1. Education and Training Statistics Working Group – 17 June 2019
Item 4 Education statistics based on administrative data – Summary of the ongoing work of the UOE finance Task Force
Eurostat F5
Education and Training Statistics Working Group – 17 June 2019

2. Outline Context and background information
Task Force: work in progress by work-package
Next steps

3. EU - Context
Communication from the Commission "Rethinking Education: investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes" COM/2012/669; ↓
Indicator Expert Group about "indicators for monitoring education investment (2014);
Eurostat project (2015): "Improvement of expenditure data on education";
The Council (ECOFIN) recognised “the importance of timelier, better and integrated data (…) on major components of social expenditure" (education, health and social protection) in 2016 and 2017.

4. Eurostat project on the Improvement of expenditure data on education – A three phases project
Phase 1: Preparatory/Assessment phase (January 2016 to April 2018)
Phase 2: Discussing and agreeing a roadmap for future developments of expenditure data on education (April to September 2018)
Phase 3: Implementation of the agreed roadmap (October 2018 to end 2022)

5. Phase 3: Implementation of the agreed roadmap (October 2018 to End 2022)
Operational means: the Education and Training Statistics Working Group (ETS-WG) created the Eurostat Task Force (3-years) → Eurostat Task Force reports to the ETS-WG; additionally, Eurostat could envisage grants to countries (if needed);
Information about the implementation of the roadmap to other relevant groups (e.g. SGIB) regularly;
Coordination: strong coordination with other international stakeholders (OECD, UNESCO-UIS, UNECE)
Cooperation: developing stronger cooperation with stakeholders from National Accounts (e.g. joint workshops?)
Phase 3 possibly leads to reflections on the need to revise the EU Regulation

6. Task Force on UOE Education Expenditure data
Mandate of the Task Force agreed by the Education and Training Statistics Working Group – ETS-WG (June 2018);
Members of the Task Force: Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, Norway, DG EAC, DG EMPL, OECD and UNESCO-UIS;
Timetable:
From end 2018 to end 2022;
Two meetings per year: Meeting 1 (December 2018), Meeting 2 (April 2019), Meeting 3 (October 2019), etc.

7. Three work-packages
Work-package 1: To improve the quality of the UOE methodology regarding expenditure on education data
Work-package 2: To investigate more in-depth the links and differences between the UOE framework and the National Accounts framework
Work-package 3: Improving the timeliness of UOE finance data in order to meet users' needs

8. Work-package 1: To improve the quality of the UOE methodology regarding expenditure on education data

9. Geographical scope – The Task Force:
Agreed to refer explicitly to the "domestic" criterion and to reorganise the section 1.7 of the UOE manual;
Agreed about principles on how each transaction regarding specific delivery mechanism (dist. learning, commuting stud.) and student mobility (credit mobility, degree mobility) should be reported;
Agreed to create a specific section in the UOE manual that describes these principles;
Confirmed that support to outward mobility is not covered by the UOE return;
Agreed that “international and other foreign sources” (incl. the treatment of EU funding) goes beyond multilateral organisations;
Asked Eurostat to prepare a revised version of the UOE manual

10. Household expenditure – The Task Force:
Agreed that setting up a list of educational goods and services was not sufficient to ensure comparability of data;
Agreed to work on a definition of “core and peripheral educational goods and services” and to use a functional approach
Did not reach an agreement on the definition (and terminology) of:
Requested/Not requested vs. compulsory/not compulsory for the participation to the programme;
Link to the curriculum (support/not support achieving the curriculum objectives);
In/out educational institutions.
Agreed that the definition of “core and peripheral educational goods and services” should not be related only to household expenditure but should also consider the perspective of educational institutions (ancillary services)

11. Public transfers to private – The Task Force:
Agreed about the definition of “transfers” as being “transactions between financing units” and asked Eurostat to implement it in a draft revised version of the UOE manual;
Questioned the current use of the term “subsidies” in the UOE and asked Eurostat to investigate if it is useful to keep this wording in the UOE manual;
Discussed the reporting principles for transfers between financing units:
“Passing through principle”;
Identity between initial (before transfers) and final funding (after transfers) i.e. link between transfers received and expenditure.

12. Student loans – The Task Force:
Underlined the importance of identifying national characteristics of student loans systems;
Welcomed the presentation of the student loans system in Luxembourg, Sweden and Norway, (Germany forthcoming);
Will start working on this topic during Meeting 3

13. Work-package 2: To investigate more in-depth the links and differences between the UOE framework and the National Accounts framework

14. Reconciliation exercise: see item 5 at the agenda
Institutional sectors - government vs. public expenditure, the Task Force:
Agreed that confusion between government and public expenditure should be avoided as they are two different concepts;
Agreed to clarify the UOE manual on this issue;
Suggested to widen the written consultation to all members of the ESS;
Need to further discuss the most relevant option (government expenditure, public expenditure, public expenditure broken down by category (i.e. government exp. and public corporation exp.)
Reconciliation exercise: see item 5 at the agenda

15. Work-package 3: Improving the timeliness of UOE finance data in order to meet users' needs

16. Four options to be discussed by the Task Force:
Option 1: to improve the timeliness within the existing UOE framework;
Option 2: to collect a subset of the UOE-finance data with an improved timeliness;
Option 3: to estimate data on expenditure on education;
Option 4: to build on the links with National Accounts (i.e. developing National Education Accounts).

17. Option 1: Improving the current UOE framework - the Task Force:
Discussed, fine-tuned and agreed the validation rules for the UOE-FIN questionnaire;
Option 2: Collecting a subset of the UOE-finance data with an improved timeliness → the Subset of UOE expenditure data for reference year T to be available to users (DG EAC) in April T+2 to allow the release of the publication in September T+2. The Task force:
Emphasised that the subset should be “realistic” → a "critical mass" of EU Member States should be able to participate to this additional data collection;
Agreed that the scope of the subset should be limited to government expenditure;
Outlined that the number of sources and the data treatment to produce “UOE compliant” data need to be considered;
Outlined that this option should be connected with the development of guidelines for estimation procedures.
Provide reference year T at the end of T+1 while current regulation is providing T at the end of T+2

18. Next steps: Next Task Force meeting on 3-4 October 2019:
Main topics: Transfers, student loans

19. The ETS Working Group is invited to take note of the:
Information on the points discussed by the Task Force on UOE Education expenditure data;
Written consultation that Eurostat will launch in July 2019 to all members of the ETS-WG in order to have a better picture about the role of public corporations in funding education.

20. Participants of the ETS Working Group are invited to express their views and discuss:
Issues/points discussed by the Task Force;
Recommendations for further work of the Task Force within the scope of the mandate;
Interest in receiving support in terms of grants for development of Early estimates to provide a subset of UOE finance with better timeliness