Introductory Notes - 3rd Quarter 2001 Around 300 members took part in the Federation of Master Builders third quarter 2001 state of trade survey. Their aggregate turnover is estimated to be over £175 million a year, and their current total workforce is over 4,100. The ratio of directly employed labour, including working proprietors, to sub-contracted labour is a little over 1.8:1, slightly ahead of the ratio in the second quarter survey. Readers are reminded that the survey sample now includes FMB members in Scotland and Northern Ireland. For purposes of comparison with results of surveys carried out earlier than the first quarter of 2001, the series of what were previously described as 'National' results are continued with the label 'England & Wales'. Replies from Scotland and Northern Ireland are included in new 'UK' series. As the samples for these two countries are, for the time being, relatively small - so that the separate results for them should be treated with caution, particularly this time when the response rates for both have fallen from the levels recorded in the first and second quarter surveys - differences between the 'England & Wales' and 'UK' results are small. Results for different types of work, and those for 'All builders' and 'All specialists', are therefore already moved onto the UK basis, which means that, strictly speaking, there is a discontinuity between the fourth quarter 2000 and first quarter 2001 results for these series. However, the differences are marginal. Individual replies are weighted by size of firm, so results of each survey are directly comparable with those obtained a year earlier. For the time being, however, there is still not a sufficient run of data on the revised basis to attempt to adjust for normal seasonal variations in building activity. However, where changes from one survey to another appear to be attributable to such variations, this is stated in the commentary. For the past year the regional analysis of results has been based on standard regions rather than FMB regions. Firms are asked to indicate in which standard region they principally operate. This facilitates comparison of results with the 'official' construction statistics from the Department of Trade and Industry. First posted: 31 October 2001. Last modified: 31 October 2001.