Traduction de «Dépense en équipement social » (Français → Anglais) :

31. Emphasises that a substantial proportion of public-sector and welfare spending can be productive expenditure if it is directed towards projects that have a beneficial impact on the accumulation of physical and human capital and on the promotion of innovation; underlines the need to control the increase in the debt burden in order to ensure that rising interest-rate costs do not squeeze out crucial welfare spending; stresses that ever more scarce resources make it essential to improve the quality of public-sector spending;

The company described its organisational measures as follows: creation of reserves for an amount equal to the debt still to be paid under the arrangement; management of cash flow during the arrangement procedure so as to avoid inefficient expenditure, especially for energy and materials; regular payment of taxes and other public obligations; intensification of marketing activities; increase of sales to the most profitable customers; workforce review; limitation of expenditure for social purposes during the arrangement procedure; better use of existing plant; and energy consumption and cost reductions.

Although it is difficult to analyse the correlation between public expenditure, social protection and the risk of poverty, the lowest poverty rates are found in Denmark (8%), Finland (9%), Luxembourg and Sweden (12%), Austria and the Netherlands (13%) and Germany (14%), countries with levels of per capita spending on social protection that are higher and far above the European average, while the highest poverty rates are in Portugal (23%), the United Kingdom and Greece (22%), Ireland (20%), Spain and Italy (19%) where levels of per capita social protection spending are generally below the average.

- in Italy, the 20% increase in expenditure is to be considered in relation to the lower than expected level of spending in 1994-99, and is based on the government's commitment to increasing capital expenditure in order to stimulate the economic development of the South;

- in certain types of project (for example, opening new museums), it is very difficult to give a breakdown of the expenditure on fitting out buildings which, in the case of museum activities, often accounts for a large proportion of investment spending;

- Changes in the treatment of operational expenditure vis-à-vis capital expenditure in terms of public accounting procedures: this would facilitate the requisite investment in human resources;