Regional Government expenditure statistics Berthold Feldmann Eurostat

Background Project for regional government accounts in early-2000s, producing a methodological report project halted in 2002 due to other priorities Renewed interest of DG REGIO in government spending by region at NUTS level 2 A call for tender was launched to engage a private consultant to investigate current and future data availability in countries Work started in June 2008, ended in April 2009

Main results RGES can be produced by most, if not all National Statistical Offices (=the good news) RGES cannot be produced in time for the next Cohesion report early 2011 (=the bad news) The earliest data can be expected for 2014

Availability

Next steps (1) In the current ESA Revision process, we will add four lines of RGES at regional level (NUTS level 2): Total Government Expenditure Of which: infrastructure (COFOG 04.3 + 04.5 + 04.6 + 05.2 + 06.1 + 06.3) Of which: human resources (COFOG 04.8 + 09.7) Of which: production environment (COFOG 04.1 + 04.4 + 04.7 + 04.9) To be supplied at T+24 months Implementation: 2014

Next steps (2) A more detailed breakdown of RGES would be very much welcome as soon as possible On a voluntary base Grants are foreseen to help compiling RGES Starting on 2010 Probably multi-annual programme A methodological manual will be produced with details how to break down national government expenditure to the regional level

Next steps (3) For the next Cohesion Report in early 2011, an existing contract is used by DG REGIO to estimate regional government expenditure data This is one task in a multi task contract Estimates will be done for the 12 largest countries (which cover 70% of all regions) First results are expected in December 2009 A follow-up contract might be published if this deemed necessary

Thank you for your attention! Any questions?