Local Government Assets and Liabilities

Detailed information for December 31, 2002

The survey collects data from local governments, their boards, agencies and commissions. The data are used by the Financial Management System to present annual statistics on the finances of the local governments.

Data release - April 25, 2005

• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

The survey collects data from local governments, their boards, agencies and commissions. The data are used by the Financial Management System to present annual statistics on the finances of the local governments. The information is also used as a benchmark for the quarterly National Income and Expenditure Accounts, as well as the Financial Flow accounts for the System of National Accounts.

Reference period: December 31st of the reference year

Subjects

• Government

Data sources and methodology

Instrument design

This methodology does not apply.

Sampling

This methodology does not apply.

Error detection

Annually (in June), data from the first preliminary year are replaced by actual figures, the second preliminary year which will consequently become the first preliminary year is revised according to previous years data trends and receipt of some of the latest financial administrative documents, while a new second preliminary year is constructed from available source documents and other series produced by the division.

Quality evaluation

The annual financial statistics produced by the Local Government Assets and Liabilities Program are based on a consolidation of data drawn from the fund statements in the annual reports on municipal and school board statistics prepared by the provincial departments of municipal affairs and education, the financial reports of a certain number of municipalities, municipal agencies, special-purpose boards of local governments and so on. The preliminary statistics are constructed mainly from data published by the Bank of Canada, the quarterly sample surveys (see SDDS ID 1704) and other statistical series produced by the division.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects that could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

In order to prevent any data disclosure, confidentiality analysis is done using the Statistics Canada Generalized Disclosure Control System (G-Confid). G-Confid is used for primary suppression (direct disclosure) as well as for secondary suppression (residual disclosure). Direct disclosure occurs when the value in a tabulation cell is composed of or dominated by few enterprises while residual disclosure occurs when confidential information can be derived indirectly by piecing together information from different sources or data series.

Data accuracy

As far as local government statistics are concerned, many changes can take place in contents, distribution of amounts and so on after the assets and liabilities tables are released. These changes, which we must take into account in our revision and which sometimes give the impression that our figures are inconsistent, are due to such things as new funding systems, the distribution of provincial and local jurisdiction, changes in the standard municipal accounting system, the impossibility of obtaining certain source documents on time, use of new data sources, changes in legislation and budgetary decisions.