General government financial assets and liabilities
12.01 - Public finances and social security schemes
Annual
National level only
950 - Division for Public Finance
The Statistics Act, § 2-2
Council Regulation 2223/96. Also Council Regulations 3056/93 and 475/2000, which are not EEA relevant, but connected to the Economic and Monetary Union.
Eurostat og International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The purpose is to offer comparable time series over a long period of time for the general government's financial assets and liabilities based on the international guidelines for financial accounts (see 6.2).
General government financial assets and liabilities is publised in a new format from 2009 with comparable figures from 1995 to the present. The statistics is based on the database system Finse, a system for the compilation of financial transactions, assets and liabilities by institutional sectors.
The statistics is used in the National Accounts. Other important users are the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Norway, research institutions and mass media.
The population comprises all state, municipal and county municipal administrative bodies limited according to the National Accounts regulations for general government. Public corporations and unincorporated public enterprises (financial or non-financial) 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. Counterpart information is also extensively used to give a realistic view of General government's financial situation. In practice there may be gaps due to lack of an overview of the population.
The statistics is based on the database system Finse, which has a number of different sources. Administrative sources that are used are the balance sheet of the central government's fiscal account collected from the Ministry of Finance, and the balance sheets for municipalities and county municipalities. At the time being some of the accounts for municipalities and county municipalities are according to the Municipal Law's regulations for accounting and some are according to the chart of accounts of the KOSTRA project. These registers contain financial assets and liabilities classified by financial instrument, and in part classified by debtor/creditor sector. There is also a special collection of balance sheet information from other accounting units within the general government.
In principle total counting, but in practice some minor accounts are not collected due to lack of resources and lack of an overview of the population.
Balance sheets for the Common Councils for Church Affairs are collected from the accounts of these bodies. Balance sheets for other units outside the administrative registers are collected in the form of annual reports and questionnaires. These units are e.g. central government funds, central government agencies with special authority, municipal enterprises and inter-municipal units dealing with non-market activities, and separately organised debt units owned by the municipalities. The one who responds to the enquiry is the individual who is responsible for accounting or the ministry etc. that manages a fund. Within the local government sector the accounts are collected on standardised forms, but within the central government the person responsible for accounting to some degree chooses what form the reported accounting figures are to have, e.g. as concerns the detailing level and the principles for periodicity.
Counterpart information is also extensively used to give a realistic view of General government's financial situation.This mainly consists of checking that the accounts balance (i.e. that the assets equal the liabilities), and that financial assets and liabilities between general government units are the same for both the assets and liabilities side. All remaining checks are done on macro level and based on the applied characteristics.
Not relevant.
Not relevant.
Total financial assets: Total financial assets at market value, consolidated.
Total liabilities: Total liabilities at market value, consolidated.
Net financial assets: Total financial assets - total liabilities.
Net revaluations: Other changes in volume plus revaluations due to changes in market prices of financial instruments.
Change in net financial assets: Net financial assets year (t) minus net financial assets year (t-1). This equals net borrowing/lending (t) + net revaluations (t)
Net borrowing/lending in financial accounts: Net acquisition of financial assets – net incurrence of liabilities
Public gross debt according to the EU's definition: "The Maastricht definition" of public gross liabilities, used for comparisons between the EU countries. Defined as gross liabilities in the form of deposits, certificates, commercial papers and Treasury bills, bonds, and loans, at nominal value and consolidated (i.e. minus debt between units within general government).
Financial instrument: Financial assets and liabilities are classified by main type, aiming at having relatively uniform groups. The classification is based on the international guidelines for National Accounts (see 6.2).
Debtor/creditor sector: Financial assets and liabilities are classified according to which financial sector in the economy the individual debtor or creditor belongs to. Classification is based on international guidelines (see 6.2).
In addition central and local government are classified by institutional sub-sectors.
Errors and discrepancies can occur in accounting data, due to:
- Errors in transferring data from the units' primary accounts to receiving media
- Different accounting and estimation principles
- Different entry times
- Incompletely filled out reports from respondents
The non-respondents are rather few, about 5 units per year. These units are also relatively insignificant, so the previous year's figures are used.
Not relevant.
Frame errors For some balance sheet items the specifications are not good enough to satisfy the international requirements. In addition it may be that the classification by financial instrument and debtor/creditor sector is inadequate. Furthermore, delayed updating is a problem with the municipal accounts, but after some time the coverage is normally complete.
The Finse database provides comparable quarterly figures over time from the 4th quarter of 1995.
For the central government minor breaks may occur, since the fiscal account's chart of accounts is not fixed from year to year. Breaks in the time series occur relatively seldom for the municipal accounts, since the chart of accounts is established by the Local Government Act.
The statistics are based on the guidelines for financial accounts in the international National Accounts standards: 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. Preliminary figures are disseminated for the first time normally in December year t+1 while the final figures are disseminated several years later. Variances between preliminary and final figures are modest.
No corresponding short-term statistics are disseminated, but quarterly data for the Central Government's liabilities are disseminated (see the statistics Central government debt, end of quarter). In addition the statistics General government revenue and expenditure is disseminated the same way and based on the same international guidelines as for the General government financial assets and liabilities.
The statistics are included in the statistics Financial accounts, which again is part of the National Accounts.
The microdata are stored in the SAS and the Oracle databases, and the disseminated data are stored in the FAME database.
2009 © Statistics Norway