Global Connections Survey: guidance

Guidance for service sectors

Definition of service sales and exports

Construction services: are included in exports if they relate to overseas contracts of less than one year which are managed from Scotland and where the employees carrying out the contract are normally based in Scotland.

Education: Sales by educational institutions refer to income generated from fees, and any income generated from patents, research, copyrights, examinations etc. It should exclude the value of Government grants. Exports of education include fees from overseas students and any other income from outside the UK.

Financial Services: Sales of bank and building society services are defined as net interest received plus charges (including all commissions and fees) and earnings on foreign exchange transactions. Fund management companies should count fees generated through investment management fees and fees generated from advisory and other related functions. Exports include feeds from outside the UK and exclude foreign expenses. Securities dealers should provide spread earnings (dealing profits less holding gains), with earnings from overseas being counted as exports. Insurance sales relate to insurance service charges (i.e. premiums minus claims), for direct insurance such as health, property and transport insurance; exports of these refer to the relevant balances with overseas customers. Life insurance sales cover the underwriting services associated with long-term policies, and pension fund services include the service charges associated with pension schemes.

Health and Personal Services: Provision of services such as health, dental or optician treatment, hairdressing, beauty and spa treatments to non-residents count as service exports. Total sales include all fees received for provision of treatment. Only private fees and not resources provided by the NHS should be included.

Hotels, restaurants and catering: Please estimate the percentage of your sales that come from customers who live outside of Scotland in question 6 if possible, even if you cannot supply the detailed information in question 7.

Intangible products: This should include receipts for the right to use franchises, copyrights, licences, patents, processes, techniques, designs, manufacturing rights, trademarks etc, (unless they have already been included in the contract price of goods) and royalties on printed matter and recordings.

Oil and Gas: Sales of crude petroleum and natural gas should NOT be included in this survey as these are classified as sales from the UK as a whole under National Accounting principles. However, sales of service activities relating to oil and gas extraction such as test drilling, test hole boring, pumping of wells, cementing of oil and gas well casing SHOULD be included.

Retail: Exports from retail include all sales to tourists and other visitors to Scotland, as well as online sales, shipped products and sales with reclaimable VAT. Although it may not be possible to identify all of these precisely, please provide your best estimate of the percentage of sales to each area. Even if you cannot complete question 7, it would be most helpful if you could complete questions 5 and 6.

Transport Services: Where your business provides transport of freight, the charges for these services are considered as your sales. However, the value of freight should not be included. If you are transporting exports from the UK to overseas, the money earned from this service is considered as an export. Likewise, if you are transporting goods from Scotland to the rest of the UK, this counts as a sale of your service to the rest of the UK. Passenger transport services covers revenue from passenger tickets and expenditure in transit, and purchases of these by non-residents are exports. Please estimate these as best you can. Also included are transport charters with crew to non-residents. All payments received by Scottish airports, port authorities and other service companies from overseas airlines, ships or others are counted as exports. Rental of cars and other transport equipment to non-residents are exports.