Rural Scotland Business Panel Survey February 2023

Footnotes

1 Only findings that were different from the average are included in the sector summaries.

2 The report from the first survey can be found on the Scottish Government here; the report from the second survey can be found here; the report from the third survey can be found here

3 The HIE Business Panel report is available on the HIE website here; the SOSE Business Panel report is available on the SOSE website here.

4 The Scottish Government’s six-fold Urban Rural Classification is described on the Scottish website available here.

5 Travel to Work Areas (TTWAs) are a statistical tool used by UK Government and local authorities to indicate an area where the population would generally commute to a larger town, city or conurbation for the purposes of employment. The TTWAs were developed in 2011 by Newcastle University using an algorithm to identify community patterns.

6 In October 2022, there were 4,362 panel members (2,872 businesses on the HIE panel, 558 on the SOSE panel, and 932 on the rest of rural Scotland panel)

7 UK Business Counts enterprises by industry and employment size band are available on the NOMIS official labour market statistics webpage.

8 Scotland’s Economic Strategy identifies growth sectors, which are available on the Growth Sector Statistics webpage.

9 In this report sole trader refers to any business that said they had no employees at the time of the survey (though it is recognised that the term sole trader can also include businesses that have employees but who retain sole ownership of the business).

10 The net confidence figure is the difference between ‘increased’ and ‘decreased’. Net scores are negative when there are more negative views on their confidence than positive.

11 Differences for remote and accessible rural businesses may reflect the sectoral make up of businesses in those areas. In the survey sample, remote rural areas had a higher than average proportion of both food and drink and tourism businesses, and accessible rural areas a higher proportion of food and drink businesses.

12 As noted earlier, differences for remote and accessible rural businesses may reflect the sectoral make up of businesses in those areas. In the survey sample, remote rural areas had a higher than average proportion of both food and drink and tourism businesses, and accessible rural areas a higher proportion of food and drink businesses

13 Rural Scotland Key Facts 2021 is available on the Scottish Government Publications webpage.