Cultural expenditure statistics use a scheme that was developed in the mid-1990s specifically to meet the requirements of cultural reporting in a federal system. At the heart of the LIKUS (Länderinitiative Kulturstatistik - federal province initiative on cultural statistics) approach is a sector-based grid that delimits fields relevant to cultural policy in a comprehensible manner, thereby enabling the attribution of expenditure items from all levels of public administration under the heading of "cultural funding" - irrespective of the particular practices of cultural promotion or differences in legal and administrative standardisation.
The data basis is the closed accounts of the Federal Government, the federal provinces and the municipalities. The statistics are compiled annually.