Metadata: Revenue
Source
Flemish authorities: Department for Finance and Budget
Local authorities: Agency for Home Affairs
Definitions
FLEMISH AUTHORITIES
The data concerns actually realised transactions and not the estimated figures from the budget and its reviews.
ESA revenue: the revenue consolidated across all entities coming under the Flemish authorities in accordance with the rules of the European System of Accounts (ESA). Consolidation means that internal flows (revenue and expenditure) between those entities are not counted.
ESA is the European standard for national and regional accounts and therefore allows for comparison across Europe. ESA is used by the EU Member States and was last updated in 2010 (ESA 2010). ESA revenue includes only the following ESA codes:
Current revenue
- Current revenue for goods and services (code 1)
- Interest and property income (code 2)
- Income transfers from other sectors (code 3)
- Income transfers within general government (code 4)
Capital revenue
- Capital transfers from other sectors (code 5)
- Capital transfers within general government (code 6)
- Disinvestment (code 7)
Codes 8 (Loan repayments and liquidations of participations; other financial products) and 9 (Government debt) are not included in ESA revenue.
LOCAL AUTHORITIES
The figures originate from the annual accounts of the local authorities. They mainly concern adopted annual accounts discussed by the municipal council. There are also, to a limited extent, provisional, non-adopted annual accounts. Annual accounts are not final until approved by the governor or the competent minister.
The amounts refer to the realised transactions, not to the estimated figures from the budget and its reviews.
This data has been compiled in accordance with the standards of the policy and management cycle (BBC) of the Flemish authorities. The first municipalities switched to the updated version of the policy and management cycle (BBC 2020) in 2019. All municipalities have been using this new system since 2020.
The population refers to the situation as on 1 January of the year concerned.
Remarks on quality
The data concerns administrative data that has been centralised within the Department for Finance and Budget (data of Flemish authorities) and the Agency for Home Affairs (data of local authorities).
Data is available for the following types of local authorities:
- municipal authority
- PCSW
- provincial authority
- autonomous municipal company
- autonomous provincial company
- welfare association (PCSW association)
- district (within the city of Antwerp)
Since municipal authorities and PCSWs work closely together at the organisational level, their accounts are presented as one in the figures. District-based figures are also added to that. Internal flows between the authorities are subtracted from the figures to avoid double counting.
Other local authorities, such as police districts, are not included in the figures.
It is possible that not all authorities have submitted their final annual accounts to the Agency for Home Affairs, which means the final figures for 2021 may still change slightly. All annual accounts of the municipalities and PCSWs, whether final or provisional, have been submitted. Authorities that have not adopted their annual accounts on time must submit provisional annual accounts.
All amounts for both the Flemish and the local authorities are in current prices. These are prices of the year concerned, not adjusted for inflation.
References
Agency for Home Affairs: Policy and management cycle – data and analyses
Department for Finance and Budget: Flemish budget(opens in new window) and balance(opens in new window)