Municipalities’ social, health care activities costs on rise
Published : 13 Sep 2021, 01:45
Updated : 13 Sep 2021, 09:04
The net costs of municipalities' operational economy grew by 2.9 per cent to EUR 33.8 billion in 2020, according to Statistics Finland.
The growth was mainly due to the higher net costs directed at social and health care activities than in the year before. The net costs of social and health care activities were 4.2 per cent higher than one year previously and they totalled EUR 20.0 billion. Data for the compilation of the statistics on local government finances were collected from all 310 municipalities and 136 joint municipal authorities in Finland.
The total operating costs of municipalities amounted to EUR 46.1 billion in 2020 and they grew by 1.5 per cent from the previous year. The operating income of municipalities amounted to EUR 12.3 billion and it decreased by 2.0 per cent from the previous year’s level. As a combined effect, the net costs of the entire operational economy amounted to EUR 33.8 billion and they increased by 2.9 per cent.
As in previous years, most of the net costs of the entire operational economy were directed at social and health care activities, where municipalities recorded 59.4 per cent of the net costs of the entire operational economy.
Thus, the total net costs of these activities amounted to EUR 20.0 billion, which meant a 4.2 per cent growth from the previous statistical reference year.
The biggest and second biggest shares of net costs of social and health care activities were formed by specialised health care and primary health care. In total, EUR 7.3 billion on net was used for specialised health care and EUR 3.7 billion for primary health care services. 1)
Municipalities spent EUR 11.5 billion net on providing education and cultural activities last year. T
his meant that the activity in question was the second largest in the entire operational economy measured by net costs. The share of net costs of education and cultural activities in the operational economy was 34.1 per cent, and the combined net costs grew marginally by 0.5 per cent from the level one year ago. The biggest net costs in education and cultural activities were generated from the provision of basic education and the second biggest from the provision of early childhood education. During the statistical year, municipalities spent EUR 5.3 billion on basic education on net and EUR 3.0 billion on early childhood education.
A total of EUR 2.2 billion on net were allocated to other activities of municipalities, which in the statistics on local government finances include all activities of municipalities apart from social and health care activities and education and cultural activities. The share of other activities in the net costs of the entire operational economy was 6.6 per cent. In examination of the statistics on local government finances, the net costs of other activities grew by 4.3 per cent from the comparison year.