Property management, local government

Updated: 15 March 2024

Next update: Not yet determined

Total area objective buildings
Total area objective buildings
2023
28 308 666
square metres
Property management , municipality and county authority buildings
Property management , municipality and county authority buildings
202120222023Percentage change
2023 - 2022
Municipality, consolidated accounts
Total area:
Total area objective buildings in the municipalities in square metres27 051 25627 070 10328 308 6664.6
Total area hired objective buildings in the municipalities in square metres1 414 8781 386 0472 722 22996.4
Property management expenditures, 1000 NOK:
Net operating expenditure municipal property management34 556 50237 973 97540 775 1307.4
Corrected gross expenditure municipal property management36 388 79039 740 77442 460 6686.8
Corrected gross expenditures municipal property management operating activities16 960 41019 009 09320 024 1245.3
Corrected gross expenditures municipal property management cleaning activities4 369 1044 429 2084 739 2237.0
Energy expenditures municipal property management3 642 3555 076 6994 428 715-12.8
Corrected gross expenditures municipal property management maintenance activity3 454 9813 536 5324 299 76921.6
Gross investment expenditures, municipal property management32 000 51129 520 36428 678 543-2.9
County authority, consolidated accounts
Total area:
Total area county authorities' objective buildings in square metres5 158 0705 064 8144 648 053-8.2
Total area hired objective buildings in square metres665 714640 545398 354-37.8
Property management expenditures, 1000 NOK:
Net operating expenditures, county authority property management6 407 4436 987 4517 489 0187.2
Corrected gross expenditures, county authority property management6 541 8007 179 3217 804 5188.7
Corrected gross expenditures county authority property management operating activity2 741 6613 102 4843 227 2254.0
Corrected gross operating expenditures for cleaning activity in county authority property management740 639758 667786 0823.6
Energy expenditures for county authority property management587 450876 748676 545-22.8
Corrected gross expenditures county authority property management maintenance activity528 910549 213764 48739.2
Gross investment expenditures county authority property management4 331 3015 687 9396 145 5848.0
Explanation of symbols

About the statistics

The statistics give a detailed overview of the property management of municipalities. It shows how much gross area the municipalities' buildings are made of, and the cost of maintaining the buildings. Municipalities can be compared both over time and to other municipalities.

Gross area:
The total floor space of a building, including unusable space, measured from the outside walls.

Operating account

The operating account includes revenues and expenditures, and also includes repayment etc.

Function
Function states which objective revenues and expenditures are according to, for instance administration, kindergarten, primary school, childcare and wastewater. See Codelist for Accounting functions for a complete list of the functions in use.

Statistics Norway has classified the municipalities into 17 categories, by number of inhabitants and economic external conditions.

Codelist for municipalities in each KOSTRA - municipality-group

Codelist for Accounting functions

Name: Property management, local government
Topic: Public sector

Not yet determined

Division for Housing, Property, Spatial and Agricultural Statistics

Data are published for municipalities, counties, county authority, and national level.

Annual.
Preliminary figures publication is 15. March in KOSTRA.
Audited figures publication is 15. June in KOSTRA.

Not relevant.

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

The statistics give a detailed overview of the municipalities' property management. It shows how much gross area the municipalities' buildings are made of, and the cost of maintaining the buildings. Municipalities can be compared both over time and to other municipalities.

The ministry of Local Government and Regional Development is the assignment-giver (authority) for the publication of the municipality accounts statistics.

The statistics is important in providing governing information regarding the municipalities' property management to politicians, state authorities and to the municipalities themselves.

External users are e.g. municipalities and county authorities, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, in addition to research institutions, media and others.

No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

Not relevant

Not relevant.

The statistics comprises all the municipalities, county municipalities and the consolidated companies that own/rent local government buildings. The municipalities have different characteristics in relation to their geographical structures and the number of inhabitants. Around half of the municipalities have less than 5 000 inhabitants, while only 24 municipalities have more than 50 000 inhabitants.

Statistics are collected from two data source; KOSTRA questionnaires 34A, 34B, 34C, 34D and the individual municipalities accounting.

Comprises of all the municipalities, county municipalities and the consolidated companies that own local government buildings.

Data is reported electronically to Statistics Norway by two methods. An online questionnaire is submitted as well as a file extract from the municipalities accounting systems.

The deadline for reporting of both the questionnaire and file extract is 15th Feb.

There are different controls and revision systems designed for the submission of both the electronic questionnaire and file extract.

Data from the questionnaire is controlled online and further checks is made once received.

The data containing the accounting figures is controlled online before submission to Statistics Norway with the help of an online control program designed to counter check the file-extract for any deviations. In case of any deviations, the file must be corrected by the respondents (municipalities) before it is finally accepted and registered. Additional checks are further carried out internally in Statistics Norway. These are checks to ensure that there are figures for important activities which have been assigned to the municipalities by legislation. In addition the figures are checked against figures from the previous year and against the corresponding municipality groups.

If large or many deviations are found, the respondent is contacted and asked to submit a new corrected questionnaire and/or corrected accounting report. Data for the previous year is published as part of KOSTRA (Municipality-State-Reporting) the following year on March 15th as preliminary figures. In addition the municipalities and county municipalities have a deadline the 15th of April to report their improved figures for the publication of audited figures 15th of June.

The data is published as key figures and basic figures. Basic figures are absolute figures.

Not relevant.

Employees of Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality.

Statistics Norway does not publish figures if there is a risk of the respondent’s contribution being identified. This means that, as a general rule, figures are not published if fewer than three units form the basis of a cell in a table or if the contribution of one or two respondents constitutes a very large part of the cell total.

Statistics Norway can make exceptions to the general rule if deemed necessary to meet the requirements of the EEA agreement, if the respondent is a public authority, if the respondent has consented to this, or when the information disclosed is openly accessible to the public.

More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the ‘Confidentiality’ section.

The reporting of the questionnaires 34A, 34B, 34C, 34D was carried out for the first time in 2009(for 2008).

The controlling of the published preliminary figures March 15th, are only done by electronic controls. These controls do not find all the errors and there can be errors in the published preliminary figures March 15th. When publishing edited figures June 15th, controls are made by both Statistics Norway and the municipalities themselves. The publication gives very detailed information, and the controls done by Statistics Norway do not cover all details, so errors can still occur.

Questionnaires 34A, 34B, 34C, 34D has been reported for the first time by municipalities in 2009 (for accounting year 2008). The questionnaire is not without errors as the municipalities have no experience in the registration of the required data and also due to the absence of similar figures from the previous year.

Partial non-response occurs. The reporting of questionnaires 34A, 34B, 34C, 34D and municipality accounts is based on the principle of total counting, but there will always be considerable defections when Statistics Norway publishes preliminary figures March 15th. The audited figures published the 15th of June by KOSTRA, are figures controlled by the municipalities themselves and Statistics Norway.

Publication of audited figures 15th of June produce some defections but considerable less than publication of the preliminary figures. In the publication of 15th March the defection rate can be about 30 per cent, but in June the defection rate is normally less than 5 percent.

The statistics is based on the principle of total counting.

A revision is a planned change to figures that have already been published, for example when releasing final figures as a follow-up to published preliminary figures. See also Statistics Norway’s principles for revisions.

Revisions in previously published seasonally adjusted figures can take place when new observations (or revised previous observations) are included in the basis of calculation. The scope of the revision is usually greatest in the most relevant part (last 1–2 years) of seasonally adjusted time series. A corresponding revision in trends is also typical, particularly at the end of the time series. The extent of the revision of trends and seasonally adjusted figures is partly determined by the revision policy, see Section 4 of the European Statistical System (ESS) Guidelines on Seasonal Adjustment on the Eurostat website. For more information on the revision of seasonally adjusted figures, see the ‘About seasonal adjustment’ section in the relevant statistics.

Figures for property tax accounts are published the year after the other figures conerning property tax.
Preliminary figures publication is 15. March in KOSTRA
Audited figures publication is 15. June in KOSTRA

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