Social resources

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Welfare and Health, Social Statistics
Birgitte Lundstrøm
+45 39 17 34 01

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Social resources 2022

The purpose of the survey is to establish the available social resources (capacity, number of users, and general organization, etc.) in Danish municipalities. Furthermore, the survey analyses the social- and health-care related services administered by municipalities. These services include care for the elderly, dental services for children and young people and special institutions for children and young people etc. The social resources survey includes public and privately owned institutions. The statistics are published for the first time in 1972 but have been changed over time due to changes in legislation an user needs.

Statistical presentation

Social resources is a yearly measurement of social services delivered by municipalities concerning care for elderly, adults and children and young people receiving social benefits . The data are published for Denmark as a whole. Some data are further more grouped by regions or municipalities.

Statistical processing

Data are collected yearly from municipalities from six questionnaires. Data are validated against previously collected information and controlled for large variances over time. Further more data are checked for inconsistency and validated against legal developments at the area. Some data concerning age distribution are imputed where municipalities have only registered total data.

Relevance

The statistics are primarily of interests for the central government and various government boards and are used for estimating and planning capacity and occupancy rates within social services. Core actors and users of the survey are actively involved in adjusting the content each year which means that user needs are taken into account.

Accuracy and reliability

The survey is a full-scale census based on responses from all municipalities. In some cases it is difficult for the municipalities to provide the correct data from their systems or they change their way of reporting data. In these cases data received might be less accurate of vary over time. A certain statistical uncertainty is caused by municipalities difficulties with estimating different services and caused by different administrative practices between municipalities.

Timeliness and punctuality

Most of the information are collected for one single week in April depending on Easter. In some cases data are collected for the entire previous year. A Danish press release and a number of corresponding tables (RESI01, RESP01, RESDHJCE, RESMAD, RESANDHJ, RESPLEJV, RESPRVHJ, RESTAND) are published at the end of November then same year. The rest of the tables (RESFAMPL, RESHJMTR, RESLED, RESFDPJ, RESSBU2) are published in the Statbank at the end of March the following year. These statistics are normally published without delay, with reference to the announced time of publication in the release calendar.

Comparability

The survey goes back to 1972. However, due to yearly changes the version used in 1972 has little in common with the one used today. Furthermore, due to the municipal reform there was a break in times series in 2006 and 2007. The totals for the country as a whole are, however, comparable before and after the reform.

Accessibility and clarity

These statistics are published once a year in a Danish press release. Further more the statistics are published in the StatBank under the subjects:

Elderly people receiving social benefits, Disadvantaged children and young people, Disability care, Health, Visits to physicians.