Introductory Notes - 3rd Quarter 2002 300 members took part in the Federation of Master Builders third quarter 2002 state of trade survey, the same number as in the second quarter. Their aggregate turnover is estimated at around £250 million a year, a little more than last time due to the participation of more slightly larger firms, and the workforce is also higher at over 4,000. The ratio of directly employed labour, including working proprietors, to sub-contracted labour is this time 2:1, compared with 1.9:1 in the second quarter. 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. They are also reminded that the regional analysis is now on the basis of Government Office Regions rather than standard regions. This follows the change in the basis for the Department of Trade and Industry's construction statistics from standard regions to GORs earlier in 2002. 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 two years previously the FMB had collected data separately for the different segments of the South East standard region, it is possible to produce retrospective results for the Eastern and South East GORs for that period, and those for the third and fourth quarters of 2001 and first quarter of 2002 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 further 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. The response rate from Scotland appears now to have become established at a satisfactory level, but that from Northern Ireland is still weak. Indeed, in this survey is not high enough to give results of publishable quality for the Province. First posted: 28 October 2002. Last modified: 28 October 2002.