Country Background Report – Denmark
Download 1.6 Mb. Pdf ko'rish
|
10932 OECD Country Background Report Denmark
|
Main lines of discontent
The Danish school system rests upon a delicate balance between central guidelines and decentralised execution. Each stakeholder may hold different interests in that respect. However, there is a widespread consensus on one common Folkeskole with room for local adaptation. The municipal foundation of the school system has long traditions and is widely accepted. Legal intervention ended a long historical tradition for working hour regulations being a matter between the teachers’ union and LGDK. The lock-out prior to the legal inter- vention was based on a disagreement between the two stakeholders on the right to de- cide on the scope and content of various teacher tasks. The Teacher’s Union was op- posed to the fact that the municipalities and school leaders were granted more discre- tion at the expense of the nationally negotiated framework for the scope and content of the teachers’ tasks. 68 3 Governance of resource use in schools As stated in Chapter 1, the present chapter, as well as the three following chapters, are basically based on a systematic review of scientific articles, books, national evalua- tions and consultancy reports. However, in order to understand the context of the reviewed studies the chapter will start by introducing the relevant regulatory framework and describe the main trends with regard to governance of resource use. The national level is responsible for the legal and financial governance framework of the Danish school system, including the overall responsibility for interfaces and finan- cial distribution across levels of the school system. However, within the framework set by the Folkeskole Act and the regulations issued by the Ministry of Education (see Chapter 2), the municipalities are granted full financial and organizational responsibil- ity for the Folkeskole. The Folkeskole is one of the core tasks of the municipalities. In financing of the Folkeskole, the municipalities are not allowed to finance schools by user fees but are to finance school expenditures by revenues from local taxes and gen- eral grants from the central government. No general state funding is directly allocated to the Folkeskole, and no state reimbursements of school expenditures are given. 28 The cost of primary and lower secondary education in Denmark in 2010 amounted to 3.1 per cent of GDP (OECD 2014). The overall framework for local government service expenditure is determined in the annual negotiations of the municipalities’ economy between the Government and Lo- cal Government Denmark (LDGK) 29 . Within this framework, it is possible to prioritise expenditure partly internally between the municipalities and partly across the sectors in each municipality (The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Interior 2014b). In the economic agreement between the Government and LGDK for 2014, the frame for the main component regarding municipal service expenditures was agreed to be 230.5 billion DK. The economic agreement between the Government and LGDK is an agreement of the tax and expenditure level for the municipalities collectively. No frames are set for the individual municipality, and the agreement is not binding for the individual municipal- ity. However, in order to keep the collective budgets of the municipalities within the agreed level LGDK coordinates the budget processes of the individual municipalities. If the total expenditures of the municipalities do not stay below the expenditure ceiling in the budgets, and in the final accounts, the municipalities are both collectively and 28 However, the national level may fund particular programmes additionally. For instance, 1 billion DKK has been earmarked by the national level for competency development of teachers and school leaders in relation to the new Folkeskole reform. 29 The economic agreement for the municipal economy 2014 between the Government and Local Government Denmark 69 individually sanctioned by the national Government according to the ‘budget law’ (see Section 1.3). The municipal expenditures are mainly financed by local taxes and general grants from the state. These two revenue sources in the budgets for 2014 account for 71 per cent and 26 per cent of the total municipal revenue, respectively (The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Interior 2014b). The municipalities’ tax revenue comprises: • Income tax, land tax and service charge: Tax sources of which the municipali- ties are able to influence the proceeds. • Other tax revenue such as company tax, researcher tax and estate tax: Tax rates determined by the state. The municipalities receive a fixed share of the overall proceeds. The average income tax rate in 2014 was 24.9 per cent, and most of the rates range between 24 and 25.9 per cent (The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Interior 2014b). The general grants from the state are mainly allocated to the individual municipalities according to an equalisation scheme aimed at evening out the differences in the eco- nomic situation in the municipalities due to differences in tax base, composition of age groups and social structure (The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Interior 2014b) 30 . The aim is not to equalise the service levels, as that is a local policy priority, but to give the municipalities approximately the same financial basis on which to solve their tasks. The equalisation scheme is based on the so-called net equalisation method. This means that the equalisation is calculated on the basis of a municipality’s estimated structural surplus or deficit, i.e. the difference between a municipality’s estimated expenditure needs and its tax revenue based on an average tax rate (The Ministry of Economic Af- fairs and the Interior 2014b). The equalisation scheme is complex and includes a set of special subsidies and equalisation schemes. However, the main elements are a national equalisation scheme covering all municipalities and an additional capital equalisation scheme for the municipalities in the capital area. In the national equalisation scheme 58 per cent of the difference between the estimated expenditure needs and the estimated tax revenue are equalised. In the capital equalisa- tion scheme, an additional 27 per cent of the difference between the estimated ex- penditure needs and the estimated tax revenue are equalised. Besides the national and 30 A part of the block grant is used to finance national equalisation and equalisation subsidies for municipalities with a high struc- tural deficit. The remaining part is as a general rule allocated to the municipalities by population (The Ministry of Economic Af- fairs and the Interior 2014b). 70 capital equalisation scheme, equalisation subsidies for municipalities with a high struc- tural deficit are given, subsidising 32 per cent of the part of the difference between the municipality’s estimated expenditure needs and the estimated tax revenue which ex- ceeds the national average difference (The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Inte- rior 2014b). In calculating the structural surplus or deficit, the formula for estimating the expendi- ture needs of the individual municipalities is based on two major components: • Demographic expenditure needs • Socio-economic expenditure needs. The demographic expenditure needs are estimated based on the population’s distribu- tion in a number of age groups and an estimated unit amount per inhabitant for each age group. Especially the number of children and old people affects the age-related expenditure needs (The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Interior 2014b). Besides the age composition, an indicator of the dispersal of settlement is also included in the estimation of the demographic expenditure needs (The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Interior 2014a). The socio-economic expenditure needs are estimated on basis of a number of criteria regarding the socio-economic burden in the municipality. These are elements that do not necessarily give rise to local government expenditure, but based on experience they can be used as indicators of the socio-economic burden in the municipality. The socio-economic expenditure needs are estimated based on a socio-economic index cal- culated by weighing the criteria using different weights. The criteria in the national equalisation scheme 2014 are shown below along with their weights 31 (The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Interior 2014b, Table 1.5): • 20-59 year olds without employment over 5 per cent (19 per cent) • 25-49 year olds without vocational training (16 per cent) • Rented apartments (5 per cent) • Psychiatric patients (5 per cent) • Families in certain types of housing (15 per cent) • Children in families where the parents have little or no education (8 per cent) • Singles of 65 years and older (2.5 per cent) • Individuals with a low income in three out of four years (8 per cent) • Number of mentally handicapped (5 per cent) • Number of immigrants and descendants (3 per cent) • 20-59 year olds with basic skills (5 per cent) 31 The weights in the capital equalisation scheme are not identical. 71 • Estimated annual reduction of the population (2 per cent) • Children with single parents (4 per cent) • Children who have moved to another municipality at least three times (2.5 per cent). Within the framework of the national legislation and the agreement between the Gov- ernment and LGDK, the municipal councils have autonomy to decide the allocation of resources across sectors, including the size of the budget for the Folkeskole and the principles for allocating resources to the individual schools. A basic idea of this decen- tralised system with local decision making autonomy is to allocate resources according to local needs and preferences. Of the total service expenditures of 230.1 billion DKK in the municipal budgets for 2014, expenditures for the Folkeskole at large amounted to 53.7 billion DKK 32 or 23.3 per cent of the service expenditures. This includes municipal grants to private schools equalling 3.9 billion DKK in the 2014 budgets. The municipalities are obliged to fund private primary and lower secondary schools. The municipal grant per student in pri- vate schools is fixed across municipalities and set each year in the Finance Act of the national government and calculated as a percentage of the average municipal expendi- tures per student in the Folkeskole. In the Finance Act for 2015, the municipal grant per student in private schools is DKK 34,017. 33 The total current municipal expenditures for primary and lower secondary schools, including special schools and grants for private schools, increased from 2007 to 2009 (see Table 3.1). Since 2009, the expenditures have been gradually decreasing and in the recently published accounts for 2014 equalled 53.0 billion DKK. In the same peri- od, the number of school-aged children has been declining, and accordingly the ex- penditure per school-aged child have been slightly increasing. However, from 2009 when school expenditures peaked, the expenditures were reduced from 74,700 per school-aged child to 71,900 per school-aged child in 2014, equalling an expenditure reduction of 3.7 per cent per school-aged child from 2009 to 2014. From 2009 to 2014, the total current municipal expenditure for the Folkeskole at large were reduced by 3.5 billion DKK, equalling approximately 6.3 per cent of the expendi- tures. Seen over the entire period from 2007 to 2014, the expenditures were reduced by 1.7 billion DKK, or 3.0 per cent of the expenditures. 32 Including joint costs for the Folkeskole, school buses, home education, school-based leisure time, special schools and municipal payment to private schools. Source: Statistics Denmark, www.statistikbanken.dk , BUDK32 33 http://www.uvm.dk/~/media/UVM/Filer/Adm/PDF14/Aug/140826%20Kommuner.pdf |
