Timeliness and Punctuality

Timeliness is about releasing statistics in a timely and punctual manner.

Farms in the survey have accounting year-ends between November and May. Data collection for farms with May year-ends cannot begin until June. Data collection, fieldwork and processing by SACC takes several months, and the finalised dataset is passed to the Scottish Government in December.

The release of results is completed in March of the following year. This allows sufficient time for data processing, analysis and quality assurance, as well as compilation, preparation and dissemination of final results.