State enterprises, accounting figures
12.01 - Public finances and social security schemes
Annually
Accounting statistics for Public corporations 12 months
Accounting statistics for Local Government owned rehabilitation enterprises 12 months
Structural statistics for Public corporations 3 months
Municipality
950 - Division for Public Finance
Statistics act Sections 2-2 and 3-2.
Council Directive nr 2223/96
As an integral part of the national accounts
The purpose of the statistics is to collect and compile figures needed to present macroeconomic statistics and statistics about public corporations. This started in 1961 (NOS XII 185).
The major user of the statistics is the National Account Division at Statistics Norway, the public authorities and the general public.
The population comprises all Norwegian companies defined as public corporations. Those are all market oriented non-financial corporations in which the central government or municipality/county municipality directly or indirectly owns more than 50 per cent of the shares. These include all companies incorporated by special legislation market entities. The accounting statistics comprises income statement, balance sheet and selected accounting key figures.
Most of the public corporations accounting reports are obtained by the Tax questionnaire on accounting reported to the Directorate of Taxes (by electronic reporting, or the companies send a copy of the Tax questionnaire directly to Statistics Norway). Furthermore, non-tax liable corporations have reported their accounts to Statistics Norway and these reports have either been delivered electronically or manually. Specifications of some selected items in the balance sheet are reported on an additional questionnaire. Accounting information for the Municipality Energy Supply corporations are collected from the "Economics and Technical report to the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate and Statistics Norway". Accounting information for smaller corporations are obtained directly from the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises. Accounting information obtained by this method is less detailed than the Tax questionnaires on accounting.
Total censuses.
The statistics are based on the collection of the Tax questionnaires on accounting and the questionnaires for specifications of some selected items in the balance sheet. These have either been reported electronically or manually. The number of corporations reporting electronically has increased in the latter years. Tax liable corporations send copies of the Tax questionnaires that they send to the Tax authorities. Similarly, the corporations also provide their annual company accounting report. The questionnaire is issued in connection with the deadline of providing the Tax questionnaire to the Norwegian Tax authority. The deadline for sending in the questionnaires to Statistics Norway is usually the last week in June.
The data are registered in a common accounting database at Statistics Norway that comprises both public and private non-financial corporations.
Control and revision are automatically built-in the accounting database at Statistics Norway This constitutes a control and revision of the balance sheet in accordance with the annual accounts and a macro control.
Not relevant.
It is ensured that there is no direct disclosure about individual corporations to the general public
The Accounting Act of 17th June 1998 and the Norwegian Accounting Standard, NS 4102 govern income statement and the balance sheet.
Operating income and operating expenses, financial income and financial expenses etc is per definition in accordance with the Accounting Act. The balance sheet consists of assets (fixed assets and current assets), equity and liabilities. The questionnaire does not include consolidated accounts.
Applied Key figures
Different key figures are used to identify the enterprises profitability, current ratio and financial strength. Current ratio is defined as current assets in proportion to current liabilities. Financing ratio is fixed assets in proportion to long-term capital. Debt to equity ratio is Total liabilities in proportion to total equity.
The corporations are classified in accordance with the institutional sector and industrial classification (NACE). The balance sheet is classified in accordance with the national accountings financial object grouping and with the grouping of debtors and creditors.
The following sectors are included in the statistics:
610 Public quasi-corporations
630 Public limited companies owned by the state
635 Public corporations incorporated by special legislation
660 Municipal quasi-corporations
680 Public limited companies owned by the municipalities
Business units or corporations that are basically operating general government activities are excluded in the statistics.
The major sources of error have usually been the inability of tracking the ongoing changes in the population. The population is established in an inspection of the share of public ownership in the various corporations as it is registered in the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises. This register is updated continuously on the basis of newly established corporations or annual company accounts. The degree of information provided in the annual accounts by various corporations differs. In addition the companies practices different accounting principles in the same questionnaires, and this inconsistency of practice generates problems for the statistics.
Changes in Statistics Norway's information about the ownership structure in the corporations have significantly affected the increases in the total number of public corporations.
In some cases particularly for smaller companies, Tax questionnaires on accounting have been collected from the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises. Also, whereby no accounting data are available, Tax questionnaires are re-constructed based upon data available from the previous years.
Variance: Not applicable
Bias: Not applicable
Non-response: Not very high
Not relevant.
Changes in the accountancy and the company act, as well as the grouping of items in the Tax questionnaires causes deviation in time series.
The statistics is issued annually after a control of the accounting data. Furthermore, the figures are included the national accounts and in the financial sector balance sheet.
The statistics is published on Statistics Norway's website, and also available in the StatBank and on the Internet, please visit the website:
http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/12/01/attregn_en/ for Statistics of accounts - local government owned rehabilitation enterprises,
http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/12/01/offregn_en/ for Accounting statistics
and
http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/12/01/stoff_en/ for Structural statistics.
Micro data are stored in an Oracle database together with the accounts for the private owned non-financial corporations. Published tables are stored as flat files.
2009 © Statistics Norway