Metadata: Expenditure

Flemish authorities: Department for Finance and Budget

Local authorities: Agency for Home Affairs

ESA expenditure: the expenditure consolidated across all entities coming under the Flemish authorities in accordance with the rules of the European System of Accounts (ESA). Consolidation means that internal flows (revenue and expenditure) between those entities are not counted. ESA is the European standard for national and regional accounts.

Current or nominal prices: prices of the year concerned, not adjusted for inflation.

COFOG classification: the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has developed an internationally comparable functional classification for governments, viz. the classification of the functions of government (COFOG). For the expenditure of the Flemish authorities and the local authorities, the highest level (2 digits) with the following 10 categories is used:

• General public services (code 01)
• Defence (code 02)
• Public order and safety (code 03)
• Economic affairs (code 04)
• Environmental protection (code 05)
• Housing and community amenities (code 06)
• Health (code 07)
• Recreation, culture and religion (code 08)
• Education (code 09)
• Social protection (code 10)

FLEMISH AUTHORITIES

The data concerns actually realised transactions and not the estimated figures from the budget and its reviews.

ESA codes: ESA is the European standard for national and regional accounts and therefore allows for comparison across Europe. ESA is used by EU Member States and was last updated in 2010 (ESA 2010).

The classification derived from the European System of Accounts (ESA) classifies expenditure at the highest level as follows:

Current expenditure

• Current expenditure for goods and services (code 1)
• Interest (code 2)
• Income transfers to other sectors (code 3)
• Income transfers within general government (code 4)

Capital expenditure (investment expenditure)

• Capital transfers to other sectors (code 5)
• Capital transfers within general government (code 6)
• Investments (code 7)
• Loans and participations (code 8)

Government debt (code 9)

ESA expenditure: the expenditure consolidated across all entities coming under the Flemish authorities in accordance with the rules of the European System of Accounts (ESA). Consolidation means that internal flows within that group (revenue and expenditure) are not counted.

Codes 8 (Loans and participations) and 9 (Government debt) are not included in ESA expenditure (see ESA codes above).

Investment efforts from the Flemish official statistics Investment efforts do not correspond to the above capital expenditure. The main difference is that core investments from the investment efforts constitute the difference between capital expenditure and capital revenue. The capital expenditure referred to above only concerns expenditure. Transfers or grants, however, include expenditure only under either term. Loans and participations (code 8) do not fall under either term.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES

The figures originate from the annual accounts of the local authorities. They mainly concern adopted annual accounts discussed by the municipal council. There are also, to a limited extent, provisional, non-adopted annual accounts. Annual accounts are not final until approved by the governor or the competent minister.

The amounts refer to the realised transactions, not to the estimated figures from the budget and its reviews.

This data has been compiled in accordance with the standards of the policy and management cycle (BBC) of the Flemish authorities. The first municipalities switched to the updated version of the policy and management cycle (BBC 2020) in 2019. All municipalities have been using this new system since 2020.

The population refers to the situation as on 1 January of the year concerned.

These statistics use the following headings (compiled from the BBC headings) for local authorities:

Operating expenditure

• Remuneration, social charges and pensions (E.I.A.2)
• Goods and services (E.I.A.1).
• Operating subsidies, payable (E.I.A.4).
• Individual assistance by PCSW (E.I.A.3).
• Other operating expenditure: E.I.A.5 Other operational expenditure; E.I.C Beneficiaries from the surplus of the financial year; E.I.B.1 Interest, commissions and costs associated with debt and E.I.B.2 Other financial expenditure

Investment expenditure (I.I)

Financing expenditure (F.I).

All amounts for both the Flemish and the local authorities are in current prices. These are prices of the year concerned, not adjusted for inflation.

The data concerns administrative data that has been centralised within the Department for Finance and Budget (data of Flemish authorities) and the Agency for Home Affairs (data of local authorities).

Data is available for the following types of local authorities:

• municipal authority
• PCSW
• provincial authority
• autonomous municipal company
• autonomous provincial company
• welfare association (PCSW association)
• district (within the city of Antwerp).

Since municipal authorities and PCSWs work closely together at the organisational level, their accounts are presented as one in the figures. District-based figures are also added to that. Internal flows between the authorities are subtracted from the figures to avoid double counting.

Other local authorities, such as police districts, are not included in the figures.

It is possible that not all authorities have submitted their final annual accounts to the Agency for Home Affairs, which means the final figures for 2021 may still change slightly. All annual accounts of the municipalities and PCSWs, whether final or provisional, have been submitted. Authorities that have not adopted their annual accounts on time must submit provisional annual accounts.

Agency for Home Affairs: Policy and management cycle – data and analyses(opens in new window)

Department for Finance and Budget: Flemish budget(opens in new window) and balance(opens in new window)

Expenditure