National Accounting, Government Budgeting and the Accounting Discipline

National accounting and government budgeting include two kinds of financial reporting that are not influenced by, but have an increasing influence on, the accounting discipline. The government budget has changed, over the last sixty years, from a financial statement that was recognisably part of the accounting discipline to one in which national accounting and government budgeting have the dominant influence. There were early attempts to reconcile national accounting and the discipline but these have largely disappeared. Although the three forms of accounting measure the same phenomena, each is different in fundamental ways, in terms of both relevance and reliability.     

CANBERRA TO PORT MORESBY: GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING AND BUDGETING FOR THE EARLY STAGES OF DEVOLUTION

This paper examines changes which have occurred in government accounting and budgeting from the antecedent system of Treasury control in the colonial era of The Territory of Papua and New Guinea to the contemporary system of Finance control in the Independent State of Papua New Guinea. An exposition is provided of existing and proposed governmental accounting and budgeting issues during the early stages of devolution for indigenous control. Although self-government provided new legislation for government accounting and budgeting, the critical event in the formation of the present system was the Constitution which highlighted indigenous responsibility against a backdrop of national attainment criteria. The development of indigenous responsibility for the government accounting and budgeting system has been limited by: (i) overreliance on an expatriate model, and (ii) a fundamental dearth of qualified accountants at the professional level in the public sector. In the longer term, however, cultural rather than administrative issues will tend to influence and guide policy in this area.     

Accounting and budgeting systems: The issue of congruency

The importance of designing an accounting system that is congruent with an organization's budgeting system has been noted in the literature. Unfortunately, in many government organization it is common to find incompatible budgeting and accounting systems. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether gearing the accounting information system to a zero-base budgeting system increases the perceived usefulness of the budgeting process. This issue is examined under conditions of both scare and abundant resources. Based on an empirical study, it is shown that the usefulness of a budgeting system to budget recipients may indeed be dependent on the accounting information system, conditioned on the availability of resources. Given the relationship between budgeting and public policy, implications of the study for the public policy making process are discussed.     

Accounting for government guarantees: perspectives on fiscal transparency from four modes of accounting

Government guarantees are increasingly important as a policy instrument in public infrastructure investment and to assist the banking and financial sectors following the global financial crisis. This paper analyses how different modes of accounting characterize such guarantees in the contexts of public sector financial reporting, statistical accounting, budgeting and long-term fiscal projections. Guarantees are difficult to specify for accounting treatment and consistent conceptualization of liabilities. These difficulties make it attractive for governments to treat obligations as off-budget and off-balance sheet contingent liabilities, rather than recognize them in financial statements and statistical accounts. Miller and Power’s territorializing, mediating, adjudicating and subjectivizing roles of accounting are utilized to analyse the reporting of UK government guarantees. Provisioning for guarantees is complex in financial reporting statements and often absent in national accounts, a deficiency which Eurostat has attempted to address by devising the concept of standardized guarantees and by securing more disclosure of contingent liabilities. There is potential for future research especially where there is greater mediation between the four modes of government accounting.     

French revolution and German circumspection: reforming budgeting and accounting in national governments

In France in 2001, a revolutionary budgeting and accounting reform of the central government was begun and, in 2006, introduced—it is now almost complete. In 2006, the German federal government began a similarly revolutionary budgeting and accounting reform, but abandoned it in 2010. We identify the similarities in technique between the two countries' reforms but also significant differences. The authors conclude that, notwithstanding the importance of accrual accounting in the French revolution and in the abortive German revolution, the resilience of the traditional budgetary accounting systems is striking.     

政府会计基础比较研究——传统的收付实现制与崛起的权责发生制,孰优孰劣?

传统上 ,政府受托责任的核心是反映政府部门预算执行情况以及支出是否符合有关法律法规要求 ,这一定位并不完全适应剧变了的经济环境的内在要求。在当今经济全球化的大背景下 ,政府受托责任的具体内容与形式发生了根本性的变化。是关注现金流以做到切实遵守预算 ,还是注重资源及其使用以提高效率和效果 ,这种由不同的公共管理理念决定的会计目标差异 ,必然导致不同的会计技术选择 ,更直接地说 ,它决定了政府会计方法基础的选择。本文通过对两种会计基础的深入研究 ,认为在政府会计领域采用传统的单一会计基础有一定局限性 ,应该借鉴国际经验有选择地进行权衡取舍 ,循序渐进地实施相关改革。     

CONNECTING ACCOUNTING AND EDUCATION IN THE UK: DISCOURSES AND RATIONALITIES OF EDUCATION REFORM

In this paper we analyze the processes which have structured the emphasis upon budgeting and accounting in the Local Management of Schools initiative by outlining the inter-relations between the discourses of neo-liberal government and economics, and the apparent “need” for the expansion of accounting and budgeting systems in the public sector and particularly education in the UK during the past six years.At the heart of our analysis is the contention that accounting and budgeting systems have been promoted throughout the UK public sector by connections to a discourse of managerial enterprise and economic rationality. The intersections between accounting techniques, and economic and managerial notions of decision making, responsibility and market organization have provided the complex discursive formation within which the accounting and budgeting innovations introduced under LMS have been presented and represented as “necessary” elements of proper public sector organization. The colonization of accounting into the education sector has been made possible by a series of seemingly unquestioned linkages, associations and reductions, upon which we offer a commentary, between the discourse of economic rationality and the techniques of accounting.     

MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Most of the management accounting activity in local government has traditionally been thought of as being confined primarily to the requirements of budget preparation and budgetary control. The budget is generally recognised as being at the heart of planning, decision-making and control and yet there have been many examples of the limitations in conventional budgeting and budgetary control practices being pointed out. It might have been expected that the period of consistent financial stringency faced by local government from 1979 onwards would have quickly exposed any limitations and brought about changes. In reality it seems that the management accounting and budgeting practices in local government responded surprisingly slowly to the financial pressures and it is only with the relatively recent introduction of the 'private sector' philosophies of devolved management and market testing that widespread developments in management accounting have begun to occur. Many of these developments are still evolving and because of this it seemed inappropriate at this stage to attempt a cross-sectional survey of current practices. This paper therefore concentrates on the position in two specific local authorities and examines the current DSO accounting practices. In addition, the analysis undertaken by one of the authorities of the steps needed to implement internal trading accounts for financial support services is discussed and the interesting experimental attempt by one of the authorities to introduce zero base budgeting for a major service is also examined.     

Budget Reporting in Local Government: Problem or Solution?

Budgeting practice in Victorian local government has been criticised by the ICAA, which has developed a standardised budgeting model. The Victorian government has prescribed standardised financial and budget reporting following a decade of reform in the public sector. This paper examines whether the criticism of local government budgeting is valid, and whether standardised models are appropriate, particularly in the context of ambiguous outcomes and lack of input-output relationships, criticism of the adoption of accrual accounting in the public sector, and a focus on the implementation of a flexible best-value regime designed to suit local conditions.     

Justifying accounting change through global discourses and legitimation strategies. The case of the UK central government

Accounting has been viewed, especially through the lens of the recent managerial reforms, as a neutral technology that, in the hands of rational managers, can support effective and efficient decision-making. However, the introduction of new accounting practices can be framed in a variety of ways, from value-neutral procedures to ideologically charged instruments. Focusing on financial accounting, budgeting and performance management changes in the UK central government, and through extensive textual analysis and interviews in three government departments, this paper investigates: how accounting changes are discussed and introduced at the political level through the use of global discourses; and what strategies organisational actors subsequently use to talk about and legitimate such discourses at different organisational levels. The results show that in political discussions there is a consistency between the discourses (largely New Public Management) and the accounting-related changes that took place. The research suggests that a cocktail of legitimation strategies was used by organisational actors to construct a sense of the changes, with authorisation, often in combination with, at the very least, rationalisation strategies most widely utilised. While previous literature posits that different actors tend to use the same rhetorical sequences during periods of change, this study highlights differences at different organisational levels.     

自然资源核算——从账户到资产负债表：演进与启示

通过梳理和分析自然资源核算的历史演进以及典型国家开展自然资源核算的实践经验,对自然资源核算账户、环境经济综合核算以及自然资源资产负债表的关系进行了辨析,指出作为生态文明建设中的一项重要制度创新,自然资源资产负债表与环境经济综合核算两种核算体系揭示和反映的重点不同,但两者都需要以自然资源核算账户为基础进行编制。自然资源资产负债表的构建有助于健全政府宏观会计体系,完善国家资产负债表的数据基础。     

Drought,resettlement and accounting

Drought, an insidious form of natural disaster, occurs frequently in the United States. The droughts of the 1930s were a national emergency which combined with economic depression to cause widespread rural poverty and distress. Governmental responses to the crisis were many and included the establishment of experimental resettlement projects for dislocated families. Operated by liberal, socially progressive agencies, these projects attempted to re-establish farm families on more productive land in less arid areas. One such project was the Red River Valley Farms Project in North Dakota. Here, business and home planning, budgeting and record keeping by client families was compulsory. Drawing on the notion of the ‘heroic bureaucracy’, this historical study reveals accounting as a key facilitative technology in the recovery phase of a disaster. The comprehensive accounting records maintained by each family contributed to their successful resettlement and provided the government agency with copious data for monitoring the performance of the project, measuring the progress of its participants, and identifying where support was most needed.     

The Federal Government of Germany's circumspection concerning accrual budgeting and accounting

In 2010, the German federal government, renowned for its fiscal rectitude, abandoned its accrual-based budgeting and accounting reform, certainly the output-based budgeting component of it and possibly the rest. While the German federal ministry of finance supported the reform, parliamentarians feared that the change from an input to an output orientation to the budget, together with the reduction of the number of individual appropriations, would result in a loss of their control over the budget and the government's finances. The global banking crisis certainly increased, and may well have triggered, these fears.     

Fabricating budgets: A study of the production of management budgeting in the national health service

This paper examines the processes by which a form of responsibility accounting system emerges in an organizational context. The paper utilizes recent approaches to the understanding of how science and technology is created (Latour, Science in Action, Harvard University Press, 1987) to investigate the processes by which a management budgeting initiative in the U.K. hospital system takes hold (or not) in specific hospitals. The approach is critical of the notion that accounting systems are well-defined technologies which are designed and then implemented (or face resistance). Instead, the study shows that management budgeting is fabricated, put together in a changing and fragile manner. Emerging accounting systems are not fixed technologies with well-defined purposes which reflect patterns of responsibility but changing constructions. Management budgeting systems are initiated with loose characteristics, purposes and uses. In the process of their design and implementation, new possibilities for decision making and definitions of responsibility emerge. Through this study of accounting in action, the paper explores the processes by which accounting and budgeting systems bring economic logic into hospital management. It is also relevant to debates about the role of budgeting and accounting in health care organizations in many countries.     

An analysis of the adoption, perceived benefits, and expected future emphasis of western management accounting practices in Chinese SOEs and JVs

This paper considers the adoption, perceived benefits, and expected future emphasis of western management accounting practices in the Chinese emerging market economy based on a sample of 64 joint ventures (JVs) and 115 State Owned Enterprises (SOE) gathered from a questionnaire survey. The study finds that the level of adoption of management accounting practices is most influenced by ownership type of the enterprise (JV or SOE) and to a lesser extent by the nature of the management accounting techniques to be adopted. A further significant finding is that management accounting practices such as budgeting for controlling costs, profit and sales budgeting, and target costing are perceived to be more beneficial for SOEs compared to JVs. However, responsibility accounting which is traditionally associated with SOEs and accounting for decision making is perceived to be less beneficial to SOEs compared with JVs.     

我国政府会计模式构建过程中主体界定问题初探

我国政府会计体系改革的起步相对较晚,有些方面滞后于财政预算管理体制的改革,而且与国际惯例之间也存在着一定的差距,因此适应我国经济体制和财政体制改革的需要。特别是适应我国加入WTO的新形势,积极推进政府会计体系的改革,将是我国下一步会计改革的重要内容。在这个过程中,我们认为首先应当思考这样一个问题,即未来政府会计体系的界限应当在哪里划定?或者说,究竟什么样的经济主体属于“政府”,应当纳入到未来的政府会计体系中?本文在借鉴GASB成功经验的基础上从“组织性质”和“资金来源与用途”两个角度提出了“双主体”模式的初步设想。     

The capital budgeting process and the energy trilemma - A strategic conduct analysis

This paper examines capital budgeting and its role in the ‘energy trilemma’. The key focus is on the role of knowledgeable agency in the analysis of strategic conduct. In particular, this study demonstrates how accounting tools can be used by executive managers, who, whilst dominant in their own organisations, are themselves subordinate to government in the United Kingdom and at the European level. The strategic conduct of actors is examined in a narrative, theorised case study setting spanning an 11-year period from 2006 to 2017. The principal contribution to knowledge from this study is the extent to which strategic investment accounting has played a role in changing regulatory and government policy in a privatised industry. Government and regulators were forced to take the generators' concerns seriously, because the generators (based on knowledge derived from capital budgets) restricted their capital expenditure rather than mobilising their resources. The generators highlighted that not only was this a problem of environmental sustainability and price for consumers, but also one of long-term supply. They argued that the government had to address all aspects of the trilemma when creating policy.     

The Usefulness of Accrual Information in Non‐mandatory Environments: The Case of Japanese Local Government

This study investigates how accrual accounting is used in a system in which it co‐exists with cash accounting. It uses a survey methodology to explore the factors that influence the extent to which accrual information is useful for decision making, when used in a dual system. The results show that although accrual information was used less for budgeting, evaluation, asset management or debt management, officials found accrual information useful for performance management. Moreover, neither experience nor leadership significantly contributed to decision‐making effectiveness. The study also found that the central government was the most influential promoter of accrual accounting in Japan. Of particular interest is the link between performance measurement and accrual information.     

Application of Accrual Accounting in the Australian Public Sector – Rhetoric or Reality

This paper presents a contextual. historical analysis of recent accrual accounting developments in the Australian Public Sector (APS). It takes a critical stance in that it questions the accrual accounting developments on a number of grounds. The paper examines changes in public sector financial management and accountability in four distinct settings, being: accrual financial reporting, accrual management systems, whole of government reporting, and accrual based budgeting. The findings show that already in Australia accrual accounting has made significant encroachments into some areas of annual financial and budget reporting. This influx has meant that terms such as 'deficit', 'debt', 'liabilities', 'operating results', 'assets', etc. have begun to change in meaning, which it is argued has important implications for the current process of transformation of aspects of the APS.     

Public Versus Private: The Empty Definitions of National Accounting

The policy-making processes and the policies of the two international systems of national accounts are addressed, from the perspective of the accounting discipline. The particular measurement issue that determines which parts of an economy are public and which are private - the reporting entity - is discussed. The main conclusion is that the definition of the reporting entities is so vague as to be empty; in other words, national accounting's definition of what is public and what is private is empty.