Introductory Notes - 2nd Quarter 1999 At the end of 1998 the Federation of Master Builders reviewed its quarterly state of trade survey, and decided to make a number of changes. Some questions were omitted, so as to focus more closely on those ones the results of which may be compared most directly with the evidence of official data for construction orders, output and employment from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The relatively greater changes, however, are in the methods of analysis. One important innovation - which creates a discontinuity in the series of results of questions that feature in both the former and revised questionnaires - is the weighting of individual replies by reference to the size of the respondent firm. Although all FMB members are small or medium-sized enterprises, the annual turnover of the largest of them can be a hundred times greater than that of the smallest, and it will give a fairer impression of trends in the whole SME sector if allowance is made for these differences. For the time being, however, some of the historic comparative data are, still, calculated from unweighted responses, as specified in the headings to the tables. The response rate to this survey of FMB members' state of trade was almost exactly the same as in the first quarter survey. About 300 firms took part, with an aggregate annual turnover of around £150 million, and with some 3,000 operatives working on their sites as either direct employees or sub-contractors. First posted: 21 July 1999. Last modified: 20 January 2000.