Cultural data and Surveys in Finland

The collection of cultural statistics in Finland is not a unified process. Depending on the level that concerns, national or local, the sources of information can be various. At the national level the main body in charge of collecting this type of information is Statistics Finland, official public institution for statistics in general. Within them, there is a unit dedicated to cultural matters, mainly summarized in the realization of two surveys, "Leisure survey" and "Time Use Survey". The former is conducted every 10 years -although the last one was done in 2002- and the latter in between.

38 The first "Leisure Survey" in Finland was done in 1978, when cultural policies were very strong; it was thought as a very comprehensive and wide survey, which includes everything that people do in their spare time, that is not working, and whose main goal was to see how the different parts of society participate in cultural productions (interviewee 1, personal communication, 2015, December 18).

At that time, in the 70's and 80's, characterised by the democratization of culture, the use of statistical information in culture was based on “planning ideology", "when cultural policy was largened by many ways" (interviewee 2, personal communication, February 4, 2016).

Finland as well as other Nordic countries was building up this Nordic welfare state system, where cultural policy was connected to the welfare state policy and it was seen in a way as part of these basic services (interviewee 1, personal communication, 2015, December 18).

In addition to cultural participation, it contemplates other aspects such as lifestyle, personal networks and level of trust. Other topics included in this survey are: sports, sport participation, all kinds of hobbies, media, TV, radio, books, newspapers, holidays, travelling, restaurants, etc. In 2002, special interest was given to the concept of social capital, in which social connections set of questions was essential, how often they meet their family members, living in another home, relatives, friends, and neighbours.

Other surveys are the "ICT survey", interested in internet and new technologies use, and the

"Household budget survey", which contemplates money consumed on culture. The last one is used in Finland's profile within the Compendium in Cultural policy from the Council of Europe (2014), and divides cultural spending into two subsections: 'culture and leisure-time consumption' and 'culture and media consumption', measuring cultural participation through five criteria: expenditure, level of participation, pursuit of amateur activity, domestic leisure time use, and box office (Council of Europe, 2014).

As in other countries, Finland has also been subject to irregular intervals in the implementation of surveys used to measure culture consumption and cultural participation. For instance, the participation data presented in the abovementioned compendium (Council of Europe, 2014) regarding visits to several cultural events was collected using surveys from 1981, 1991, 1999

39 and 2009; in addition to the fact that due to economic circumstances the "leisure survey" which should have been carried out by 2012 is still undone.

Other sources of information concerning culture are those retrieved by specific bodies in relation to their field, e.g. The National Board of Antiquities (museums), Theatre Info Finland (theatre), Music Finland (music), Finland Festivals (festivals). These, are used not only by the Ministry (interviewee 2, personal communication, February 4, 2016), but also by Statistics Finland as internal sources in their culture statistics:

"The internal data sources of Statistics Finland include the Leisure Survey, Time Use Survey, National Accounts, statistics on education, the Household Budget Survey, statistics on the finances of municipalities and joint municipal boards, employment statistics, the Labour Force Survey, statistics on the population structure and the Business Register. External sources of data and statistics include the Ministry of Education, Arts Council of Finland, Finnish Theatre Information Centre, National Board of Antiquities, Finnish Book Publishers Association, National Library of Finland, Finnish Film Foundation, Association of Finnish Symphony Orchestras, IFPI Finland and Finland Festivals. A small proportion of the data, such as those on art and cultural fairs, film and photographic centres, cultural centres and cultural periodicals, are obtained with own collection." (Description of statistics, Culture, in http://www.stat.fi/meta/til/klt_en.html)

These statistics describe different aspects of Finnish artistic and cultural life such as public support, consumption and financing of culture, labour force and production; from this information, compilation publications such as Cultural Statistics (2013) are done every two years, together with other thematic reports, using a combination of different sources as well as new data collected by Statistics Finland, through surveys like ‘leisure survey’ and ‘time use survey’.

These bodies combine both, the national and the local level, yet, there is not a joined system to collect all data at a local level, therefore the statistics of Statistics Finland contain some local statistics, and the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities collect and publish also some statistics, but as mentioned in one of the interviews: "...there is no system to collect all the data collected on local level (it would be impossible)" (interviewee 2, personal communication, February 4, 2016)

Creating a clear map of the sources of information regarding culture in Finland, either at national or local level, is not as simple as it looks, and although it is stated that "The Ministry use all statistics in a way or another" (interviewee 2, personal communication, February 4,

40 2016) the intertwine levels in the collection of these data suggests that tracking the connection between statistics and policy making is not a lineal process.

Also, the statistical data regarding finances related to cultural expenditure and its distribution is scarce, making difficult to establish a mapping of the situation neither at a specific moment nor throughout time (Council of Europe, 2014).

The central government and municipalities do not represent a unity, which makes the collection of cultural numbers difficult. For example, in the case of finance and expenditure, there is information available, but this must be retrieved from different sources (e.g. different surveys), or extracted from studies which main objective was not intent on culture.^*

At international level, there is a framework proposed by EUROSTAT in terms of cultural statistics and accepted by Finnish cultural policy makers, but this is rarely used (interviewee 1, personal communication, 2015, December 18). A lack of agreement regarding what information should be collected and how, is also present:

"In Finland there is officially one and the same ministry for education and culture, but this does not always solve such statistical issues as how the statistics on education and training in the arts and culture should be collected and classified.

Covering the financial transactions concerning these units usually demands survey-type data collecting, if not in the field, at least in the archives of various basic statistical systems." (Council of Europe, 2014:

FI-63)

Therefore, -and as we could get easily lost in the abundance of sources- the present research will focus mainly in the two main surveys carried out by statistics Finland at national level related to culture, "Leisure survey" and "Time Use Survey", and at local level, in the case of the city of Helsinki, which obtained their data from the Urban Facts office.

* In figure 15 named "Public cultural expenditure, by level of government, in thousand EUR, 2001 and 2009" the sources used were a combination of 2001 information from the EUROSTAT 2004 pilot survey data and statistics from the 2001 closed balance sheet of the state budget for 2001 statistics; while 2009 central government statistics were based on the closed balance sheet of the state budget and municipal statistics on statistics by the Association of Local and Regional Authorities. (Council of Europe, 2014).

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