translation of the NACE Rev.2 structure was not. The Bulgarian translators in Bruxelles got in touch with classification experts in NSI and finally classification structure became understandable and clear.

PROPOSAL: The translation of classification structure is not just a literal interpretation but is adaptation of concepts on different languages. So, the linguists in EC have to consult translation classification versions with respectively experts before release a legal act and they should have enough time to do that.

Bulgaria

The translation was done by Croatia. It was hard to translate activities that are not in place in Croatia and are coming from United States.

Croatia

The Greek translation of the legal act was satisfactory.CyprusTranslation of legal act was eventually correct but we would like to recommend more direct cooperation between translators of the Eurostat and authors of national versions of the classification.

Czech Republic

The Danish translation was not good - it seemed as if the Danish version of the NACE rev. 1.1 had not been used. The explanatory notes are written in a language that is not easy to read and the notes are in many cases difficult for most people to interpret. The titles are not always well chosen, e.g. the titles for division 41, group 41.2 and class 41.20 are identical. In some cases the titles are misleading or too close to a common term, which leads to misunderstanding the class. Many lay people only see the titles and interpret them according to their perception.Denmark has a strong focus on digital solutions, i.e. making the self-serving solutions for citizens in relation to the public sector (e.g. in relation to attributing an activity code in the Business Register), and therefore we will suggest that the explanatory notes become more user-friendly.

Denmark

The translations of the legal act were quite good. Nevertheless, we would have needed more time for giving our comments to them. Moreover, the availability of the explanatory notes would have made it easier to define the classes in Finnish language properly, as mentioned above.

Furthermore, we would highly appreciate if Eurostat could provide the translations of the explanatory notes as well into all languages in the future updates and revisions.

Finland

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We were not happy with the translation of the legal act for the titles of NACE Rev.2 headings. Although we agree that the translations must be the closest to the English version, we have to admit that translations made by European experts (especially linguist-jurists who are not classification experts) do not reach the quality standards classification experts ask for.

The linguistic aspect of the legal act should be tackled very early in the schedule, at least for the French and German languages. Getting in touch with Eurostat translators and then with linguist-jurists is necessary to discuss translation issues and this work should start as soon as possible (with Eurostat when a quasi-final structure of the classification is agreed by the NACE-CPA Working Group and with the linguist-jurists when the first version of the regulation in national languages is available). Moreover, coordination among French speaking countries on one hand and German speaking countries on the other hand is absolutely necessary.

France

With the translation we had some difficulties. In previous WG meetings Eurostat explicitly allowed for a “loose translation” not changing the content of a classification item. In an advanced phase of the translation process Eurostat gave the order to the translation services to stick closely to the English text. This fact led to a nasty communication process on high level.If we would have known that we have to stick closely to the English text we would have given more attention to the English text, regardless the fact that we are no native speakers.For the future (1) we should make sure that the English (original) text is absolutely precise and (2) we should make sure that expressions are translated always in the same way (eventually depending on the context).

Germany

As regards the translation of the legal act (NACE Rev.2 structure) in Greek there were few inaccuracies, which we failed to trace during the linguistic procedure due to the short time limit. Our proposals -we had quite a lot- on the annex of the legal text were well accepted by the official translators though some other cases remained undetected until the explanatory notes were thoroughly studied. Several times during the translation of the explanatory notes we had to consult the French version.

Greece

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No, the translation of the legal act was not accurate.

Problem: Among the first steps of the revision process the professionals of the Nose’s have to translate the working materials by their own, afterwards the discussions with the stakeholders can begin. The result is more precise then a simple word-by-word translation, because the statisticians are aware of the proper terminology of the classifications.However, in the legal phase of the revision - despite of the already existing professional translation by statisticians - the official translators in Bruxelles have translated the structure once more, without either the knowledge of the explanatory notes or the backgrounds of the consultations. This kind of costly and superfluous parallelism should be avoided.

Proposal: We propose such timing for the lawyer-linguist procedure, which allows the official translators to consider and utilize the translation of the professional statisticians from NSIs.Moreover it would be practical if the translation of the relating classifications in a given language was prepared by the same person for the sake of the consistent wording.

Other remarks on the translation: The first version translation was not appropriate, so we contacted with the translators in Bruxelles, but we could not amend all the failures because of the lack of time. In many cases the denominations of the structure became first understandable with the full knowledge of the explanatory notes. The original English text became first clear after reading the German and the French translation. Especially in such cases when a certain activity is not typical in our country. This has largely affected the quality of the translation.There were some items in the structure of the NACE Rev.2, which we could only well interpret, after we have studied the explanatory notes of the CPA.

Hungary

N/A - we used the English version.IrelandYes, accurate and appropriate.

For the future it could be useful to improve the knowledge in the following areas:

Activities described concisely by using English words that could be used or interpreted in different ways in different Countries (as shown in the B&B example in the NACE-CPA newsgroup). Activities put together (local specificities) adopting the official languages although different.

Italy

The translation of NACE Rev.2 regulation had acceptable quality. In regard to translation of CPA regulation, Latvia hadn’t received the translation of CPA structure from the Commission, but just from the Council and very short time was given for checking it. It’s very important to make it accessible in time in order to avoid critical shortcomings on the translation in future!

Latvia

Right enough. Might be less complex links between the official translators in Bruxelles and statisticians from NSIs.

Lithuania

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Some translations to French or German of titles were not always accurate.LuxembourgNo.MaltaYes, they were accurate. Although it might be better to organize the "language-groups" more officially. There were informal French and German speaking groups which coördinated the French and German translations, sometimes leading to (I had the impression) change of content in a language.

Netherlands

In Norway it is the EEA/EFTA Section in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs which translate legal acts. They were in continuous contact with Statistics Norway during the translation work because they think that we are known with the terminology of the classification. They told us that they used the German version in their translation which they have found more precisely. We are satisfied with the way this job was done.

Norway

Translation of NACE Rev. 2 structure from English into Polish is consistent with the original, but each language has its own characteristics and EU translator should adjust its translation to the specific of national names of groupings, even if the names are slightly changed in comparison to the original English version.In the case of Polish names of groupings, the convergence between the EU Regulation and the national version of the classification is accurate.

Poland

Some translations of the legal act (NACE-Rev.2 structure) weren’t accurate. The translators must have a good knowledge of the target language. For example: the word “agents – agentes” in the Classes 46.11 to 46.19 is considered by Portuguese companies like “the person/enterprise who represents (sold the products) a specific trade mark”, not the “ commission agent”.

Portugal

Yes, the translations of the legal act of NACE Rev.2 has been enough accurate.RomaniaNo, we found out some mistakes in translated version of NACE Rev.2 structure because the time period for translation was insufficient.

Slovakia

The slovenian translation of the EU legal act could be improved in some passages (e.g. articles about national subdivisions); also, some headings in the structure could be improved.

Slovenia

Mostly yes. Sometimes a direct translation from English is not the best title for a category.In the case of Spain, we want to highlight the positive cooperation between the official translators and the INE.

Spain

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No. We found many mistakes in the early translations to Swedish. We tried to find out if the changes or corrections proposed by us in spring 2006 as well as other changes in structure had been incorporated in an updated draft, but were told to wait until the official request in November. It was just pure luck that we were contacted by one of the legal linguists a couple of weeks before the official request and managed to get some corrections incoporated to the final request draft as there was then little time for going through everything. Unfortunately not all our final comments were taken into account when NACE Rev. 2 was published and we had to ask for a legal procedure for corrections. Also the heading of a code that had not been up for discussion turned out to have changed from inorganic to organic.

So for the future we want to get to see what becomes of our corrections and have an updated version within reasonable time (not more than a month). We also need more time when there is a request to react on the translations. The final draft on the NACE legal act was sent to the delegations on the 22 November and comments were due not later than the 27 November. This is not enough time, at least if the time has not been announced beforehand,

Sweden

We use the German, French and Italian translations of the legal act and have had no specific prob-lems with it.

Switzerland

The approach taken worked well. It would have been helpful to have brought the relevant working groups in earlier in the process to discuss the impact, plans and how it would impact on their timing.

United Kingdom

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3) Did we take the right decisions defining the structure, i.e.level of detail, of NACE Rev. 2 ? What could have been improved ?

The structure of NACE Rev. 2 is mainly the result of the decisions at the UN level.The economic structure given by the new NACE is in principle better, it better reflects the current economic situation and it is more detailed in several, relevant areas (e.g. the services).For future revisions it should be taken into account that individual classes are not be pushed back and forth in the classification structure (f. i. repair activities, sale of motor fuel).

In some cases NACE Rev. 2 is not in line with CPA 2008 and vice versa; also the discussions on the “critical” classes did not have had any effect in the classification structure or interpretation.

Austria

The structure of the NACE Rev. 2 was sufficient detailed for the purpose of the Bulgarian production system.

Bulgaria

Some classes in sections K, L and M were difficult for implementing. It would be good if some practical examples of real life are given how some business entities should be classified.

We also admit that the solution, which was applied in the NACE Rev. 1.1, where the repair and maintenance of the product was in the same class as a production of the same was much better than the new approach in NACE Rev. 2..

Croatia

Certain weaknesses concerning the level of detail of NACE Rev.2 are mainly due to the unique background of each country on certain activities. The forum is a very good source for locating specific activities that their level of detail was not clear enough to enable delegates to have a uniform decision on their classification.

Cyprus

We received base for this answer from our industry department: Removal of subsections was major change. As it turned out later, even the Eurostat has interests in these aggregations what was formerly unclear. From point of view of users domestic statistical data is absence of these aggregations also not too suitable. But we are definitely against the restoration of subsections, because consequences of this step are very serious. Practice indicates that repairs and installations in stand-alone division are in some cases quite problematic.

Czech Republic

The structure and level of detail is acceptable. However, it should not be more detailed in the future.

Denmark

We are satisfied with the structure of NACE.EstoniaThe structure of NACE Rev. 2 is fairly good. Nevertheless, in our opinion, some fields could be, in fact, less detailed. From our point ot view it is not always even possbile to distuingish the activities of two or more classes. We do understand, though, that on international level this this might not be the truth.

Finland

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The number of items increased since last version of NACE (615 vs 514 classes), specially in the area of services : there was a need for it.

For future revisions, we should restrict the increase in the number of classes and try to remain around this level. Having a too detailed NACE restricts flexibility at the national level and leads to some small or irrelevant headings in a specific country.

France

There are of course desirable improvements of the structure, but this is not a point for a general evaluation, but for a future update / revision. I think for example waste treatment and bundled goods and services will be candidates for a future discussion.In principle (1) agriculture is too much split into classes and the concept and content of the differentiation between divisions 62 (“Computer programming, consultancy and related activities”) and 63 (“Information service activities”) is not always clear.For trade it would be very much desirable to have more information about the content of the classes in the explanatory notes (i.e. ideally about two years before the implementation) instead of having a “Trade described by products traded” at or after the date of implementation.

Germany

In our view, the right decisions have been taken (we voted in favour of the NACE Rev. 2 structure in the Group!)

Greece

The structure of the NACE Rev.2 is fairly detailed.Evaluating the structure of NACE and CPA together, however, there is a problem to mention. It is very confusing, that there are four sections, where CPA and NACE do not comply with each other (on the 1-4th digit level). This causes problems in the data procession continuously. The algorithm of defining the principal activity of enterprises can not handle these discrepancies. It would be advisable to avoid this problem in the future.

See also 2.a

Hungary

Yes. None.IrelandThe level of detail (4 digits) was proper as well as the defined structure. In these years we collected feedback from the users who asked amendments for single activities but not for the structure.

Italy

The concordance between NACE/CPA and PRODCOM should be improved (for instance, solar collectors are classified in CPA 28.21.11, but in PRODCOM 27.52.14.00)

Latvia

Yes.LithuaniaGenerally, the structure of the new version of NACE is better than the previous one, but probably there are still some improvements possible.

Luxembourg

An official online search tool provided by Eurostat, similar to the one developed by the Central Statistics Office Ireland which we find really useful. http://www.cso.ie/px/u/NACECoder/NACEItems/searchnace.asp

Malta

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Some classes weren't clear from the beginning and were not ready for use. This is solved by the critical classes project. Some splits seemed to come from outside the NACE-group and were difficult to implement: the separation of biotechnology in the research. But we took for 99% the right decissions.

Netherlands

The details vary from section to section in the classification. Some sections are too detailed while other could have been more detailed. For the last case we can make national subclasses, so after all it is not a big problem.

Norway

The level of details in NACE Rev. 2 is not a problem, because each country can expand / improve the classification ( within the law ) , to fit its needs. Much more important for us are the sharp boundaries between different classes to avoid making errors in the expansion of the classification and problems of interpretation, for example, class 10.71 NACE and class 10.72.Others examples - to determine/define the scope of newly created classes, for example class 10.85 NACE Production of prepared meals and dishes.- according to NACE Rev. 2 class 10.73 concerns production of various types of pasta stuffed or not stuffed. However, grouping 10.73.11 CPA is related to CN 1902 11 00 and 1902 19, which are related to the not stuffed pasta. CN 1902 20 concerning stuffed pasta is related to 10.85.14 CPA - prepared meals and dishes based on flour products (10.85 NACE - which are ready meals based on flour products).- many problems in the interpretation also give us differences / contradictions between NACE Rev. 2 and CPA 2008 (PRODCOM), or CPA 2008 and PRODCOM. This last classification is important because data based on it is transmitted to Eurostat and the differences between classifications have an impact on the correctness of the statistics data. Discrepancy should be removed in the next revision of NACE / CPA and in PRODCOM- solar panels (devices that use solar energy to heat the water in the tray) are covered by heading CN 8419, subheading 8419 19 00. According to explanatory HS notes - solar water heaters for domestic use or not for domestic use are mentioned by name in the notes to the heading CN 8419. In grouping - 28.21 NACE Rev. 2 there is explanation concerning the production of heating systems using solar energy. When we consider the relationship between CPA and CN - subheading 8419 19 00 CN is connected with CPA 27.52.14 and not with 28.21.11 CPA.- production of sun beds - NACE 28.99, though the correspondence table CPA-CN links us to CPA 27.90.40 .

Poland

We think that the NACE Working Group took the right decisions defining the level of detail of NACE-Rev.2.

Some aspects who could be improved are: - study if the “maintenance and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles” should be in Section G.

Portugal

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We think that the structure of the NACE Rev.2 is O.K. There are just a few classes that do not have explanatory notes or examples of activities included (or excluded). So, some more details would be helpfully.

Romania

The structure of NACE Rev. 2 is appropriate and we have not obtained any proposals for improvement from our users.

Slovakia

The level of detail is satisfactory, although the reference to ISIC is sometrimes too close and a burden for the classification. The classification should be as much as possible EU economy oriented. Some border cases, some mistakes and some unclear definitions, that have been detected by MSs and discussed in the NACE/CPA WG and on the CIRCA forum should be corrected, adjusted or supplemented in the next version of NACE Rev. 2.

Slovenia

In fact, this level of detail provides enough information, and therefore, we didn't need to create aditional national levels. The agricultural sector was defined following the requirements of the FAO, and it resulted in an structure reflecting products more than economic activities.

Spain

Yes. No suggestions.SwedenThere was limited justification for the reclassification of some activities from manufacturing into other areas.

United Kingdom

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4 a) We have prepared introductory guidelines, explanatory notes, several handbooks concerning the implementation and several correspondence tables. Do you think this material was sufficient ? etc.

In general, the quality of materials was quite different. While the correspondence tables were sufficient, this was not the case for the handbooks/manuals. Not all relevant areas were well covered. More emphasis should be given to the practical implementation and the problems related. The selection of experts and authors of the handbooks should consider that all areas affected should be covered.It is proposed that the handbooks are now updated, based on the country experience of the current revision and not to wait until the next basic classification revision will come. If we wait that long all current experience will be forgotten.

Austria

The Introductory guidelines and Implementation handbooks are very useful methodological documents. Unfortunately publication of the Introductory guidelines was delayed.

It was a good Eurostat initiative to develop Critical classes document. In this way the explanatory notes was updated properly.

Other good initiative was developing of the table Trade described by products traded.

We also appreciate the huge work done concerning Correspondence tables.

Proposal:

- To save scheduled date for publication of the main methodological documents.

Bulgaria

All prepared materials were very good prepared, and it was good that every change was announced on time and made public on web site Operation 2007. Maybe just the for the next revision, it could be much better if the changes are marked with some colour instead of using track changes. We remember that it was also difficult to monitor changes when they were entered into the Access, although there was a column where you could see which changes were entered on which day.

Croatia

The material prepared by Eurostat proved to be very helpful in our implementation of the new classifications system. We implemented the NACE.Rev.2 quite early in order to cover the needs of the Census of Establishment in 2005. The additional material sent (even if not in final form in the beginning) proved to be very useful in the transition of NACE Rev 1.1 to NACE Rev.2.

Cyprus

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Yes, the amount of prepared materials is sufficient, but they should be ready in time, before of preparation of national version. Problems were caused by additional updates of the explanatory notes likewise belated publishing of some handbooks (e.g. outsourcing). Explanatory notes should have been done together with classification in order to member states could prepare national versions. Since the creation of national version including the legal act is time consuming, time reserve is convenient. Explanatory notes should have not been changed randomly because the users of classification need to have in advance printed publication in which subsequently explanatory note cannot be adjusted. On the other hand we consider explanatory notes of CPA as lacking as they often not provide any useful information.

Czech Republic

A clear indication of the changes from one version to the next would have been useful. It is essential to have all rules and principles finalised before implementation. It is difficult to implement last-minute changes, when the implementation has started.

Denmark

Concerning timeliness, it is important to mention, that some information arrived too late (NACE introductory guidelines). Furthermore, the modification of correspondence tables between NACE Rev1.1 and NACE Rev.2 prolonged the transition process in our NSI. We believe, that compilation of explanatory notes at the same time with the NACE structure would have been helpful to get the best understanding of different aspects and it would help to avoid further misunderstandings.

Estonia

The material on the website mentioned above was sufficient, even excellent, covering all relevant areas. However, we had some difficulties in understanding when a document has been changed and what kind of a change has been undertaken.

Therefore, we would like to suggest that in the future not only the different versions of NACE and CPA structure but also the changes made between the versions would be available in a practical format. In this way, the national offices could then more efficiently continue their work. See 5 a) and 6).

Finland

We appreciated very much all the various material provided by Eurostat. It was sufficient and their timeliness appropriate.

France

As already mentioned the explanatory notes should also be available in a final form about two years before the implementation because (1) they are the basis for national versions which have to be published before the implementation and (2) they are the basis for the implementation itself. The explanatory notes should also include extensive explanations in trade. “Traditionally” we didn’t have much explanatory notes in trade unfortunately but a separate document “Trade described by products traded” instead. These documents have been and are very helpful but they came too late in order to be a basis for the creation of national subclasses.Of course some weak boundaries between classes will always be identified after the implementation of a new classification. But to find 116 “critical classes” (out of 615 NACE classes) later doesn’t suggest that the breakdown of NACE Rev. 2 was clear. Checking these boundaries before finalising the explanatory notes would have been desirable.

Germany

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All material prepared by EUROSTAT were very useful to our work. The guidelines, correspondence tables and explanatory notes facilitated our work a lot. The explanatory notes and the correspondence tables in particular were our basic tool for the implementation of the classification.

Greece

- The introductory guidelines are very useful. In order to better enforce the principles, it is worth considerating the idea to add the introductory guidelines in the rulings. Because of the fact that the rules of outsourcing were finished about one year after the planned schedule, the publishing of the introductory guidelines and the NACE Rev.2 publication delayed as well. - The explanatory notes of NACE Rev.2 are basically appropriate, but in the practice they are not precise enough in some parts, the references are deficient. It might solve the problems that the Eurostat from time to time updates the explanatory notes of NACE.Exception: The pity is that not all of the amendments resulting from Task Force on NACE critical classes could be included in the explanatory notes of NACE Rev.2.- Implementation handbooks could not live up to the expectations, because they are not comprehensive enough and they do not include so much substantial information. That’s why the HCSO used methods for backcasting of time series elaborated by its own experts.- Correspondence tables: we appreciate the work of the Eurostat aiming the elaboration of correspondence tables. We welcome the practice that the classifications are updated regularly.

Nevertheless we encountered many problems regarding the correspondence table of CPA. For the use in practice several supplementary correspondence table had to be elaborated and the Euostat’s correspondence table had to be reworked as follows.

1. The correspondence tables relating to the services were erroneous and deficient and therefore had to be reworked and corrected. 2. TRADED correspondence table: We deem this as a very important initiative, because the SBS requires the turnover data of whole trade and retail according to CPA. But the TRADED was not very applicable in practice because:- not all CPA products were comprised- the items of retail and wholesale were not arranged together (the whole trade and the retail trade of the same product should be in the same row).3. The correspondence table for the repair services has not been elaborated yet (as far as we know), but there is a great demand for it, because the explanatory notes of the repair activities are not unambiguous.

Hungary

Yes. The notes etc were helpful, however when changes were made to the guidance notes and newer versions were made it would have been helpful if we could have been advised by email that a new version was created and what the changes were or where we could find the changes.

Ireland

Sufficient, very useful and in time. See 4 b).Italy

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The material could be more sufficient if in all cases when CPA products were assigned to NACE activities at a higher level than the class level, an additional 4-digit NACE/CPA correspondence table would be available (namely for division 03, 41 and 47, for manufacture of chairs and seats - classes 31.01; 31.02; 31.03 and 31.09).

In addition, in order to facilitate the preparation of national translations of these documents, all texts in English should be clear enough to make it possible to provide the translations of good quality. For example, NACE Rev. 2 Introductory Guidelines paragraph 53 item d (production of energy) should be improved to avoid any misunderstanding that production of energy means production of any kind of energy, e.g. heat energy. The same about the content of the CPA 2008 Introductory Guidelines paragraph 5.3.1. “The CPA 2008 ...separates farmed molluscs and other aquatic invertebrates, seaweeds and other algae from the wild ones but does not split live ornamental fish and crustaceans, pearls and other aquatic plants and animals.” In CPA structure farmed crustaceans are separated from not farmed crustaceans (position 03.00.3) and natural pearls are separated from cultured ones (position 03.00.5) so the end of the line „does not split... crustaceans, pearls...” cause misunderstanding

Latvia

Yes.LithuaniaAll the material made available was very useful for the implementation of NACE Rev. 2 in our office. Probably, timeliness could be improved.

Luxembourg

Yes. Yes.MaltaAn alphabetical index would be very useful.NetherlandsThe additional material for the implementation was sufficient. In some cases the explanatory notes are not clear enough. The correspondance tables have been very useful. Was the timeliness of their publication appropriate to your needs? We think that the introductory guidelines were published too late. If not, please state what could be improved.

Norway

With regard to introductory guidelines, explanatory notes and other concerning materials, we believe that if the NACE and CPA with background material could be accessed at the same time it would result in facilitation of finding differences in the ranges of grouping NACE and CPA.In our view, consideration should be given back to the close relationship with CPA-CN, what would result in avoiding the problems of identifying ranges of groupings.

Poland

We think, in a general way, that the material for the implementation of NACE-Rev.2 was sufficient and the timeliness of their publication appropriate for our need. Nevertheless it was not case of LCI where the implementation of the new classification of economic activities brought strong constraints. Despite having many papers and guidelines, it is never enough when the changes are so deep. The correspondence tables do not help much when a branch of activity can be classified in many others. A dominant criterion is needed. A guideline, which contains a list of difficulties/problems and proposals for their resolution, should be made in the next transition process.

Portugal

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Yes, the materials prepared were very useful, especially the handbooks dealing with the implementation difficulties.

Romania

All materials were very helpful and sufficient, but they were not published according the previously published timetable.

Slovakia

In practice, the explanatory notes have proved not to be sufficient. They are the most used material for explanations of the classification to all kind of users – they should be up-graded and in some cases corrected. The hanbooks were too general to be applicable in national procedures for the implementation of NACE Rev. 2.

Slovenia

Yes.SpainNot always. There were changes in the correspondence tables that we would have liked to be more visible. In the future we would like to see a specific table or document that shows all changes and the repective date for changes.

Sweden

The introductory guidelines and explanatory notes in English, French, German and Italian developed at EUROSTAT level are integral parts of the introductory guidelines and explanatory notes of our national version of NACE Rev. 2. The existence of these publications in the several languages is a big support in the implementation task.

Switzerland

These handbooks were very important. It was a substantial job to draw them up since there was no memory or earlier documents to work from. It would be useful to review them now; a small piece of work to see: were they used, were they helpful, which bits were most used, were there any superfluous bits, was there anything users wanted that was not there. Again this needs to be done fairly soon so that those involved are still around and have a good memory of the process.

United Kingdom

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4 b) We have also set up a task force to better define the boundaries between classes and clarify blur aspects of the classification. Do you think this work was useful ? What could have been improved ?

The discussion about critical classes should have taken place parallel to the first implementation. There are some errors in the NACE, which cannot be revised due to ISIC.The task force has begun working too late.

Austria

We appreciate the work of the TF on NACE.BulgariaIt was very good that such group was established and the document produced by this working group was very useful. We are the opinion that such working practice should be continued.

Croatia

The work of the taskforce proved to be very useful in providing more comprehensive explanations on certain activities that did not have clear boundaries.

Cyprus

Yes, we find out this very useful.Czech RepublicThe Critical Classes task force was very useful.DenmarkThis work was useful.FinlandThe task-force on « Critical Classes » was useful too, although we miss further output: decisions should have been taken on contentious issues. Nothing was decided on how to deal with rulings.

France

The work of this task force and the results achieved were very useful. Maybe two exercises like that would have been ideal – one before the finalisation of the explanatory notes in order to give input for their phrasing, covering a large number of the identified 116 “critical classes”, one with cases resulting form practical experiences.In addition this large number of weak boundaries between classes leads us to the conclusion that we shouldn’t change (revise) concepts substantially if it is not absolutely necessary.

Germany

The relevant task force had to deal with an important task, the NACE critical classes; the result of its work was really useful.

Greece

The Task Force on NACE critical classes is a very important initiative, with a well timing. The TF was held in the second year of the implementation, and by that time it was enough experience gathered from application of NACE. The TF is a very useful forum for debating the problems arising from the practice and for documenting the solutions.We acknowledge the reasoning of Eurostat, that – for the stake of the consistency with the ISIC, the international comparability and avoiding the reworking the of time series – the solutions of the TF have not been applied yet in the NACE Rev.2, but in our opinion it is crucial to apply them by the next revision of the explanatory notes of NACE Rev.2. Otherwise the explanatory notes won’t be relevant anymore.

Proposal: UN experts should be invited to the next meetings of the Task Force on NACE critical classes.

Hungary

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Yes.IrelandTask force are the best tool to prepare handbooks, correspondence tables and so on. It was the right way to fulfil our needs and the efforts on the “additional material” should be broadened in the future.

Italy

Yes, this work was very useful in order to improve and clarify NACE explanatory notes.

Latvia

Yes.LithuaniaI think this was extremely useful for efficiency of decission making and international harmonization. Many of our questions were answered and we organized several projects to get more in line with the NACE.The NACE/CPA working group is too big for real discussion on NACE- and CPA-items. It would be useful to organize those Task Forces more often to stay all on the same track and to learn from each other. The many questions and discussions on circa show the need.

Netherlands

We are of the opinion that the work done by the task force to better define boundaries between classes and clarify blur aspects of the classification has been useful.

Norway

Yes, we believe that the work was usefulPolandThe task force to better define the boundaries between classes were useful. One of the aspects who could be improved is better harmonization between the scope of NACE classes and the CPA categories

Portugal

Yes, we think their work was useful. All the definitions and explanations are useful for better approach of the NACE content.

Romania

Yes, the work of the task force was very helpful and needed.SlovakiaThe work was useful. However, the work is not finished, there are still unclarities. Especially the explanatory notes need further refining and up-grading.

Slovenia

Yes.SpainYes, very useful. No suggestion.SwedenI think setting up a task force to define the boundaries between classes and clarify blur aspects of the classification is a necessary instrument when revising a classification

Switzerland

These handbooks were very important. It was a substantial job to draw them up since there was no memory or earlier documents to work from. It would be useful to review them now; a small piece of work to see: were they used, were they helpful, which bits were most used, were there any superfluous bits, was there anything users wanted that was not there. Again this needs to be done fairly soon so that those involved are still around and have a good memory of the process.

United Kingdom

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5 a) Do you consider the discussion forum for NACE useful ? Any suggestions to improve it ?

The forum for NACE (CIRCA) was useful. A kind of register (e.g. alphabetical sorting of the activities under discussion) would be very helpful.

Austria

Yes, it’s very useful. We watch closely the discussions in the Circa forum and take part in.

PROPOSAL: The pending questions in the forum to be decided more quickly. If the countries’ opinions are missing long time, the responsible person from Eurostat (unit B1) should take a final decision and close the discussion.

Bulgaria

We find forum very useful, maybe it would be good if the questions and answers could be organized according to the NACE sections. Because sometime the question that appeared in xy country will appear later in other country and you are aware that it was already discussed on the forum but you do not remember the correct answer and sometimes it is difficult to find the answer if it was discussed a year ago.

Croatia

The Forum is definitely useful.CyprusYes, the forum is definitely useful, but the outcomes of discussion are sometimes unclear.We also appreciate this web page: http://circa.europa.eu/irc/dsis/nacecpacon/info/data/en/index.htm.

Czech Republic

The forum is useful, but it is very time consuming to use. The system is slow and it is difficult to search. It has become old-fashioned and could be more user friendly.

Denmark

Maintaining forum for NACE is very good idea, but management of case laws is quite complicated. It would be helping, if conclusions were more distincly underlined.

Estonia

We found the forum for NACE, website: <http://circa.europa.eu/irc/dsis/nacecpacon/info/data/en/index.htm>extremely useful. Nevertheless, we have some suggestions to improve it:- including RSS feeds or tables informing the latest changes on the page, see6) Other aspects- including information on the changes between the documents concerning NACE and CPA structure as well as correspondance tables in a practical format like txt, csv or xml, as mentioned above.

Finland

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We acknowledge Michaël Mietzner for the work he carries out on the forum : Circa is really helpful.

One drawback of its success is that are always more and more subjects on Circa and there is no efficient tool for searching. Textual search function in the posting or sorting according several criterial would be very helpful. We could as well quote the lack of formalism in Circa. Whenever conclusions of discussion go further than classification of specific cases and may change the interpretation of classes content, decisions (new rulings or modifying explanatory notes) should be taken, implemented and made visible: this has been done sometimes since 2008, but just in some situations (criterion of decision ?) and the change was not easy to identify.

France

The CIRCA forum is useful. A higher participation by Member States would be desirable.

Germany

The forum for NACE is extremely useful and we always go back when we have doubts on specific items.

Greece

Yes. The CIRCA forum is a very efficient way for immediate discussions among MS about classification problems arising from the practice, and it facilitates the elaboration of Eurostat’s proposals/positions. In that way the time-gap between the NACE/CPA Working Groups can be bridged (One Year!).

Hungary

Yes. It would be helpful if it could be made more user friendly. At present it's hard to navigate and find information.

Ireland

Yes. It could be useful to create new folders for all the questions with an ID code useful to select all the answers from the global forum. In addition, a separate directory for the agreed solutions should be created whilst for issues with different positions it should be necessary to find a way to sum up different opinions.

Italy

The forum for NACE is very useful if the conclusion for each discussion was provided that could be used as final Eurostat recommendation concerning the assignment of activities to specific NACE categories. Sometimes it’s not easy to find necessary issue in the CIRCA total list of articles.

Latvia

Yes, needful and useful.LithuaniaIn case of doubts where to classify a specific unit it could be very helpful to have other opinions and a final decision where to classify the unit.

Luxembourg

Yes.MaltaYes, very useful, especially also thanks to the active and stimulating role that Michael plays.

Netherlands

The CIRCA forum is very useful, but we could wish that conclusions sometimes could have been drawn more quickly.

Norway

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CIRCA forum is useful as it helps to change the opinion in proper interpretation of NACE and CPA on each level. We note too small contribution of individual EU member states in the discussion. The introduction of voting procedures for specific solutions could help in motivating UE countries to participate more actively in the discussion. This procedure would not have to be applied in each case. Decisions that receive the highest number of votes would not be applicable in individual countries, but constitute information used in the next revision of NACE / CPA. Issues of interpretation often arise when the classification is not sufficiently precise, the boundaries between classes are vague, solutions in NACE and CPA are contradictory or CPA-CN links are incomplete. The suggested voting procedure would stimulate the participants to be more active on CIRCA forum.

Poland

The forum NACE is very useful.PortugalYes, we consider that this forum is very useful.RomaniaYes, we consider the forum as needed and useful.SlovakiaIt is useful; however, it is still not clear when some best practice acquires the status of a ruling; this should be further discussed and decided about; the users require clear solutions with possibly only one interpretation.

Slovenia

Yes.SpainYes. Hopefully there will be a better search engine in the future.SwedenAlthough, not very active, we are passionate passive users of the CIRCA forum. We use it everyday in order to find guidance for classification matters, but also to ensure that our understanding is the same as in other countries.

The forum is technically seen not user-friendly. It would be nice to have a good overview of the themes discussed and the search for a discussion thread should be made easier.

Switzerland

Working groups and task forces worked well, except that some changes were allowed beyond the deadline.

United Kingdom

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5 b) Do you think you have received sufficient support from Eurostat in the implementation of NACE ? If not what else could have been done ?

Yes.See also our answer to question 4a)

Austria

Croatia got excellent support through PHARE 2005, if the same kind of support could be repeated again we would be grateful.

Croatia

I believe the support we received from Eurostat in our attempts to change our classification system proved to be very satisfactory especially the Newsgroup Forum and the correspondence tables.

Cyprus

Yes.Czech RepublicEncouragement/facilitation for the exchange of MS methods and experience in the implementation and (not least) the back-casting of the statistics and the Business Registers. Maybe the NACE/CPA WG could discuss how the methods used and lessons learned in the various MS could become available for colleagues in the other MS? Maybe the Commission could – as a starting point – assist in translating key documents (methodologies and evaluation reports) from the various languages into English?

Denmark

We would highly appreciate if the translations of the explanatory notes could be available in all languages.

Finland

Nothing to report : it was OK for France.FranceYes, the support from Eurostat was sufficient.GermanyThe support from EUROSTAT was sufficient and, as mentioned above, all material prepared and disseminated by EUROSTAT were helpful.

Greece

Yes, we have received sufficient support of the organising of forums and preparations of methodological documents.However, further steps could be done in order to more efficient represent the EU level questions and proposals at the UN level. Moreover the MS should be well-informed about the decisions made on UN forums.It should be mentioned that we have not received enough support in statistical domains, where long time series had to be backcasted according to NACE Rev.2.

Hungary

Yes.IrelandYes.ItalyInformative meetings or workshops could be organized by Eurostat annually to discuss current situation and existing problems in connection with the national implementation as well as to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and best practice.

Latvia

Yes.LithuaniaYes.MaltaFor Statistics Netherlands it was sufficient.NetherlandsWe have received sufficient support from Eurostat in the implementation of NACE Rev.2, but some support was received too late in the process, especially support concerning time series which had to be backcasted according to NACE Rev.2.

Norway

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In national accounts domain, Eurostat provided the new data transmission program according to NACE Rev. 2, tables, the range of variables and terms of delivery. Content-related discussion about the implementation of NACE Rev. 2 was very limited.The lack of Eurostat’s approval to include in the grant titled "Work on Operation 2007" activities related to the development of national explanation to the classification based on the NACE Rev. 2 explanatory notes impeded work on the implementation of the classification.

Poland

We think that the support from Eurostat in the implementation of NACE-Rev.2 was sufficient.

Portugal

Yes, we had sufficient support from Eurostat.RomaniaThe Eurostat support was sufficient.SlovakiaYes.SloveniaWe already asked for a clearer system for taking decisions. We are not aware of any advances.

Spain

Yes (but the changes in the correspondence tables should have been made more visiible).

Sweden

Working groups and task forces worked well, except that some changes were allowed beyond the deadline.

United Kingdom

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6 a) What would be the aspects which could have been improved in your national implementation of the new classification ?

Interrelations between the statistical domains should be more explicitly taken into account. For example, national accounts would have needed more back casted data of statistics that are main inputs for NA calculations (especially STS and SBS).Methods of double coding and backward calculations should have been more practically treated in the manuals.

Austria

Better communication with national stakeholders.BulgariaThe organisation of more training with the users coming from other institutions would be useful.

Croatia

The employees of the Census of Establishment 2005 as well as the annual Wages and Salaries Survey had received training on the new classification system. Training was also provided to the relevant officers in the Department of Social Insurance. Unfortunately no training was provided to the employees involved in Classifications in the other departments of the Statistical Service. Any questions they came up with, was solved via private consultation.

Cyprus

For better understanding of content of items and therefore, for the creation of national version of classifications, we suggest in some cases more detailed/understandable explanatory notes (occasionally they were just copied from ISIC Rev. 4 explanatory notes).

Czech Republic

Eurostat´s support was sufficient thanks to the grant. Workshops are useful and it will be nice to keep them going in the future.

Estonia

Revising the national version of NACE requires quite a lot of work. Therefore, the national statistical offices should have enough time to carry this work out. In theory, it could be most efficiently done only after NACE and all it's parts are accepted and changeless.

Finland

The whole operation of implementing the new classification in France's statistical system went well off. We could point out 2 major facts for its success :

- the frame for implementation Eurostat has set up, as well as the provision of many material and tools by the French classification team;

- the creation of a coordination and management structure in our NSI. This steering committee played a key role in the implementation process by carefully monitoring the progress of the various tasks and disseminating information about the operation.

France

Concerning the development of a national version of NACE Rev. 2 it would have been good to have the explanatory notes finalised earlier, to have more explanatory notes in trade and to have clarified the weak boundaries between classes earlier. But finally the development of the national version of NACE Rev. 2 was unproblematic. The national implementation was in line with the agreed timetable. As the general framework for the national implementation may change until the next version of NACE comes into force it is to early to re-think the national implementation process.

Germany

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Not any specific aspect. We spent a lot of time in translating the guidelines and explanatory notes. All working material has been translated by the staff of the Classification Section and this has caused a delay in our work. Nevertheless this had no impact in the implementation of the classification.

Greece

It would have been useful to organise workshops on the different stages on the implementation of NACE, because these stages represent different tasks for the NSIs, especially regarding the registers, statistical domains etc. (good examples are the workshops organised by the INSEE).

Hungary

A more timely compliance with the implementation plan.IrelandSee 6 b).ItalyI think that we would do it probably in the same way for the next bigger revision.

Luxembourg

This whole exercise was carried out by the NSO by itself; it would be a major improvement if all the national departments that already classify their records by NACE were involved in this implementation.

Malta

The number of questionnaires we sent out had to be limited to restrict the administrative burden of enterprises and because of limited capacity. It was difficult to get the coming changes of the NACE into the heads of people making statistics. Many other projects, revisons and reorganizations obstructed the view on NACE rev.2 /SBI 2008. During the actions to get the NACE Rev.2 into the register mistakes in coding were discovered. These were concentrated in the investigated classes which we had to split for NACE Rev.2 causing breaks in timeseries. This cleaning up concentrated on some classes and caused one way flows from one class to another, which caused discussion if we should correct or not.

Netherlands

Implementation of the new classification in the study generally was not a trouble, except that some activities associated with it were very labor intensive and required the use of the results of several studies, and - in wide range - help of the expert’s knowledge

Poland

In Portugal the national implementation in the Section I, Division 55 had some problems, due to the divergence between the national legislation about accommodation establishments and NACE-Rev.2 (for example the motels in the national legislation aren’t considered like hotels and similar accommodation – NACE class 55.10)

Portugal

Timely publishing of relevant legal act and explanations are needed for successful national implementation of the new classification.

Slovakia

- The duration of the procedure for the acceptance of the national legal act was too long - After the re-coding of the register not all business units that were automatically re-coded (e.g. 1:1 relation) reacted and they realised only later that re-codification was not correct, because either in the meantime their activity had changed or it was already wrong in the old version of the classification; however, for the majority of units there were no problems

Slovenia

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We haven't detected any serious problem in the national implementation process.

Spain

Altogether, we are pleased with our organisaion and implemention work.(We will publish a documentation on the national Operation 2007 that will also cover some aspects that are useful for the future national revisions).

Sweden

The work is led by the NACE CPA group; substantial input is needed from registers and then good methodological survey expertise. Wider users such as household surveys, labour market and National Accounts should also be considered. The Eurostat work centred on the classification side which led the other parts; this meant that there was not enough involvement of survey statisticians in the handbook stage and we were slow to engage with the downstream activities. The implementation should be seen as an all embracing project of which classification is the start rather than the classification team directing the whole process. It was particularly difficult to engage National Accounts.

United Kingdom

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6 b) Are there possible actions from Eurostat that could improve the national implementation (information meetings, workshops, etc.) ?

More coordination is needed regarding the implementation of the NACE revision in the various statistical domains (national accounts – SBS, STS).Manuals should be revised now to reflect the experiences of the recent implementation process (see above).

Austria

Proposal:

It would have been useful to organize more working meetings and workshops during developing and implementation process of new classifications.

Bulgaria

The Eurostat has organized very good ESTP courses on classification and also NACE/CPA workshops in cooperation with INSEE. Such exchange of information we find very useful. We are the opinion that such workshops would be useful to be organized on regional level, but there is always lack of staff and financial means.

Croatia

We always welcome the prospect of workshops that will increase the expertise of our staff on the particular topic.

Cyprus

Determination of dates as well as keeping them at international level during creation of international standards is very important for the implementation of national versions of classifications (e.g. above mentioned CPA).

Czech Republic

See question 5.b. above (5 – General Eurostat support)DenmarkEven though some classification cases are extremely difficult to solve, it would perhaps be better if these difficult cases could be thoroughly discussed and fixed early in the process to avoid late changes in the classification.

Finland

The whole operation of implementing the new classification in France's statistical system went well off. We could point out 2 major facts for its success :

- the frame for implementation Eurostat has set up, as well as the provision of many material and tools by the French classification team;

- the creation of a coordination and management structure in our NSI. This steering committee played a key role in the implementation process by carefully monitoring the progress of the various tasks and disseminating information about the operation.

France

It was helpful that a representative from Eurostat was present in the meetings of our national consultancy committee on classifications (with about 80 representatives from Federal Ministries, States’ Statistical Offices, national professional associations, research institutes, etc.) during the revision / updating process of NACE Rev. 2 in order to explain the background of the planned modifications, the working process and the time schedule. For the national implementation we don’t see a need for actions from Eurostat at the moment.

Germany

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Not any specific aspect. We spent a lot of time in translating the guidelines and explanatory notes. All working material has been translated by the staff of the Classification Section and this has caused a delay in our work. Nevertheless this had no impact in the implementation of the classification.

Greece

It would have been useful to organise workshops on the different stages on the implementation of NACE, because these stages represent different tasks for the NSIs, especially regarding the registers, statistical domains etc. (good examples are the workshops organised by the INSEE).

Hungary

No.IrelandAbout dissemination for future revisions, meetings and workshops under the aegis of Eurostat could help to reach more stakeholders not aware of the importance of the participation in the national implementation.

Italy

Yes, as workshops organized by INSEE.LithuaniaNo.MaltaNo.NetherlandsWe think that information meetings/workshops could have been useful during the implementation

Norway

Yes, meetings, workshops and suggested improvement ( included in the section 5a ) on the CIRCA forum are advisable.From the perspective of national and foreign recipients .Would be desirable if the new classification was introduced at the same time in all areas of statistical survey. For example at the moment it is divergence of the introduction of NACE REV. 2 in the case of national accounts in relation to other surveys. Then , works on the implementation of the "new" classification, as well as the conversion themselves, would be performed simultaneously, which would help provide better coherent of data.

Poland

Yes, more actions (meetings, workshops, etc) in order to underline the importance of NACE revision and its implementation at national level.

Romania

All actions were sufficient.Slovakia- Specific Information meetings oriented on the still open issues - Workshops are very useful

Slovenia

No, there was enough help from Eurostat. We consider the works of Eurostat and the WG for the implementation of NACE Rev.2 very positive and well done.

Spain

No suggestions.SwedenThe work is led by the NACE CPA group; substantial input is needed from registers and then good methodological survey expertise. Wider users such as household surveys, labour market and National Accounts should also be considered. The Eurostat work centred on the classification side which led the other parts; this meant that there was not enough involvement of survey statisticians in the handbook stage and we were slow to engage with the downstream activities. The implementation should be seen as an all embracing project of which classification is the start rather than the classification team directing the whole process. It was particularly difficult to engage National Accounts.

United Kingdom

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7) Would you have any other comments or proposals of improvement on the whole process of revision of the classification ?

- On the homepage of EUROSTAT the information about NACE implementation should be better focused. There are hardly any links and it is difficult to find special information.http://circa.europa.eu/irc/dsis/nacecpacon/info/data/en/index.htm- See 6a)- See 6b)

Final comments:- Cooperation between Eurostat and UNSD in the revision process to be intensified, especially if the European classifications should be strictly based on the worldwide ones.- More attention to the coherence between NACE, CPA, PRODCOM and other related classifications.- Better considerations of the relations between the statistical domains.- More consideration of double reporting and backcasting requirements.- Earlier start of discussions in the various working groups on implementation issues.- Update and improvement of the handbooks and manuals now.- Be aware of the total costs of such a basic classification revision.

Austria

The consistency between NACE-CPA-PRODCOM should maintain, because statistical methodologists meet difficulties relating to break a link between NACE and CPA.

We would kindly ask you to have asp a correspondence table CPA2008-CN2012 because a minor changes in the CN2012.

Bulgaria

We were satisfied how the Operation 2007 was organized and we do not have any objections.

Croatia

I believe that continuous training on the Classifications is necessary for a successful implementation of the NACE.Rev.2

Cyprus

See answer to 4 a).We suggest publishing a supplement to the explanatory notes every year in which all changes are. The supplement should be published in advance in order to member states could update their products by the beginning of the year.

Czech Republic

Better possibilities for Community co-financing of MS' work. It is a very costly exercise!

Denmark

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To sum up, we have following suggestions:

A) Fixing the classification and all it's parts earlier, so that the national statistical offices would have enough time to work with their national versions. Following, no double work would be done on national level, if there are no late changes on international level.

B) It would be better if the classes and their titles as well as the explanatory notes would be dealt with at the same time.

C) The NACE legal act should not be given before both the structure and the explanatory notes are fixed.

D) Translations of all elements in all languages.

E) The time given for commenting the translations should be longer to ensure the quality as well as coherence and usability of the classification on national level.

F) It would be extremely valuable, if during the revision process, not only the different versions of the classification documents, but also the differences between these documents, would be available. Even in a practical format like txt, csv or xml, enabling the national offices to carry out their work more efficiently.

G) About NACE pages: <http://circa.europa.eu/irc/dsis/nacecpacon/info/data/en/index.htm>We would highly appreciate if any changes made on this webpage could be easily available, because it is, eventually, a very important tool for those who work in the classification revision or updating process. That is to say, data about which of the douments has been updated and when and how. This could be solved for example by one of the following ways:

G1) Including RSS feeds on the web page. These feeds could contain exact information about which document on which category has been changed and when.

G2) Including a table on the web page in question, which would contain same type of information as described above. It would be excellent if there could also be sorting possibility by date and document type.

Finland

As it was the case for the late revision, future revision or update of economic classifications take place in an international frame. Europe should play a pro-active role in being a source of proposals, for instance in the UN Expert group. Considering the 27 Member States, being a proposition force is not an easy matter. Maybe, organizing Task Forces on specific subjects could help building European proposals.

France

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The large number of weak boundaries between NACE classes suggest that we shouldn’t change the underlying concepts and the basic structure substantially if it is not absolutely necessary.

Germany

We repeatedly emphasize the need of reconsidering that the NACE and CPA has to unconditionally comply with the ISIC. Priority must have given to modernity, flexibility and completeness, while maintaining consistency.

It should be paid more attention to the consistency/coherence between NACE, CPA and the PRODCOM.

Hungary

Co-ordinate the implementation of the new classification more accurately so that all countries could meet a particular implementation date and therefore all aggregates could be continuously available. The fact there was an option for countries to implement NACE Rev.2 in either Q1 2008 or Q1 2009 meant that Eurostat did not have "all Europe" aggregates for a full year.

Ireland

Although difficult, it should be crucial for future revisions to go hand in hand with the development of other classifications especially on products and goods starting from the top (NACE) but also reaching the maximum level of detail requested.

Italy

Because NSIs is planning its own work according to Eurostat plans, the whole process of revision of the classification might be carried out according to time-table without delays and corrections.

Lithuania

No,MaltaNo.NetherlandsIn determining the time series for the back casted data, Eurostat should have taken into account the following criteria:- The complexity of survey, assuming the rule that secondary survey is shorter or at least the same time consuming as the primary survey,- Consistency in all surveys.An example of this may be national accounts, using basic statistics and a number of estimates, aimed at adapting the source statistics to the ESA’95 methodology.Eurostat required that national accounts were provided by the NACE Rev. 2 since 1995, while the structural statistics and price index of industrial production, which are the basis for national accounts, since 2005. Such an inconsistent approach in different surveys impeded and prolonged work. The national accounts estimates are made for the aggregates and reclassification is very difficult. We need deeper analysis of not only requirements, but also of consequences of changes made ( interruption chains of comparable data ).

Poland

No.Slovakia- In Slovenia, we mostly have problems with the tax legislation, since the EU tax directives give us only a descriptive reference to the activities; our national acts translated this into NACE Rev. 2 codes, and we do not know exactly what belongs to them due to insufficiently detailed classification explanations.

Slovenia

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Taking advantage of the NACE revision, some European Statistics increased the information required to the NSIs. This should be avoided in the future.This WG could be a good forum where we can debate about other statistical classifications (not only NACE and CPA), for instance, COICOP, ISCED...

Spain

No.SwedenThe work is led by the NACE CPA group; substantial input is needed from registers and then good methodological survey expertise. Wider users such as household surveys, labour market and National Accounts should also be considered. The Eurostat work centred on the classification side which led the other parts; this meant that there was not enough involvement of survey statisticians in the handbook stage and we were slow to engage with the downstream activities. The implementation should be seen as an all embracing project of which classification is the start rather than the classification team directing the whole process. It was particularly difficult to engage National Accounts.

United Kingdom

24/10/2011 44 / 44

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