What does the statistics on debt of public budgets describe?
The statistics on debt of public budgets provides detailed information on the current debt level of the core budgets of the Federation, Länder and municipalities (municipalities, associations of municipalities), of the relevant extra budgets as well as of all funds, institutions and enterprises under public majority control (also as a total).
What is covered is not only the debt level as at 31 December of any year but also the type of debt (for example, credit market debt, debt with public budgets, loans for strengthening cash resources or internal loans). There are also data on the borrowing and debt repayments made in the course of the reference year, on debt maturities and on other debt operations (for example, integration or separating out of special funds).
Together with the results of the statistics on the financial assets of general government, the debt statistics is the basis for the stability reports submitted to the European Commission within the scope of the European budget control procedure performed by Deutsche Bundesbank. The debt statistics data are also used as a basis for decision-making in economic and finance policy and for forecasts on the financial scope available in the budgets in the coming years, the utilisation of the capital market by the public sector, and the development of interests.
How are the data determined?
The debt statistics is produced annually as a complete enumeration for reference day 31 December of the reference year. The debt of the Federation and the Länder as well as of the funds, institutions and enterprises under federal majority control is reported direct to the Federal Statistical Office. The municipalities, special-purpose associations and funds, institutions and enterprises under majority control of municipalities or Länder are questioned in a decentralised manner by the relevant statistical offices of the Länder (the Land where the unit is located), and the data are transmitted to the Federal Statistical Office.
The survey of debt of public budgets is a secondary statistics: The basis of debt statistics is provided by the results of the final accounts of the government and municipal budgets and of the annual accounts of the funds, institutions and enterprises under public majority control.
The legal basis of the survey is the Law on the Statistics of Public Finance and Public Service Personnel as published on 22 February 2006 (Federal Law Gazette I, page 438) in connection with the Federal Statistics Law of 22 January 1987 (Federal Law Gazette I, pagepage. 462, 565), last amended by Article 2 of the law of 31 July 2009 (Federal Law Gazette I, page 2,580). What is covered is the data regarding Article 5 No. 1 of the Law on the Statistics of Public Finance and Public Service Personnel.
When are the results of the statistics on debt of public budgets released?
The first provisional results are published in a press release at the end of February of the year following the reference year and are transmitted to Deutsche Bundesbank to determine the debt level according to the Maastricht criteria. The final results are available from the second half of the year in "Schulden der öffentlichen Haushalte" (only in German) for free download from the publications.
How accurate are the results of the statistics on debt of public budgets?
Data accuracy of any statistics can best be assessed by the frequency of sampling and non-sampling errors occurring. As the debt statistics is based on a complete enumeration, only non-sampling errors can occur, such as allocation errors or non-response. Using comprehensive plausibility checks, which are subject to continuous adjustment, has allowed to reduce the non-sampling errors in debt statistics to a minimum. Its results can thus be considered as high-quality.
