What does the statistics on expenditure and receipts of public youth welfare describe?
The statistics on expenditure and receipts of public youth welfare shows public spending on youth welfare in keeping with the Eighth Book of the Code of Social Law (SGBVIII) - children's and youth welfare, as well as the corresponding receipts. These are recorded on the one hand for assistance to individuals and groups and other tasks according to the SGBVIII, on the other for institutions of children's and youth welfare (among others, institutions providing day care for children).
The expenditure on assistance provided to individuals and groups is broken down by type of assistance and by type of expenditure. The receipts are shown in a sum for all types of assistance.
The expenditure on institutions is recorded separately for nine different types of institutions based on the scope of services of the SGBVIII. Recorded are current expenditure on staff and materials, investment spending for institutions of public youth welfare bodies and current as well as investment subsidies to institutions of private bodies. As with expenditure, receipts are allocated to the different types of institutions. For public youth welfare bodies' own institutions, they are broken down by fees, remuneration and other receipts. Furthermore, the return on subsidies, loans and interests of private bodies is recorded.
How is the statistics on expenditure and receipts of public youth welfare compiled?
The statistics on expenditure and receipts of public youth welfare is a decentralised statistics. The Federal Statistical Office prepares the survey documents and the processing programmes and produces the federal result, the statistical survey is conducted by the statistical offices of the Länder. The survey is carried out annually covering the preceding financial year.
The legal basis of the statistics on expenditure and receipts of public youth welfare are §§ 98 to 103 of the SGBVIII.
The local and supra-local bodies of youth welfare, the supreme Land youth authorities, the supreme Federal authority responsible in technical matters as well as municipalities and associations of municipalities attached to an administrative district are obliged to provide information in as much as they perform duties in the field of youth welfare.
Reporting to children's and youth welfare statistics is facilitated by a harmonisation of the questionnaires with the communal budgetary classification. Only actual expenditure excl. imputed costs, internal billing and transitory funds of the individual territorial authorities is recorded. Decisive are the expenses incurred directly by the respective territorial authority for services provided to the final recipient and not, however, the representation of the burden in budgetary terms at every territorial authority level. This means that as a rule the appropriation of funds, apportionment, reimbursements and loans within the public sector as well as transitory funds are not included in the statistics. Finance statistics, in contrast, shows the burden in budgetary terms at all levels (Federation, federal state, administrative district, municipality attached to an administrative district) and the financial flows between public budgets.
When are the results of the statistics on expenditure and receipts of public youth welfare released?
Preliminary results are published in a press release in the year following the survey year. The press releases and the tables containing the results of the statistics may be accessed on the internet pages of the Federal Statistical Office. The statistical offices of the Länder publish the respective data for their Land with a detailed regional breakdown.
How precise is the statistics on expenditure and receipts of public youth welfare?
The statistics records total expenditure on children's and youth welfare covering all parties required to provide information.
In Hamburg, the data are entered according to the so-called "net principle" i.e. before being entered, the expenses are reduced by those receipts of the body which are related to the respective position, e.g. the expenditure on day care facilities for children etc. are reduced by parents' contributions. Consequently, receipts and gross expenditure decrease and are no longer comparable with the expenditure of other Länder, while the "net" value, i.e. expenditure minus receipts, is not affected by the different method of calculation.
In keeping with the Bavarian Kindergarten Law, the results for Bavaria do not include subsidies to finance staff expenditure and investment subsidies paid to kindergartens of private bodies. According to that Law, total subsidies paid to finance staff expenditure amounted to about EUR 584 million in 2002. The municipalities and the Land Bavaria pay half of the subsidies each.
