Building permits

Construction Indicators Unit

Restricted from publication

Restricted from publication

5 Milana Rakića, Belgrade

Restricted from publication

Restricted from publication

Restricted from publication

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 are collected by using the reporting method on the Monthly Survey on building permits (GRAĐ-10). 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.

Reporting units involve the Ministry in charge of construction works in the Republic of Serbia, relevant authorities in autonomous province, city and municipality that issue building permits.

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

Number of dwellings and square meters of useful floor space residential and non-residential buildings according to issued building permits. 

Republic of Serbia

Starting from 1999 the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia has not at disposal and may not provide available certain data relative to AP Kosovo and Metohija and therefore these data are not included in the coverage for the Republic of Serbia (total).

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 offical statistics.

Not applicable.  The time series is expressed in absolute values.

Number of dwellings and square meters of useful floor area for buildings.

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.

National legal basis for the Monthly Statistical Survey on Issued Building Permits (GRAĐ-10) are the following:

• Official statistics law (Official Gazette of the RS``, No. 104/2009).
• Decision on the program of official statistics in the period 2016-2020 (Official Gazette of the RS``, No. 114/2015).
• Regulation on defining the plan of official statistics for 2017 (Official Gazette of the RS``, No. 110/2016). 
• The obligation on units to submit the report is based on the Article 26 of the Official statistics law (Official Gazette of the RS, No. 104/2009). In case of the refusal to provide data, the provision of incomplete or incorrect data or the provision of data out of the time schedule, penalty provisions defined in Articles 52, 53 and 54 of the Law shall apply.

Legal acts are available in SORS website:

http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/WebSite/Public/PageView.aspx?pKey=286

EU Legislation for the Monthly Statistical Survey on Issued Building Permits:

• Regulation (EC) 1893/2006 establishing the statistical classification of economic activities NACE Rev. 2),
• Classification of Types of Constructions – CC.
• Council Regulation 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term statistics , 
• Regulation 1158/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2005 concerning short -term statistics,
• Commission Regulation 1503/2006 of 28 September 2006 concerning short-term statistics as regards the definition of variables, list of variables and frequency of data.

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

National legislation:

National confidentiality policy is defined in Official statistics law (Official Gazette of the RS``, No. 104/2009) (http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/WebSite/userFiles/file/O%20nama/Dokumenti/Zakon_o_statisticiE.pdf  )

European legislation:

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 March 2009, on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities.

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.      

Publications calendar is published at the end of the year for the next year.

http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/WebSite/Public/CalendarView.aspx?pKey=37&cType=1

In line with the Official statistics law (Official Gazette of the RS``, No. 104/2009) and European Statistics Code of Practice all users are treated equitably. Data on building permits  are published on the SORS website, after which those data are simultaneously accessible to all users.

Data on building permits (the number of dwellings, variable B: 411, and square meters of useful floor area, variable B: 412) are transmitted to Eurostat quarterly, beginning with the first quarter of 2000, including the required level of detail and timeliness. The data are transmitted in the Gesmes form.

• European level: quarterly
• National level: monthly

Statistical release GR30.

Data on building permits are regularly published in Statistical releases

http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/WebSite/Public/PageView.aspx?pKey=120

and Monthly statistical bulletin

http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/WebSite/repository/documents/00/01/72/60/MSB-01-2015.pdf

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

Not available.

Data on building permits (the number of dwellings, variable B: 411, and square meters of useful floor area, variable B: 412) are transmitted to Eurostat quarterly, beginning with the first quarter of 2000, including the required level of detail and timeliness and in the required technical format.

The methodological instruction for the implementation of the Monthly survey on building permits with detailed explanations, definitions, and guidelines for the organization of the survey is available on the following link:

http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/WebSite/Public/PageView.aspx?pKey=122

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

http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/WebSite/userFiles/file/Gradjevinarstvo/SMET/SMET012010E.pdf

Not available.

The SORS aims to establish quality management system relying on the European Statistics Code of Practice. Also, the SORS adopted the Recommendation 4, Eurostat Leading Expert Group on Quality that concerns the system of quality management and the implementation of Business Excellence Model of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM BEM).

The document of quality policy is available on the statistical website:

http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/WebSite/Public/PageView.aspx?pKey=286

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.

User satisfaction is measured on the basis of downloading the data and by Users Satisfaction Survey. Results of that survey are available on the statistical website: http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/WebSite/Public/PageView.aspx?pKey=286

Special user satisfaction survey regarding short - term indicators was not conducted so far.

Data are consistent with the requirements of STS Regulation 1165/98 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 database. Then the data become final.

Not applicable (in order to collect data on all building permits (whole population)).

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

Measures to reduce non-response: units are contacted by phone plus reminders are sent by post.           

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.

Forms for the whole year are sent to reporting units at the end of December of previously year. Reporting units then fill in the GRAĐ-10 forms on the basis of their records on building permits issued. Collection of data is finished in 30 days after the deadline.

All data are published according to the announced Publications calendar.

Link http://webrzs.stat.gov.rs/WebSite

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 2007. 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.

There is no specific policy for revisions at the statistical Office level. Internal procedures established on the basis of experience in the Statistics Department.

Data on building permits are published as a preliminary. Data may be revised when the data for next month are added. 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. After possible changes they are become the final. For example in 2016 was subsequently entered 5 permits that were submitted after the deadline for survey. Subsequent entry did not influence significantly the published results. Gross building area and number of dwellings are not changed after the final entry. Final results were publised in online database by month. On the SORS website are available data since 2007 (when research was started to carry out). Data for the period 2000-2006 was estimated by quarters and transmitted to Eurostat.

Calendar for data revision does not exist. The same revision is applied for publishing of national data and for data transmitted to Eurostat.

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. In 2016 was subsequently entered 5 permits that were submitted after the deadline for survey. Subsequent entry did not influence the published results. Gross building area and number of dwellings are not changed after the final entry.

Confrontation with other statistics is not applicable because there are no other adequate sources of data. 

Statistical survey based on administrative data. The Address Book of Reporting Units covered all competent administrative body for issued building permits (Ministry in charge of construction works in the Republic of Serbia, relevant authorities in autonomous province, city and municipality that issue building permits).

Data are collected monthly. 

Data are collected with a paper questionnaire (GRAĐ-10).  Questionnaires are sent to reporting units by post for all months at the beginning of the year. Also, the questionnaire is located on the website and reporting units can use it. Reporting units may send completed questionnaires by post, fax or e-mail. In 2016, along with the postal questionnaires on line questionnaire are also introduced.

Actions taken to speed up or increase the rate of response: re-contacts by mail or post (written remainders), telephone contacts.

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.

There are no unit non-response rates and item non-response rates, because reporting units that did not send filled-in questionnaires or did not fully complete the questionnaire are contacted by phone and asked to send the filled-in questionnaire for the current month or to provide the missing data.

Data on building permits are presented only as absolute values. There is no seasonal or working-day adjustment of the statistical data on building permits, it is in accordance with the STS requirements.

 Not available