Building permits

Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (SORS)

Construction Unit

Dejana Đorđević

Head of Construction unit

5 Milana Rakića, Belgrade

dejana.djordjevic@stat.gov.rs

+381 2412922 ext.260

Not applicable.

A building permit is an authorisation to start work on a building project. The objective of the building permits indicator is to show the future development of construction activity. Building permit is a document issued by a competent administrative body.

Data on issued building permits are overtaken from the Central Register of Intergrated Procedures, which has been administered by the Serbian Business Registers Agency. In this survey includes all issued permits for all types of constructions by Classification of Types of Constructions and also issued permits for all type of works: new construction, renovation, reconstruction, maintenance.

Classification of Types of Constructions – CC.

It covers building permits requested by individuals, construction companies, enterprises, local authorities, government organizations and the church.

Definitions are harmonized with Commission Regulation 1503/2006.

Building permit is usually defined as permit issued at request, regulating beginning of works on construction according to the plan. It is a document issued by a competent administrative body.

Buildings refer to permanent constructions containing roof and outer walls, constructed as separate occupational units that provide protection from weather and other outside effects, with the purpose of living, performing some activities or keeping animals, goods and equipment needed for versatile production or service activities.

Dwelling is any construction unit intended for habitation, consisting of one or more rooms with functional areas for ancillary use (kitchen, bathroom, lobby, pantry, toilet, etc.) or without functional areas for ancillary use and with one or more separate entries, directly from the hall, staircase, from the garden or street.

Observation units are all building permits issued for all types of constructions and works.

Objects on which the works will be carried out according to the issued building permits.

Republic of Serbia

Data has been available since 2007.

The survey is conducted since 2006. 2006 was conducted as a pilot survey and since 2007 has conducted as a regular statistical survey under the Regulation on defining the plan of official statistics.

Not applicable.

Number of dwellings and square meters of useful floor area for buildings, issued building permits and anticipated value of works in thousands of RSD.

Data are collected monthly.  The results of the Eurostat are sending quarterly. It is in accordance with the STS requirements for countries that belong to the Group I.

Data are regularly transmitted to Eurostat. There is no data sharing to other international institutions.

Data confidentiality is stipulated by:

- Official Statistics Law (Official Gazette of RS, number 104/2009), Articles 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, and 49.

(www.stat.gov.rs/media/2322/zakon_o_statisticie.pdf)

- Rulebook on statistical data protection in the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia

(www.stat.gov.rs/media/2343/rulebook-on-statistical-data-protection-in-sors.doc ) 

- Guidelines on measures of data and information protection in the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia

(www.stat.gov.rs/media/2341/guidelines-on-measures-of-data-and-information-protection-in-the-sors.doc )

Confidential data are treated according to policy rules (see Official statistics law, point 7.1).

Data are published only on the level at which they are not confidential.      

Calendar of releases is available at SORS website:

https://www.stat.gov.rs/en-US/calendar

The data obtained through statistical surveys are released at the internet presentation (http://www.stat.gov.rs/en-US/),

• European level: quarterly
• National level: monthly

News release is not available.

Data on building permits are regularly published in Statistical releases

and Monthly statistical bulletin

Construction | Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia

Data on building permits are regularly published in online database since 2007.

Data on building permits (the number of dwellings, and square meters of useful floor area of buildings) are transmitted to Eurostat quarterly, including the required level of detail and timeliness and in the required technical format.

Detailed methodological notes of this survey can be found in the edition of SORS “Methodologies and Standards”, Monthly surveys on building permits, volume 22.

Short methodological information on the national methodologies is available on the statistical website:

Methodology and documents | Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia.

Not available.

The SORS quality management system is relied on the Serbian official statistics mission and vision, as well as on the European Statistics Code of Practice – CoP and the Total Quality Management – TQM principles, which together make the common quality framework of the European Statistical System (ESS).

Data on building permits are produced in accordance with methodological requirements and standards. All users needs are fulfilled because the statistical survey includes all issued building permits and for all types of constructions. Coverage is the whole territory. Before results are presented to users, additional quality control of statistical data is performed and data are compared with previous and corresponding period and checks with different source are made. The results of this survey are comparable with the results of the annually and quarterly survey on construction activity. The publication schedule is fixed and announced in advance.

Users of statistical data on building permits issued can be found in all areas of economic and social life, beginning with individual citizens, business entities, media, bodies of state government and local self-government units as well as academic, scientific and research institutions and non-government organizations and Eurostat.

On biennial basis (once in two years), by the means of web interview, implemented is the User Satisfaction Survey. The survey results are available at SORS website: User Satisfaction Survey | Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia

Data are consistent with the requirements of STS Regulation 2019/2152 and short-term methodological manual.

In this survey included all the issued building permits.

It is possible the correction data for the previous month. After that, the data do not change until February next year. All permits that arrived after the deadline of the survey are entered in the February next year. Then the data become final.

Not applicable.

Response rate is 100%. All data are available according to deadlines.

Indicators are transmitted to Eurostat 90 days after the end of the reference period in required form. For national purposes, data are disseminated 45 days after the end of the reference month.

The data on issued building permits are overtaking from the Central Register of Integrated Procedures 5 days after the end of the reference month. 

All data are published according to the announced Publications calendar.

Link https://www.stat.gov.rs/en-us/calendar/

The same concepts are used within the whole national territory. Monthly survey on issued building permits provides data that are harmonized with the EU recommendations, definitions and classifications.

All data have been available since 2000. There is no difference in comparability or accessibility of the data for various frequencies.

Building permits issued is good leader indicator for future construction activity. Results of the survey on construction building permits were compared with the annually and quarterly survey on construction activity and the conclusion is that there is a strong connection between the mentioned surveys.

There are no problems regarding internal consistence of the time series. Data are internal coherent because they are based on a common methodology for data collection and data processing, ensuring data quality after the checks. The higher aggregates i.e. types of construction according to CC are consistent with their main sub-aggregates.

Not applicable.

Data published in first releases are preliminary. There is a routine revision in each month. Data can change due to questionnaires arriving late or the corrections which are initiated by data suppliers. By the end of the year for which the research is conducted adds the permissions that are sent after the deadline determined for monthly survey.

By switching to an administrative data source, subsequent entry is almost non-existent.

Statistical survey based on administrative data. The data on issued building permits are overtakeing from the Central Register of Integrated Procedures.

Data are downloaded monthly.

The data on issued building permits are overtakeing from the Central Register of Integrated Procedures. 

The following actions are performed for data validation:

• monitoring and analyzing the data completeness,
• consulting with the reporting units the need to confirm data of the reference month,
• controlling, analyzing as well as explaining errors and data outliers (correction of unit data).

For logical control and corrections of errors is used Integrated Survey Tool (IST). IST is a software package that enabled the process of data entry, logical control and production of output tables. 

The coverage is full, that is, statistical survey includes all issued building permits. Downloaded data are aggregated and published at the level of required indicators and territories. The procedure of  weighting, etc. is not applied.

Data on building permits are presented only as absolute values.

Not available.