Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia - SURS

National Accounts Section, Macroeconomic Statistics Division

SURS, Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia
Litostrojska cesta 54
SI-1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia

The non-financial Annual Sector Accounts (ASA) are compiled in accordance with the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) and are transmitted by Slovenia following the ESA2010 transmission programme (Table 8) established by Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union, annexes A and B respectively.

The ASA encompass non-financial accounts that provide a description of the different stages of the economic process: production, generation of income, distribution of income, redistribution of income, use of income and non-financial accumulation. The ASA record the economic flows of institutional sectors in order to illustrate their economic behaviour and interactions between them. They also provide a list of balancing items that have high analytical value in their own right: value added, operating surplus and mixed income, balance of primary incomes, disposable income, saving, net lending / net borrowing. All of them except net lending / net borrowing can be expressed in gross or net terms, i.e. with and without consumption of fixed capital that accounts for the use and obsolescence of fixed assets.

In terms of institutional sectors, a broad distinction is made between the domestic economy (ESA 2010 classification code S.1) and the rest of the world (S.2). Within S.1 and S.2, in turn, more detailed subsectors are distinguished as explained in more detail in section "3.2 Classification system".

A set of key indicators for Slovenia, deemed meaningful for economic analysis.

Key ratios derived from non-financial transactions are as follows (they are available for the whole period 1995-1017):

• Gross household saving rate (S.14_S.15): B8G/(B6G+D8rec-D8pay)*100
• Gross household saving rate (S.14): B8G/(B6G+D8rec-D8pay)*100
• Gross investment rate of households (S.14_S.15): P51G/(B6G+D8rec-D8pay)*100
• Gross investment rate of households (S.14): P51G/(B6G+D8rec-D8pay)*100
• Gross investment rate of non-financial corporations (S.11): P51G/B1G*100
• Gross profit share of non-financial corporations (S.11): B2G_B3G/B1G*100                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Transaction and balancing items codes are the following:

• B8G -  Gross saving
• B6G - Gross disposable income
• D8rec / D8pay - the adjustment for the change in pension entitlements (receivable / payable)
• P51G - Gross fixed capital formation
• B1G - Gross value added
• B1GQ - Gross domestic product
• B2G_B3G - Gross operating surplus / mixed income

All ratios above are expressed in gross terms, i.e. before deduction of consumption of fixed capital.     

                                                                                                                                                                   
"rec" means resources, that is transactions that add to the economic value of a given sector.
"pay" means "uses", that is transactions that reduce the economic value of a given sector.

The standard followed is the European System of Accounts 2010 and the ESA 2010 data transmission programme. The main categories are the institutional sectors and the transactions recorded between the sectors. The transactions are grouped into a sequence of accounts, namely: the production, generation, distribution and redistribution of income, use of income and capital account.

The institutional sectors combine institutional units with broadly similar characteristics and behaviour: households and non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs), non-financial corporations, financial corporations, and the government. Transactions with non-residents and the financial claims of residents on non-residents, or vice versa, are recorded in the "rest of the world" account.

ESA 2010 Classification of sectors:

• Total economy (S.1)
• Non-financial corporations (S.11)
  • Public non-financial corporations (S.11001)
• Financial corporations (S.12)
  • Public non-financial corporations (S.12001)
• General government (S.13)
• Households and non-profit institutions serving households (NPISH) (S.14_15)
• Households (S.14)
• Non-profit institutions serving households (S.15)
• Rest of the world (S.2)

An additional Not sectorised category (S.1N) is introduced for sector accounts data transmission / presentation purposes. 
The Not sectorised category describes transactions that conceptually cannot be allocated to domestic institutional sectors. This is the case only for transactions in taxes and subsidies in products (D.21-D.31) as elements of GDP by the production approach.

The household sector comprises all households including unincorporated household enterprises. These cover most sole proprietorships and most partnerships that do not have a legal status independent from their owners. Therefore the household sector also generates output and entrepreneurial income. In Slovenian ASA, non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs) such as charities, trade unions, etc. are shown separately from households and also with households within S.1M.Their economic weight of NPISHs is relatively limited.

The non-financial corporations sector comprises all private and public corporate enterprises that produce goods or provide non-financial services to the market.

Accordingly, the government sector excludes such public enterprises (except corporations having mainly non-market output and being controlled by government unit) and comprises central and local government and social security funds (ZPIZ and ZZZS).

The financial corporations sector comprises all private and public entities engaged in financial intermediation such as monetary financial institutions (central bank and other banks, money market funds), investment funds, insurance corporations and pension funds.

The rest of the world sector consists of non-resident units insofar as they are engaged in transactions with resident institutional sectors.

The transactions between institutional sectors are grouped into various categories that have a distinct economic meaning.

Coding of the flow dimension: in the non-financial accounts, resources are coded as "received" and uses as "paid".

For a complete review of the classifications used, please refer to:

- ESA 2010 Chapter 23 'Classifications'

- The European System of Accounts 2010 Transmission Programme

Link to the national classifications and code lists: http://www.stat.si/StatWeb/en/Methods/Classifications. 

Annual sector accounts cover all (institutional) sectors of the economy. For details, please refer to section 3.2 Classification system.

Transmission of annual data on sub-sectors of public non-financial and financial corporations is voluntary according to the ESA 2010 transmission programme. Thus these data are not available for all transactions and periods.

All statistical concepts, definitions and classifications used in annual non-financial sector accounts are described in Annex A of the ESA 2010 Regulation (link to blue book on ESA2010 methodology). 

The non-financial sector accounts provide, by institutional sector, a systematic description of the different stages of the economic process: production, generation of income, distribution of income, redistribution of income, use of income and non-financial accumulation.

Transactions in goods and services include the letter "P", e.g. P.1 Output. Distributive transactions have the letter "D", e.g. D.1 Compensation of employees and Letter "B" is used for the balancing items of the non-financial accounts, e.g. B.1GQ Gross domestic product at market prices and are calculated as resources minus uses.

Transactions with non-residents are recorded in the "rest of the world" account. The sector accounts thus show the interactions among the different sectors of the resident economy and between the resident economy and the rest of the world. 

Each non-financial transaction is recorded as an increase in the "resources" of a certain sector and an increase in the "uses" of another sector. For instance, the resources side of the "dividends" transaction category records the amounts of dividends receivable by the different sectors of the economy, whereas the uses side shows dividends payable. For each type of transaction, total resources of all sectors and the rest of the world equal total uses. Each account leads to a meaningful balancing item, the value of which equals total resources minus total uses. Typically, such balancing items, such as GDP or saving, are important economic indicators. They are carried over to the next account.

The production account records the output of goods and services as its main resource, to which taxes less subsidies on products are added to obtain total resources of an economy at market prices. The main use in the production account is "intermediate consumption" - such as the consumption of fuel within a production process. The difference between resources and uses is the balancing item "gross value added" for individual domestic sectors and gross domestic product (GDP) for total economy. This gross value added is then carried over as a resource to the subsequent set of accounts, the generation and distribution of income accounts, which eventually yield "disposable income" as a balancing item. This conceptual and numerical inter-linkage of the accounts ensures the consistent derivation of key economic indicators. "Net lending/net borrowing" is derived from the capital account by comparing "gross capital formation" (mainly investment in capital goods and software) plus the net acquisition of "non-produced, non-financial assets" (such as land or licences) with "gross saving" plus net "capital transfers" (such as an investment grants). If saving plus net capital transfers received exceeds non-financial investment, a sector has a surplus of funds and becomes a net lender to other domestic sectors and/or the rest of the world.

The transactions are recorded on an accrual basis (i.e. not on a cash basis), that is, when economic value is created, transformed or extinguished.

The variables/concepts described in the sector accounts include transactions in products (start with letter P), distributive transactions (start with letter D) and transactions in non-produced non-financial assets (NP).

There is one specific for Slovenia: In redistribution, transactions D611, D612, D613 and D614 payable and receivable are reported on a net basis without service charge. D61SC is reported as a memorandum item and is not used in the calculation of D61.

The elementary building block of ESA2010 statistics is the institutional unit (see ESA2010, 2.12.), "an elementary economic decision-making centre characterised by uniformity of behaviour and decision-making autonomy in the exercise of its principal function". This can be, amongst others, a household, a corporation or a government agency.

The concept of statistical population is not applicable in an Annual Sector Accounts context as it combines data from many statistics sources. Anyway, we can say that all institutional units on the geographical and economic territory of Slovenia are the target statistical population as a source of information for building the ASA transactions. ASA are exhaustive.

The reference area to which the non-financial ASA data refer is Slovenia. 

According to ESA 2010 regulation (ESA2010 transmission programme) Slovenia submits all mandatory data for ASA back to 1995. Whenever possible, Slovenia will provide the voluntary data for longer time series (the length or the starting year of each voluntary data set depends on availability of data sources).

The concept of 'base period' is not applied in national accounts. Instead, for some national accounts variables the concepts of previous year prices and chain-linked volumes are applied, as stipulated in Commission Decision 98/715/EC. Expressing variables at the prices of the previous year allows the calculation of volume indices between the current time period and the previous year. After a reference period is chosen as a benchmark, volume indices can be chain-linked and then applied to variables at current prices of the benchmark year. This generates volume estimates for any period of observation.

Slovenia currently uses 2010 as the reference year for the compilation of chain-linked volumes for annual and quarterly national accounts. Series of data are constructed in such a way that the value of an individual aggregate at current prices from 2010 is multiplied by the original volume growth rate for a particular year compared to 2010. 

Regarding ASA it is only relevant for gross fixed capital formation P51G breakdown (dwellings and other buildings and structures) in volume data. It was first disseminated in 2018 for time series 1995-2017. 

ASA data for Slovenia are performed in the national currency million euro (EUR). Until 2006 inclusive the national currency was Slovenian tolar (SIT) and the fixed exchange rate of 1 EUR=239.64 SIT to convert historical data to euro is used.

ASA shows all transactions in monetary terms and are measured according to their exchange value (market prices), i.e. the value at which transactions and stocks are in fact, or could be, exchanged for cash.

Employment is expressed in thousand persons and thousand hours worked. Population is expressed in the number of persons.

Key indicators for ASA (rates, ratios, shares) are expressed in percentages. Other relevant measures are also per capita data.

The reference period for ASA is the calendar year. ASA include transaction variables that refer to actions and effects of events that take place within a given year. 

The non-financial Annual Sector Accounts (ASA) are compiled in accordance with the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) and are transmitted by Slovenia following the ESA2010 transmission programme (Table 8), both established by Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union, annexes A and B respectively.

The main legal acts that determine the status of performing activities of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia are the National Statistics Act (OJ RS, No 45/95 and 9/01) (link to NSA) and the Programmes of Statistical Surveys (link to the medium-term programme and link to the annual programme). The Annual Programme of Statistical Survey is available in the Slovenian language only.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia is obliged to deliver ASA data in accordance with the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) and the ESA 2010 transmission programme. The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia publication rule is to publish data in Slovenia before they are transmitted to Eurostat or any other data users. In practice the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia transmits ASA data to Eurostat via eDamis on the same day as they are published in Slovenia.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164) stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society. The European Statistics Code of Practice provides further conditions that have to be respected by statistical offices in regard to statistical confidentiality (Principle 5).

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia provides the statistical confidentiality with the help of legal, organisational and technological procedures. The National Statistics Act (NSA) in Article 2 clearly states that national statistics shall be implemented on the principle of statistical confidentiality. Article 34, paragraph 6 explicitly stipulates that the collected data shall be disseminated by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia to the users in such a way that the reporting unit involved cannot be identified. Article 46 provides that data collected on the basis of the programme of statistical surveys may be used solely for statistical purposes, unless otherwise provided by law. Article 50 defines that statistics may be published in aggregate form only.

All employees at the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia are informed about the elements of statistical confidentiality pointing out the importance of information privacy and personal data protection. Every employee has to sign the confidentiality declaration at the same time as the contract of employment. The declaration includes also information on the consequences of violating legal acts.

The access to microdata for the scientific-research community (researchers) is allowed under the specific rules or protocols. The Committee on Statistical Confidentiality provides opinion regarding statistical confidentiality and microdata access for research purposes to the Director-General. After the approval is granted the researchers must sign the contract for microdata access before they can access to statistically protected microdata either in the secure room, most rarely as remote access or using a portable medium. 

Confidentiality regarding personal data is required in the national legislation (link to Personal Data Protection Act).

In a statistical sense, ‘confidential data’ means data which allow statistical units to be identified, either directly or indirectly, thereby disclosing individual information. To determine whether a statistical unit is identifiable, account shall be taken of all relevant means that might reasonably be used by a third party to identify the statistical unit. Although regional accounts data are usually highly aggregated, there may be possible cases for detailed breakdowns of aggregates and/or small economies. In these cases measures should be taken in order not to disclose data of a separate statistical unit. Guidance on how to prevent disclosure can be found in the Handbook on Statistical Disclosure Control.

In general the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia provides full confidence to data providers (i.e. persons, households, enterprises and other organisations), i.e. protects their identity and confidentiality of provided information. Also the disseminated data do not enable direct or indirect identification of an individual statistical unit due to different methods of statistical disclosure control for microdata and tabular data being used (link to the Statistical disclosure control for microdata) (link to the Statistical disclosure control for tabular data).

With the exception of D61SC Social Insurance scheme service charges for relevant sectors (S12 and consequently S1 on resources side and S14 and consequently S1M and S1 on uses side) and all other ASA data are transmitted to Eurostat free for publication (F flag). Social Insurance scheme service charges are for these sectors flagged N (not for publication, restricted for internal use only). D611 D612 D613 D614 USES of S14 and S1M are reported on a net basis without service charge. D61SC USES of S14 and S1M are reported as a memorandum item and are not used in the calculation of D61 USES of S14 and S1M. Analogously, D611 D612 D613 D614 RESOURCES of S12 are reported on a net basis without service charge. D61SC RESOURCES of S12 is reported as a memorandum item and is not used in the calculation of D61 RESOURCES of S12.

The advance release calendar is publicly available and published at the end of the year for the following year.

The release calendar includes annual non-financial sector accounts releases, i.e. First Release and Electronic Releases (updates of the SI-STAT Database). Users can access the annual non-financial sector accounts data with the search engine which allows browsing by theme (i.e. National Accounts), sub-theme (Non-financial Sector Accounts), producers (Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia) and period.

The release calendar contains the following information: original date of publishing and when necessary a rescheduled date and reason for the date change.

The release calendar is accessible from the home page of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website (link to release calendar). Users can subscribe to the release calendar via email or RSS to receive notifications about releases. In the case of a change to the original schedule users are informed in advance.

The release policy of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia determines that all users have equal access to statistical releases at the same time and in the same manner. Users are informed when data will be available by the release calendar.

The dissemination policy of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia is presented in greater detail in the Guidelines for quality assurance (link to guidelines) in Chapter 7 “Dissemination of data”, and in the Style Guide (link to guide)(only in the Slovenian language) in Chapter 4 “Dissemination strategy” and in Chapter 11 “Releasing of statistical data and information”. In Chapter 13 basic rules and guidelines from different instructions (for correcting errors, revisions, citations, copyright, and use of statistical signs) are available to users too.

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice (Principle 6 on impartiality and objectivity, Principle 13 on timeliness and punctuality and Principle 15 on accessibility and clarity), users of Annual non-financial sector accounts of Slovenia could obtain data on the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website, via mail or email, phone and by visiting the Information Centre during office hours.

Annual non-financial sector accounts data (ASA data) of Slovenia are published once a year when data for a new year are added. At the same publication, a revised data for years opened for revisions are published too. ASA data are published according to the national release calendar where the ESA 2010 transmission programme is followed. Please see also section 8.2. "Release calendar access" and 17.2. "Data revision - practice".

The most important results of annual non-financial sector accounts are issued in news releases. The exact dates are pre-announced in release calendars (see section 8.1. "Release calendar").

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia publishes ASA data in accordance with the release calendar as First Release at 10:30 (local time) in Slovenian and English. The first release contains the most relevant and interesting general data and information, which are presented in a clear and understandable (comprehensible) way. Data are announced at the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website. Later, but on the same day (day of release), ASA data are sent to Eurostat.

The most topical ASA data and ASA indicators such as the household saving rate and the non-financial investment rate are presented in a special publication on memorial days - World Savings Day. https://www.stat.si/statweb/en/News/Index/7036 .

All publications are published in Slovenian and English versions. In the brochure National Accounts on the Economic Crisis in Slovenia the most important national and regional accounts indicators which become more interesting during the economic crisis were presented (link to the brochure).

Annual non-financial sector accounts are available in the SI-STAT Database where more detailed statistics are represented in tables. The access to the statistical database is on the first page of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website. The database is divided by fields of statistics – select “Economy” – than by subject areas – select “National Accounts”.  “National Accounts” is divided into several groups of data sets. Annual non-financial sector accounts can be found under the indent: Non-financial Sector Accounts (ESA 2010). Annual non-financial sector accounts are available for the 1995-2017 period. Tables in PC-Axis format allow direct access via the web interface, a selection of categories to view, save in different formats and users can download tables, charts, maps, metadata and methodological explanations. All ASA data that are published or stored in the database and are available to users free of charge.

Not applicable.

In addition to news releases and other publications (see sections 10.1. "Dissemination format - News release" and 10.2. "Dissemination format - Publications"), information on annual non-financial sector accounts may be posted using social media.

Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia Facebook messages can be accessed here: @StatSlovenija

Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia Twitter messages can be accessed here: @StatSlovenija

The general methodological framework for the compilation of annual non-financial sector accounts in Slovenia is ESA 2010.

The next important document is Regulation (EC) No 1161/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2005 on the compilation of quarterly non-financial accounts by institutional sector.

In addition, many documents have been created in the form of methodological notes, guidelines, recommendations and so on covering some specific content. Most of them were developed gradually, through numerous discussions at meetings (especially TF QSA, now EG SA, as well as others) where representatives of the European institutions, notably Eurostat and the ECB, and representatives of national statistical offices and national central banks participated. These documents are of great help for ASA compilers.  

The manuals above specifically apply to EU national accounts statistics. However, world-wide equivalents are often also available: methodological framework System of National Accounts (SNA 2008) and some other documents from international institutions, especially the OECD. 

The methodology of annual non-financial sector accounts data in Slovenia is clearly presented in the methodological explanations and is available to all potential users of national accounts data of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website http://www.stat.si/StatWeb/File/DocSysFile/8067-Theme: GDP and National Accounts, Non-financial accounts; Material: methodological explanation - content (in Slovenian and English). More detailed information on preparing annual non-financial sector accounts data is available in ASA Inventory for Slovenia on the website: https://www.stat.si/dokument/8927/ASAinventory.pdf.

Not applicable yet.

The quality of national accounts data is assured by strict application of ESA 2010 concepts and by applying the guidelines of the ESS Handbook for Quality Reports.

During the compilation process, annual sector accounts data undergo several kinds of quality checks: checks of source statistics (data sources), ongoing checks of result with some logical controls, methodological checks, and external checks from Eurostat: conval, struval and others. If Eurostat reveals some errors, mistakes, inconsistencies of structural or content nature, we have to correct the data and send them properly.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia regularly fulfils the questionnaires from Eurostat - metadata report for ASA and QSA - and then sends them back. These questionnaires are not published on the national website or on the Eurostat website, but are used only for statistical purposes.

ASA data provide information for economic policy monitoring and decision making. ASA offer complete and consistent description of the whole economy and the interaction of all economic sectors. They allow for detailed analyses of the interactions among institutional sectors and between them and the rest of the world, and the derivation of key macroeconomic indicators for relevant sectors (savings rate, investment rate, profit share, etc.).

At the national level the most important data users are the Bank of Slovenia and the Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development of Slovenia, as well as other economic and social bodies in the public and private sectors. Those institutions mainly use the data for various analyses and for forecasting.

The next important groups of users are scientific and academic communities, economic researchers and survey methodologists from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia that use the data for various analyses.

International institutions such as the European Commission, the ECB and the OECD receive the data of Slovenia from Eurostat, which is responsible for the validation and sharing of the data. Those institutions use the data to prepare and implement appropriate economic and monetary policy for the government, economy, and social well-being of its inhabitants.

Views and opinions of users of national accounts statistics can be collected and analysed as one of the tools to 'measure' the relevance of national accounts data and in this context also the relevance of ASA data.

In general, the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia cooperates with stakeholders (users of statistical data and data providers) through the Statistical Council of the Republic of Slovenia and statistical advisory committees to provide quality, timely and relevant statistics. 

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia monitors and analyses the use of ASA data by using Google analytics (counts of page-views of First Releases and the individual tables in the SI-STAT Database - Annual non-financial sector accounts tables). The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia has also a database of subscribers to First Releases.     

User satisfaction surveys are also regularly implemented. The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia organises the annual international statistical conference “Statistical Day” focused on the user perspective of different statistical challenges. Data about users’ requests are gathered also via the Information Centre and with bilateral contacts. 

Annual non-financial sector accounts offer a complete and consistent description of the whole economy, broken down into domestic institutional sectors and the rest of the world.

Table 8 in the ESA 2010 transmission programme defines the minimum of the data set that must be available and transmitted to Eurostat.

The data series is available since 1995. Slovenia provides complete ASA datasets according to the ESA 2010 transmission programme (some data on a voluntary basis). 

The overall accuracy is supported by ensuring that total uses and total resources are balanced at the level of individual transaction categories giving a coherent set of data for the total national economy and transactions with the rest of the world.

ASA data are constantly exposed to accuracy checks by verifying any change implemented with respect to the previous version of the same year and with respect to the previous release. The difference that arises is the result of the revisions caused by routine revisions and/or by changes in methods and sources. Revised national accounts data and consequently ASA data are published with regular publications in line with the Release Calendar.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

ASA data should become available to users as timely as possible.

The ESA 2010 transmission programme defines the required timeliness for the annual non-financial sector accounts data in Table 8. These data have to be transmitted to Eurostat 9 months after the end of the reference year and this is the deadline also for national publishing. We have a rule to publish ASA data nationally before they are sent to Eurostat. In practice, transmitting to Eurostat occurs on the same day a few hours later than the data are published nationally.  

Eurostat monitors closely the punctuality of data delivery by the countries.

ASA data transmissions in the framework of the ESA 2010 transmission programme should be punctually delivered to Eurostat as it is defined in the transmission programme (or before).

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia transmits ASA data punctually. 

The geographical comparability of the annual non-financial sector accounts in Member States of the EU is ensured by the application of common definitions and methodological framework established by the European System of Accounts ESA 2010. Worldwide geographical comparison is also possible as most non-European countries apply the SNA 2008 guidelines, on which ESA 2010 is based.

As ASA data for all reference periods are compiled according to the requirements of the ESA 2010, they are fully comparable over time. Also, in the case of fundamental changes to methods or classifications, revisions of long time series are performed that usually go far back into the past.

Slovenia achieves full consistency between annual and quarterly non-financial sector accounts, sector accounts. In principle, full consistency is also reached with other domains, means with Tables T1 (main aggregates) and T2 (government accounts) and BoP. 

However, in practice full consistency may not always be possible and temporary discrepancies might occur due to vintage differences.

Due to the differences between the revision policy for government accounts and sector accounts some inconsistencies are possible between T2 and T8. Because of October and April EDP procedure, some differences may occur in these periods. Bigger discrepancies are especially possible in April, when annual data are transmitted for general government statistics but not for sector accounts (in line with the ESA2010 transmission programme).

Some vertical inconsistencies still remain between non-financial sector accounts T8 and financial sector accounts T6.

Cross-domain consistency is regularly monitored by Eurostat and constant efforts are made to maximize it. In this regard a dedicated Task Force on ESA 2010 cross-domain consistency was set up. It will focus mainly on links between ESA2010 and EDP/GNI regarding transmission deadlines, and priority tables will be all the tables which relate to T8, that means T1, T2, T8, T6 and T801.

See section 15.3. "Coherence - cross domain".

Not available.

Two Task Forces developed proposals for a more harmonised approach for benchmark and routine revisions. The one under the auspices of the Directors of Macroeconomic Statistics (DMES) dealt with benchmark revision policy, the other under the auspices of the Committee on Monetary, Financial, and Balance of Payments Statistics (CMFB) on the European Harmonised Revision Policy dealt with routine revisions. 

Revision policy is defined in ESR 2010, so ASA data do not have status temporary/final.

The revision of annual non-financial sector accounts is a consequence of revisions in various national accounts data as new input data become available. They are called routine revisions. 

More rarely, exceptional revisions (called benchmark revisions) are the result of changes in data sources, classifications or methodology. For example, when changing from ESA95 to ESA 2010, a benchmark revision occurred. They are carried out roughly every five years.

Slovenia publishes on its website the information on revision policy included in a comprehensive set of methodological documentation (see section 10.6. "Documentation on methodology"). Regarding revision policy implementation, the recommended harmonized revision policy is not yet fully applied, which allows for visible and temporary inconsistencies due to vintage effect.

Data are regularly revised in accordance with the revision policy every year (in September) and the revision covers the last three years.

Data are revised in line with other areas of national accounts (annual GDP, government sector account, rest of the world account, etc.).

Due to different revision policy of government accounts and annual sector accounts, occasional discrepancy between these two data sets may occur. 

Revised national accounts data are published within regular publication of Slovenian national accounts. The information concerning revision policy for national and regional accounts domains for Slovenia is published within the First Release. Detailed information and history of revisions can be found within the methodological explanation on individual domains (in Slovenian and English) and accessible on the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website (see section 10.6. "Documentation on methodology").

Benchmark (major regular) revision is scheduled for 2019 and covers the entire time series. Revised data are published at the end of September. The next benchmark revision is planned for 2024.

Non-financial sector accounts compilation relies on a variety of data sources, including administrative data (registers, accounting statements, tax data, budgetary reports, etc.), censuses, and statistical surveys of businesses and households. The list of all data sources is very long and each of them covers a large set of economic, social and financial items.

We also use data collected through statistical surveys carried out in the National Accounts Department and are exclusively dedicated to our needs. These are the Statistical Survey on Leasing Companies and the Survey on NPISHs. The former will be replaced in the following year with data from the reporting matrix to the Bank of Slovenia. We have already replaced the Statistical Survey on Dividends Paid (NR/DIVID) with the new source of the Central Securities Clearing Corporation. Accounts for the rest of the world are compiled on the basis of balance of payments (BoP) data from the Bank of Slovenia. 

More precisely, annual sectoral accounts use (with some exceptions, such as the Survey on NPISHs) the most of above data sources indirectly, i.e. through national accounts statistics, which are input for ASA data. 

More detailed information on various data sources with the description of each one is available in our Annual Sector Accounts Inventory, which is available on https://www.stat.si/dokument/8927/ASAinventory.pdf. 

Data sources for annual non-financial sector accounts are also included in the methodological notes available on the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia website (see section 10.6. "Documentation on methodology").

The frequency of data sources varies from monthly to annual and in the case of population censuses they are mostly collected every decade; the National Accounts Section collects or receives these data in relation to the compilation schedule; for the needs of annual sectoral accounts, we collect the above data sources indirectly (through national accounts statistics) or directly on annual frequency only. 

The availability of the data sources (variables collected, periodicity, organization collecting the data, etc.) can be found briefly in methodological explanation and more detailed in ASA inventory (see section 10.3 - 'Dissemination format').

The accessibility of the external data (administrative data) is defined in agreements with institutions which collect statistics.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia has a legal mandate to collect information for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics. According to the National Statistics Act and the Programme of Statistical Surveys, holders of official and administrative data collections are obliged to submit to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia all requested information free of charge and use valid national standards (classification of economic activities, classification of institutional sectors, unique identifications of businesses and people). They also must notify the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia and ask for its opinion prior to setting new or amending existing statistical official or administrative data collections. The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia has the right to use identifiable individual data from all sources and may mutually link all individual data.

Data sources are accessible in accordance with the technical protocols, which are an integral part of the agreements with the institutions that provide data (e.g. AJPES, Tax and Customs Administration, Ministry of Finance, Bank of Slovenia). 

Non-financial sector accounts combine data from many source statistics and most of them we collect through already prepared excel files (compiled by national accountants) which are available on a common share point. But some data are collected directly from the data source (if it is used only in the sector accounts) in the form of excel files accessible at a determined site on the server. The exceptions are some individual smaller sets of data, which are received by e-mail in an appropriate manner and by prior arrangement.

Data validation refers to any activity aimed at verifying that the value of data is correct; this process is of key importance performed in ASA compilation.

The validation of data sources is carried out in various ways:

(1) time consistency - comparison of data between years either by calculating differences or indices 

(2) accuracy - the detection of some unusual (very high or very low) or unexpected values

(3) completeness - missing values for some variables or some reference periods

(4) additivity checks - control of the sum of sub-items

Any lack of quality in this respect is solved before and during the compilation. 

The same checks are applied to ASA data and additionally, horizontal harmonisation is checked (payable and receivable side is equal for each transaction) and vertical harmonisation is checked as well (comparison of non-financial and financial accounts). 

Coherence with related national accounts data sets (GDP main aggregates, Government finance statistics) is checked too. Namely, any inconsistency of this kind appeared with compilation of ASA and it has to be normally solved in this phase.

For annual non-financial sector accounts data compilation, sources, methods and compilation techniques are used in such a way that the definitions and concepts in ESA 2010 are met. Some guidance documents on general and specific ASA compilation issues are available. 

Annual non-financial sector accounts are compiled when statistical sources that are the main aggregates of GDP, of government sector accounts and of the rest of the world accounts are available. They are pulled in compilation tables where all necessary steps are done.

Sector accounts as a sequence of accounts consist of various transactions. Transactions in products by sectors are obtained directly from Table 1 (main aggregates), and the same is with some distributive transactions: Compensation of employees and its components, Taxes on products and production and Subsidies on products and production. 

For all other distributive transactions, compilation is done item by item for all domestic sectors (S.11, S.12, S.13, S.14 and S.15) and for the Rest of the World (ROW). The data for the General Government (S.13) and the Rest of the World (S.2) sectors are obtained directly from Table 2 and from the rest of the world account, which bases on Balance of Payments data. Then the procedure for assessing the value of each transaction for the other sectors is followed. The balancing process is essential here; it means that the equality of resources (S.1+S.2) and uses (S.1+S.2) has to be done for each transaction. This kind of equality is named horizontal consistency.

Each account ends with corresponding aggregate such as B5 - Gross national income, B6 - Gross disposable income, B8 - Gross saving, B9 - Net lending/net borrowing.

Financial transactions are not an integral part of ASA because they are included into financial sector accounts. But there has to be reached vertical consistency, so consistency between non-financial and financial sector accounts has to be ensured to the greatest possible extent and at least for the most important aggregate. This means that the B9 transaction for S.1 and S.2 must have the same sign (+/-) in the non-financial and financial sector accounts. The monitoring of the difference between annual financial and non-financial accounts is done regularly. Regarding each sector, the lowest difference is in the government sector. The Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia and the Bank of Slovenia strive to diminish differences and to explain the reasons for them.

For annual non-financial sector accounts the principle of additivity is achieved, so there are no discrepancies between the respective totals and the sum of the components, as well as between total economy and the sum of domestic sectors. 

Adjustments are therefore not necessary.

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