Total volume of resources earmarked for social protection in the A.C. of the Basque Country in 2005 came to 10,894 million euros, 7.5 % more than the year before, according to Eustat data.

Of the total expenditure on social protection, the value for social benefits, which represents 97.8% of expenditure (the rest are management costs), came to 10,646 million euros in 2005 and has continued growing since 1995, the first year for which data on the social protection account is available for the A.C. of the Basque Country. The increase was 7.5% with regard to 2004.

Expenditure on social benefits was divided between eight functions, among which the most significant are Ageing and Health care.

Expenditure on the function Ageing, which in addition to pensions includes other benefits such as home care or accommodation for the aged, came to 4,605 million euros in 2004, representing 46.5% of total social benefits. The amount per person aged 65 or over came to 11,949 euros in 2004, which represents a 6.3% variation with regard to 2003.

Graph 1. Distribution of expenditure on social benefits by functions. 2004

Source: Eustat

The health care function shows a 7.3% annual increase in the value of benefits per inhabitant in the A.C. of the Basque Country, representing 30.1% of total social benefits.

Expenditure on Unemployment in 2004 came to 8.4% of total benefits, which came to 11,483 euros per registered unemployed person, and represented a 6.2% increase with regard to the year before.

The Social Exclusion function presented a sharp annual increase with 21.1%, amounting to 231.4 million euros in 2004.

Social benefits for Housing came to 23.5 million euros in 2004. We must bear in mind that the methodology of the European System of Integrated Accounts for Social protection (SEEPROS) only counts as social benefits on housing less than 10% of expenditure made on housing programmes by Basque Administrations.

With regard to the institutional units that carry out expenditure on social benefits, 68% of expenditure on social benefits by the public administrations responsible for this area are concentrated on the Social Security System and the Administration of the State, 6,200 million euros in 2004, 7.1% more than the year before. Basque Administrations account for the remaining 32% of social benefit competences, which advanced by 8.2% in 2004.

Table 1: Expenditure per group of institutional units and year (thousand €). 2003-2004

Source: Eustat

The comparison of these results with those for the whole of the State offers a disparate analysis. On the one hand, total expenditure on social benefits per inhabitant in the A.C. of the Basque Country was 9% higher than the State in 1995, surpassing it by 22% in 2004. On the other hand, if social protection is measured as a proportion of GDP in 2004, in the A.C. of the Basque Country earmarked 18.9% of total expenditure on social protection, while in the State figure came to 19.5% .

If the comparison of expenditure is made with the European Union-15, the latest available data, a progressive convergence is observed to European levels of expenditure per inhabitant: if in 1995 this indicator was slightly over 65% of the average value for the Union in 2004 in the A.C. of the Basque Country, the same index was 75% higher, the gap decreasing by ten percentage points over the last ten years.

METHODOLOGY NOT:

For further information on the Social Protection Account, access to the methodology note:

www.eustat.eus/document/datos/Nota%20met_SEEPROS03_c.pdf

Table 2: Main data and indicators for Social protection in the A.C. of the Basque Country. 1995-2005(A).

Source: Eustat