Monthly, quarterly and annually.
Municipal, county and national level.
460 - Division for Construction and Service Statistics
The Statistics Act, Section 3-2
EU Council regulation No 1165/98 May 19, 1998 regarding short-term statistics.
The statistics are reported to Eurostat and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
The statistics measure the developments in building activities for all types of buildings. Statistics Norway has published the building statistics since 1967.
Users of building statistics include the building and construction industry, the Ministry of Finance, Norges Bank, Statistics Norway's national accounts section, municipalities, various domestic and foreign organizations and institutions and the United Nations.
The population is licensed, started and completed buildings during the month, quarter and year. The observation unit is building. The population does not include constructional alteration of already existing buildings.
The Ground Parcel, Address and Building Register (GAB) is a computer register containing information about ground properties and addresses in Norway. The register also contains information on all buildings under construction at 31 December 1982 and all buildings that have been built or changed since 1 January 1983. Data to GAB are collected pursuant to the act relating to the division of landed property and provisions of this act.
AS from 2009 the municipalities have been transferred from the Ground Parcel, Address and Building Register (GAB) to the new property register, Matrikkelen.
The owner of the register is the Ministry of Environment, with the Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority professionally responsible. The County Mapping Offices administrate the register system in the districts and together with each of the municipalities they are responsible for entering the data.
"Norsk Eiendomsinformation as" runs the register, and the municipalities provide the necessary information for Matrikkelen, based on data supplied by the investors and authorities.
The building statistics are a complete census.
Data from Matrikkelen.
Every building was checked and revised if necessary with a set of fixed machine and manual checks and revision procedures. The variables that were checked are date, type of building, industry, utility floor space, number of dwellings, dwelling units, fixed baths and flush toilets. The revision procedures ensure that obvious errors in the register are corrected. The procedures ensure that there is correspondence between the various variables for the same building.
Totals are calculated by summation. Monthly series started are seasonally adjusted, while trend-cycle data are published both for utility floor space other than in dwellings and for dwelling units and utility floor space in dwellings. The numbers are adjusted for seasonal variations applying the X12ARIMA method with non-fixed seasonal effects and multiplicative model. Pre-correction of trading day effects, Easter effects and extreme values if they are significant.
Not relevant.
Approved building. When project application is granted it is considered as an approved building in the statistics. A granted project application gives permission to start up preparetory work.
Building work started. Building work started. Until 1999 building work was counted as started when the work with piles, the laying of the foundation wall and founding of footing begins. From 2000 the starting date used is mainly the date when starting permission is given. This concerns only buildings processed by an application in accordance with PBL §93. For other buildings mainly the rule that the building work is counted as started when the work with piles, the laying of the foundation wall and founding of footing begins is still in force.
Buildings under construction. Buildings are considered under construction when the work is reported started but not yet reported completed even when the construction is stopped in the meantime. If a building is still under construction after a mighty long period, an investigation is made to see if the construction is stopped, or if the building is supposed to be completed. The registration is cancelled when a building that is started is not expected to be completed, and the building will not be considered in the statistics. This may affect the numbers.
Buildings completed. For buildings applied for, according to the Plan and Building Law §93, date for temporary use permission or certificate of completion is used. Furthermore, a building is considered completed when it is physically ready to be put into use or when at least 50 per cent of the utility floor space is actually in use.
Utility floor space is the floor area measured within the outer walls, defined in Norwegian Standard NS 3940 Area and volume calculations of buildings.
Dwelling units. Only conventional dwellings with at least 1 room and kitchen are included. Only dwellings that are used as year-round dwellings are counted as dwelling units.
Single rooms are living quarters without kitchen but with separate entrance and with access to water and toilet outside other living quarters. Single rooms are not considered to be dwelling units.
Dwellings equal dwelling units plus single rooms.
Room. A room must satisfy the room requirements of the Building Act and be 6 m2 or larger. Kitchen, bath, hallway and the like are not counted as rooms.
Floor. The number of dwellings and area in the basement, lower floor and loft are registered. The difference between basement/lower floor and lower floor/regular floor is stipulated in the building regulations and in principle is determined by how high the panelled ceiling is above level terrain. A regular floor shall have a height of 2.10 metres or more above a breadth of minimum 1.20 metres. An accessible volume above the upper regular floor is called a loft. A free height of 1.90 metre with a minimum width of 0.60 metres is required.
Type of building is established according to function, combined buildings, for instance combined dwelling and business buildings and storage and production buildings, are grouped by the function that occupies the main part of the utility floor space.
Industrial classification. In addition to building type, it is also registered what industry the user of the building belongs to. The Industrial Classification is attached to the user and is therefore independent of the building type. At the time of filling out the statistical form it is not always known who the user of the building will be. Because of this the industrial classification is considered to be more uncertain than the classification of the building type. The industrial classification is in accordance with the EU Industrial Classification NACE.
Municipalities can make mistakes in registering data in Matrikkelen. The municipalities that do not put building cases online in Matrikkelen fill in a form that is sent to the county mapping office. In some cases the form can be filled in incorrectly. There are also some municipalities which for various reasons do not always follow the current registration rules for Matrikkelen.
The building statistics are a complete census, but with lager delays in registrations of buildings these buildings not be included in the statistics.
The building statistics are a complete census, and the figures in the statistics therefore have no sample variance.
The municipalities are responsible for entering building cases in Matrikkelen. There is a certain amount of lag in the registration of building cases by the municipalities. The registration delay means that not all buildings registered as started or completed during the statistical year were also actually started or completed during the statistical year. The longer the registration delay the smaller this share will be. Tables 3 and 4 show how large a percentage of the buildings which each year were registered as started and completed in the period from 1993 to 2010 which were also actually started and completed these years.
Table 1. Average annual registration delay. Residential buildings. 1993-2010. Months
Table 2. Average annual registration delay. Non-residential buildings. 1993-2010. Months
Consequences and interpretation of registration delays
Registration delays entail two main problems with respect to interpreting the registered figures:
The longer the registration delay is, the greater the chance of major deviations between registered and actual building activities.
Exactly how much building activity there actually is during a certain year or month can never be known until long after the end of the statistical period. For example, buildings that were actually started in 1993 have been registered every year in Matrikkelen until now.
Moreover, no one knows exactly how many building projects have gone unregistered in municipalities in the course of a year. As long as no one knows whether the delay in registration will increase or decline in the future, it is not easy, such a short time after the end of the statistical year, to say whether the registered building activities in a given year are too high or too low in relation to the actual building activities.
Table 8 shows that over a period of time the number of dwellings registered started is higher than the number of dwellings registered completed. The main reason for this is lack of or late registration of completed dwellings in the municipalities. According to Statistics Norway’s routines for dwellings registered completed more than 3 years after actual completion are not included in the statistics.
Provisional - final figures
The same principals and definitions are used in monthly, quarterly and yearly statistics.
However, corrections made in Matrikkelen (because of errors in registration), on which the statistics are based, make the total figures of three monthly statistics differ from figures in the quarterly statistics. In the same way total figures of four quarterly statistics will differ from figures in the yearly statistics.
Agriculture, forestry and fishing building have been included again in the statistics since 1993. From 1971 to 1992 these buildings were excluded from the statistics due to the fact that the registration of these buildings failed after the obligation to submit reports was discontinued in January 1970. Beginning 1 March 1991 new registration instructions were imposed on the municipalities to report new buildings in agriculture, forestry and fishing to the GAB register.
Before the establishment of the GAB register in 1983, the useful floor space of buildings was used. Statistics Norway has calculated conversion factors between useful space and utility floor space for dwellings. Based on figures from 2 500 buildings, the ratio between useful floor space and utility floor space was measured, and these ratios are as follows:
Detached houses |
1.73 |
Semi-detached houses |
1.37 |
House with 2 dwelling units |
1.40 |
Multi-dwelling houses |
1.46 |
Total |
1.56 |
A figure for total floor space in 1982 is achieved by multiplying the useful floor space by 1.56.
Before 1983, the gross floor space was used for other buildings than dwellings. The gross floor space includes the outside of outer walls, while the utility floor space is measured from the inside of outer walls.
The industrial classification was formerly in accordance with the UN International Standard Industrial Classification ISIC. Since 1996 the classification has been in accordance with the EU Industrial Classification NACE. Utililty floor space divided by division can because of this not be compared with the previous years.
Due to new preparation routines there is a break in the statistics for buildings under construction from 1991. Buildings reported under construction more than five years ago, but not yet completed, are not included in the statistics as buildings under construction. This change means that the average figure for all buildings will be 9 per cent lower from 1991.
From 2000, new triple figures were used for type of building, while until 1999 double figures were used. Thus there is a break in type of building from 1999 to 2000.
As from 2007 Svalbard is included in the annual building statistics. The figures only include the building activity in Longyearbyen, while other areas of Svalbard are not included in the statistics. This is because only buildings in Longyearbyen are registered in Matrikkelen.
Information on completed detached houses is used in the price index for new detached houses. Building statistics are used for the compilation of national accounts statistics.
Monthly, Quarterly and Annual statistics are normally published on Statistics Norway's website:
http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/10/09/byggeareal_en/
Annual statistics are also published through other publications of Statistics Norway, as Statistical Yearbook and Official Statistics of Norway.
The figures are additionally published in Statbank Norway:
http://statbank.ssb.no/statistikkbanken/default_fr.asp?PLanguage=1
Enge, A.K. (1999): Kvalitetsendring i byggearealstatistikken-årsaker og konsekvenser, Rapporter 99/28 Statistics Norway (In Norwegian only)
Jule, R. (1995): Registrering av byggesaker til GAB-registeret og byggearealstatistikkens kvalitet, Notater 95/34, Statistics Norway (In Norwegian only)
Takle, M., Bjørsvik, A., Jensen, R., Kløvstad, A., Mork, K. (1999): Kontroll av kvaliteten på to kjennemerker i GAB-registeret. Bruk av GIS for analyse og presentasjon, Rapporter 99/30, Statistics Norway. (In Norwegian only)
Micro data are stored as text files on UNIX.
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