Public purchasing (discontinued)

Public procurements: Defined as the sum of intermediate consumption, social benefits in kind and gross fixed capital formation for general government and unincorporated public enterprises. The definition is not a precise one, but as close as could be without organising a separate collection of data for this purpose.

General government: Defined in the same way as in the National Accounts, i.e. predominantly non-market activities under government control.

Unincorporated public enterprises: State, municipal and county municipal market activities that are not organised as separate legal entities, and companies where municipalities or county municipalities have unlimited economic control.

Intermediate consumption: Procurements of goods and services for use in the production of goods or services.

Social benefits in kind: Procurements of goods and services that are transferred to households.

Gross fixed capital formation: Net acquisitions of fixed capital with duration of more than a year.

Not relevant

Name: Public purchasing (discontinued)
Topic: Public sector

Division for Public Finance

National level only.

Annual.

Not relevant

The microdata are stored in the SAS and the Oracle databases.

The purpose is to provide statistics that show the size and composition of public procurements. The statistics started in 1994.

Important users are the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries the Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation, municipalities, enterprises and mass media.

No external users have access to the statistics and analyses before they are published and accessible simultaneously for all users on ssb.no at 08 am. Prior to this, a minimum of three months' advance notice is given inthe Statistics Release Calendar.

The statistics are mainly based on input from the statistics on General government revenue and expenditure. This statistics is again based on the international standards for National Accounts - System of National Accounts (the UN et al.) and the European System of Accounts (the EU), plus the IMF's A Manual on Government Finance Statistics. These standards do not include any specific definition of public procurements. Preliminary figures are disseminated for the first time in the year t+1 while the final figures are disseminated in the year t+3. Variances between preliminary and final figures may be considerable due to uncertain preliminary figures for unincorporated public enterprises.

No corresponding short-term statistics are disseminated, but quarterly operating expenses for the units included in the central government fiscal account are disseminated as part of the statistics on Central government fiscal account, revenue and expenditure.

Part of the statistics is included in the statistics on General government revenue and expenditure, which again is part of the National Accounts system.

The Statistics Act, § 2-2.

Council Regulation 3037/90, Commission Regulation 761/93, Council Regulation 3696/93, Council Regulation 2223/96.

The population comprises all state, municipal and county municipal administrative bodies limited according to the National Accounts regulations for general government, as well as unincorporated public enterprises (government units which sell industrial and commercial goods and services to the public). Publicly owned enterprises are not included. The basic sources are the central government's fiscal account, the individual accounts for municipalities and county municipalities, and accounts for other state, municipal and county municipal units (e.g. funds) that are considered part of general government, and unincorporated public enterprises. In practice there may be gaps due to lack of an overview of the population.

Most of the data are collected from the statistics on General government revenue and expenditure. In addition there is a separate collection of accounts for unincorporated public enterprises.

In principle there is total counting of all units of unincorporated public enterprises, but in practice some minor accounts are not collected due to lack of resources and lack of an overview of the population.

Accounts for unincorporated public enterprises are collected on special forms (Industry Form 2). The one who responds to the enquiry is the individual who is responsible for accounting.

Reporting and record keeping burden

Approximately 30 minutes per respondent for each accounting year by approximately 10 respondents within unincorporated central government enterprises and 500 respondents within unincorporated local government enterprises, totalling approximately 35 day's work for the entire sampling.

For unincorporated public enterprises all totals are carefully checked, as well as other logical connections in and between the profit and loss account and the balance sheet. Checks are also carried out against important items in the enterprises' annual reports.

Not applicable

Not relevant

One tries to avoid great breaks in the time series by preferably carrying out any large changes in connection with retroactive revisions. For the central government minor breaks may occur, since the specifications in the fiscal account may be adjusted at any time by resolutions in the National Assembly. Breaks in the time series occur relatively seldom for the municipal accounts, since the chart of accounts is established by the Local Government Act. Still from 1990 to 1991 there was a break due to revision of the municipal accounts regulations, and at present a revised chart of accounts is gradually being implemented as part of the KOSTRA project, with the new chart of accounts being fully introduced for the 2001 accounts. This no doubt leads to breaks, but the extent is difficult to determine. For unincorporated public enterprises breaks in the series will mainly occur in connection with changes in the accounting law (new law from 1999) or because of organisational changes, e.g. when units are reorganised as publicly owned enterprises, and thereby excluded from the statistics.

Most of the data are collected from the statistics on General government revenue and expenditure. The main problem is that public procurements is defined in such a schematic way that for instance own investment activities are regarded as procurements. If this were to have been done differently the statistics would have required considerably more resources. For unincorporated public enterprises processing errors may occur because of wrong entries in the profit and loss account or the balance sheet, or lack of specification of fixed assets in the balance sheet.

The non-respondents are rather few, about 5-10 units per year. These units are not significant either, so the previous year's figures are used if they are available.

http://www.ssb.no/en/omssb/styringsdokumenter/formidlingspolitikk/prinsipper-for-revisjon