Statistical processing

Source data

Municipalities report data on individually attributable expenditure to Statistics Denmark. Data are submitted either through system-to-system transfers from municipalities' administrative financial management systems or via the web-based reporting solution, IDEP, which is accessed through Virk.dk. Through IDEP, municipalities can access all data they have reported. Most municipalities submit their data via IDEP.

When municipalities collect and report data through IDEP, this is primarily done in one of the following ways, or through a combination of these methods. The method used depends on the municipality's accounting practices and the availability of data:

1. Expenditure and the expenditure period are extracted from the municipality's financial management system.
2. Expenditure and the expenditure period are extracted from the municipality's case management system.
3. Expenditure and the expenditure period are compiled and processed in a municipality-specific spreadsheet before being reported.

The data reported by municipalities are reconciled with the municipal accounting data from the Municipal Accounts and Budgets statistics.

Frequency of data collection

Data are collected annually from Denmark's 98 municipalities.

Data collection

Data are primarily reported through Statistics Denmark's web-based reporting solution, IDEP, which can be accessed via the statistics reporting page: statistikkens oplysningsside or through Virk.dk. Alternatively, municipalities submit data directly from their administrative financial management systems through system-to-system reporting.

All submissions are consolidated in IDEP, where municipalities have access to their own reported data.

Data validation

The data are validated annually in cooperation with the municipalities. As part of the validation process, an aggregated validation report is made available to each municipality. The report is generated from the reported data and presents the number of recipients together with the corresponding expenditure, broken down by type of social service. Each municipality reviews and approves its own report.

To support the validation process, municipality-specific lists at the individual and social service level are also provided. Together with a set of automatically generated validation queries, these lists enable municipalities to verify that the reported information is consistent with their own records and accounting data, and to identify and correct any errors in the underlying data. The lists identify observations requiring further validation and forming the basis of the automatically generated validation queries. These include, among other things, unusually high or low expenditure, missing information, and overlapping expenditure periods across social services.

As part of the validation process, the reported data are reconciled with the municipal accounting data reported for the Municipal Accounts and Budgets statistics. Total expenditure is compared with net expenditure in the StatBank table: REGK31 broken down by type of social service. Municipalities where the difference between the reported expenditure and the accounting data exceeds 5 per cent or DKK 1 million are included in the detailed validation process. In many cases, this comparison results in corrections to the reported data. In other cases, municipalities are able to explain the differences between the statistics and the accounting data.

Municipalities can access the validation reports, detailed lists and automatically generated validation queries through the web-based reporting solution, IDEP. If a municipality considers that the lists do not accurately reflect its data, a dialogue is initiated between the municipality and Statistics Denmark to clarify and resolve the identified discrepancies. The process continues until the data have been reconciled and approved by both the municipality and Statistics Denmark.

As a general rule, only approved data are included in the published statistics. If a municipality is unable to approve its data before publication, Statistics Denmark and the municipality continue their collaboration after publication to ensure that the data are reconciled before the next annual release.

The validation process focuses in particular on ensuring that municipalities have reported the mandatory accounting codes in accordance with the requirements set out in the Executive Order on Data Reporting.

Data compilation

As a general rule, Statistics Denmark does not apply weighting, grossing-up or other statistical adjustments to compensate for missing data.

Validated data reported either through municipalities' financial management systems or through Statistics Denmark's web-based reporting solution (IDEP) are integrated into the statistical register. Regardless of the reporting method, all submissions must comply with the requirements of the Executive Order on Data Reporting. This ensures a consistent data basis and enables the integration of data across reporting methods.

Before the microdata are compiled, the reported data undergo a series of standardised processing steps. First, empty records and duplicate records are removed. Observations with accounting code combinations that are not covered by the mandatory reporting requirements set out in the Executive Order on Data Reporting are then excluded. For the remaining observations, only the mandatory elements of the accounting code combination are retained, while all other elements are replaced by "x".

Offsetting entries are also removed. These are identified as pairs of observations that are identical with respect to the predefined key variables but where the expenditure amounts have the same absolute value and opposite signs. Both observations in such offsetting pairs are removed.

Adjustment

No corrections are made besides those corrections described in the chapters on data validation and data processing.