In 2015, social protection accounted for 30.1 per cent of the total General Government expenditure, followed by general public services, health and education.
Total General Government expenditure increased by €318.9 million over the previous year, amounting to €3,814.7 million. Social protection remains by and large the core function of total government expenditure (€1,147.7 million), increasing by €37.3 million over the previous year, particularly due to expenditure on pensions, children's allowance and child care expenditure. The same is true for health expenditure (€540.2 million), mainly on account of higher spending on hospital services, and for economic affairs, with the latter going up by €41.2 million as a result of higher expenditure on road infrastructure. General public service increased by €41.5 million, while education expenditure also experienced an increase of €38.4 million particularly on secondary education.
In spite of the fact that the environment protection division is not amongst the highest in terms of government expenditure, in 2015, this division registered the highest increase in expenditure amongst all other functions of the General Government. The increase of €60.8 million over the previous year was mainly a result of a rise in waste management expenditure.
The total expenditure for each function as a percentage of total General Government expenditure was generally in line with previous years. The highest expenditure in 2015 was on social protection (30.1 per cent), followed by general public services (16.4 per cent), health (14.2 per cent), education (13.3 per cent) and economic affairs (12.4 per cent). In contrast, expenditure on housing and community amenities had the lowest contribution to total expenditure, followed by defence, representing 0.9 per cent and 2.0 per cent respectively.
In total, General Government expenditure as a percentage of GDP decreased marginally to 41.2 per cent in 2015 from 41.5 per cent in 2014.
Similarly to the past 4 years, when considering general government data by function, a considerable share of government expenses was devoted to wages and salaries (29.3 per cent) and social benefits in cash or in kind (27.0 per cent).
For 2015, the largest contribution of government expenditure went towards old age (€675.7 million), mainly through pension payments, which represented 58.9 per cent of total spending on social protection and 17.7 per cent of total General Government expenditure. This was followed by hospital services (€365.2 million), making up 67.6 per cent of total expenditure on health. Also, a considerable share of government expenditure was registered on executive and legislative organs, financial, fiscal and external affairs (€266.7 million), followed by a total of €231.9 million on public debt transactions.
Comparing the General Government expenditure at the 2nd digit level for 2015 with
2001, being the year this exercise was first compiled, the top 10 expenditure groups were identical, albeit in different ranking order. Expenditure on old age ranked first both in 2001 (€299.3 million, representing 16.8 per cent of total expenditure) and 2015 (€675.7 million, representing 17.7 per cent of total expenditure).
from The Malta Independent http://ift.tt/2jMPISu
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