2nd Quarter 2002 - Introductory Notes 300 members took part in the Federation of Master Builders second quarter 2002 state of trade survey. Their aggregate turnover is estimated at around £225 million a year, and their current total workforce is around 3,750. The ratio of directly employed labour, including working proprietors, to sub-contracted labour is this time 1.9:1. Readers are reminded that, as has been the case since the start of 1999, individual replies to the FMB survey are weighted by size of firm, but there is still not a sufficient run of results on this basis to test for and, if necessary, adjust the results for normal seasonal variations in building activity. Where changes from one survey to another appear to be due to such variations, however, this is stated in the commentary. There are further small changes this time in the regional analysis for England. Up to the second quarter of 2000 this was based on membership of FMB regions, but from the third quarter of that year it was based on standard regions, with respondents being asked to indicate in which region they principally operate. This facilitated comparison of results with the 'official' construction statistics from the Department of Trade and Industry. Now, however, the DTI has changed the basis of its regional statistics from standard regions to Government Office Regions, and the FMB survey has followed suit as far as possible. The principal change from standard regions to GORs involves the creation of the Eastern GOR by merging East Anglia (i.e. Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk) and the Bedfordshire, Essex and Hertfordshire segment of the South East standard region. As for the past two years the FMB has collected data separately for the different segments of the South East standard region, it is a straightforward task to re-work the data for those years to obtain results for the Eastern and South East GORs, and those for the last four surveys are shown in Tables 1, 3, 5 7 and 8. The other change involves the North and North West standard regions, and the North East and North West GORs, the difference between which is that Cumbria is included in the North standard region but in the North West GOR. It is not possible to make any retrospective adjustment of FMB survey results for this change. However, given the very small size of the survey sample in Cumbria, it is not felt there could have been any significant difference in results for the North standard region and North East GOR, or for the North West on the two slightly different bases. Readers are also reminded that from first quarter 2001 the survey has been extended to Scotland and Northern Ireland. The initial response from these two countries was somewhat disappointing, so their samples were increased for 2002. Judging by the number of questionnaires returned in the first quarter and again this time, it seems the response rate from Scotland is becoming established at a satisfactory level, but that from Northern Ireland is still disappointing, and results for the Province should be treated with caution. Further Information For further information, please contact: Federation of Master Builders Gordon Fisher House 14-15 Great James Street Holborn London WC1N 3DP Tel: 020 7242 7583 Fax: 020 7404 0296 First posted: 14 August 2002. Last modified: 15 August 2002.