Municipal social services and social assistance
1. Contact
Responsible agency
Unit
Contact person
Position
Email (agency)
Phone
2. Statistical presentation
Data description
The Ministry of Welfare collects and publishes statistics on social assistance and social services provided by municipalities. Each month, the Ministry compiles information submitted by municipal social services on the number of needy persons and the granting of low-income family status in the previous month.
Statistical concepts and definitions
Statistical unit
Services and social assistance provided by municipalities.
Statistical population
All municipalities.
3. Institutional mandate
Legal acts and other agreements
Cabinet Regulation No 324 "Regulations on the Samples of Official Statistical Questionnaires in the Field of Social Services and Social Assistance and the Procedure for Completing and Submitting the Questionnaires" of 30 June 2017.
4. Accessibility and clarity
On-line database
5. Comparability
Comparability - geographical
There are no internationally comparable statistics, as the regulation of municipal assistance varies from country to country.
Eurostat has developed ESSPROS, the European System of Integrated Social Protection Statistics, which collects statistically comparable information on the organisation of social protection, its current situation and its evolution in the Member States. Social benefits are classified according to function. Eurostat publishes information for the EU-27 and for each country separately on its website; under: Social Protection (ESSPROS).
Length of comparable time series
- Data on municipal social services are available since 1994.
- Data on municipal social assistance are available since 2000.
The data to be published in monetary terms in the statistics for the period up to 2013 have been recalculated in accordance with the "Guidelines for the recalculation and publication of statistical time series (05.02.2013)" developed in accordance with the Latvian National Euro Adoption Plan. The exchange rate used for the conversions is LVL 1 = EUR 1.42, which corresponds to the irrevocably fixed conversion rate of the lats to the euro by the Latvijas Banka.
6. Coherence
Coherence- cross domain
N/A
7. Statistical processing (data source etc.)
Source data
Municipal social services and social assistance data are obtained from the questionnaires of the Ministry of Welfare of the Republic of Latvia:
- Report on social services and social assistance in the municipality;
- Report on the provision of social assistance in the municipality.
Data collection
The data are submitted to the Ministry of Welfare by the social services of the municipalities and State cities. The questionnaires are filled in and submitted to the Ministry of Welfare electronically, using the State Social Policy Monitoring Information System under the responsibility of the Ministry of Welfare, or by e-mail in accordance with the normative enactments on the execution of electronic documents.
To ensure that respondents complete the questionnaires accurately, each year the methodology for completing the data is sent out to respondents together with a request to complete the questionnaires for the current year.
Data compilation
The Ministry of Welfare, as part of its direct functions, accumulate, analyses and compiles official statistics.
Municipalities submit information on all persons declared in the municipality to whom they have provided assistance, regardless of whether the service was received within or outside the municipality. For example, if a person from municipality 'B' is placed in a service-providing institution owned by municipality 'A', then only municipality 'B' provides information on this person and expenditures.