Figures updated to 2008 were available in 12 of the 21 countries considered, and these have been published because it is important to have recent data even if they are provisional, estimated or incomplete. This is because the Commission's main interest is to establish with maximum accuracy the amount of each country’s public social spending in order to reflect the efforts made by States in this area. For this reason, up to the previous edition of this publication, ECLAC worked on and published only the series for total public social spending, at the level of major functions or sectors.