Relevance
Every
month the Public Finance Unit publishes a news release on Government Finance
data in order to provide users with regular up-to-date information on the
Consolidated Fund of the Government. This
news release follows guidelines set out in the European System of Accounts (ESA
2010) and the Manual on Government Deficit and Debt. Therefore, the shortfall between revenue and
expenditure is essentially the cash-based deficit position as far as the
Central Government’s Consolidated Fund is concerned. In this respect, revenue that has no impact
on the deficit, such as proceeds from loans, proceeds from sale of financial
assets, and revenue from other accounts of Government, is not taken into
consideration. Likewise, direct loan
repayments, contributions to sinking funds, acquisition of equity, as well as
transfers into other accounts of Government, are excluded from the total
expenditure.
The debt
position includes the actual debt held by Government. On the other hand, any investments made by the
Government in its own funds are excluded from the total debt. As from December 2007, the euro coins issued
in the name of the Treasury are considered as a currency liability pertaining
to the Central Government.
Methodological
description
Government
finance data is compiled using administrative sources collected on a monthly basis. These are the ‘Revenue and Expenditure, and Public Debt’ data from The Consolidated
Fund (the transactions of which are consolidated at the Treasury) and the ‘Central
Government Debt (excluding EBUs and Local Councils)’ data from the Central Bank of Malta and the
Treasury.
All
allocations provided from the Consolidated Fund are either authorised by
Parliament under an Appropriation Act, or are permanently appropriated by
Parliament under other relevant legislation.
On the other hand, the Treasury Clearance Fund contains all those Funds
and Accounts the expenses in respect of which are initially defrayable out of
public funds and are eventually repayable from the Consolidated Fund or other
sources.
Accuracy
and reliability of data
Quality
of data is assured as all accounts in administrative sources are coded in
accordance with the
requirements of the ESA 2010. Checks
with previous months and with the current economic scenario are
undertaken. Data is also checked with
the monthly Consolidated Fund data in ESA 2010 published as a requirement of
the Council Directive 85/2011.
Timeliness
and punctuality of data
A
news release on government finance data is published on a monthly basis as
scheduled in the Advance Release Calendar.
Data for a particular reference period, January to month m, is published
in month m+1.
Accessibility
and clarity of data
‘Government
Finance Data’ news releases are published on the NSO’s website.
Data
on government finance data is available also on the NSO’s statistical database
(StatDB).
Coherence
and comparability/consistency of data
Data on Government Expenditure by
the Classification of Functions of Government (COFOG) classifies government
expenditure data by the purpose for which funds are used. COFOG data in Table 3 of the news release
refers to the total expenditure of the Consolidated Fund and is not fully
consistent with the General Government sector expenditure by function, which is
compiled by NSO on an annual basis with a delay of one year. The functions are
in line with the COFOG classification as published in the Government Finance
Statistics Manual 2001.
Data is comparable
from 1995 onwards. Prior to year 2008
the unit of measure was the Maltese Lira (Lm) and the conversion rate to euro
used was the fixed rate of 0.4293.