IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/acctbr/v30y2000i2p153-167.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consolidation principles and practices for the UK government sector

Author

Listed:
  • David Heald
  • George Georgiou

Abstract

Government accounting reform has in certain industrialised countries become a recognisable component of market-oriented New Public Management reforms. A key dimension is the conversion of accounting from the traditional cash basis to accruals, usually anchored in GAAP as developed for that country's private sector. Taking the UK proposals for Resource Accounting and Budgeting, this paper shows that issues concerning consolidation are proving both important and troublesome. After reviewing private sector experience with consolidation, the structure of UK central government is carefully mapped. The limited area for consolidation proposed by the UK Treasury as the basis for constructing Departmental Resource Accounts is criticised. Attention is paid to the complex structure of public service delivery, with much of that now done by quasi-public organisations outside both the proposed departmental boundary and the national accounts aggregate of general government. This paper does not examine the related topic of Whole-of-Government Accounts.

Suggested Citation

  • David Heald & George Georgiou, 2000. "Consolidation principles and practices for the UK government sector," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(2), pages 153-167.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:30:y:2000:i:2:p:153-167
    DOI: 10.1080/00014788.2000.9728932
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00014788.2000.9728932
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00014788.2000.9728932?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mian, Shehzad L. & Smith, Clifford Jr., 1990. "Incentives for unconsolidated financial reporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1-3), pages 141-171, January.
    2. Thain, Colin & Wright, Maurice, 1995. "The Treasury and Whitehall: The Planning and Control of Public Expenditure, 1976-1993," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198277842, Decembrie.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. José Ramón Sánchez-Serrano & David Alaminos & Francisco García-Lagos & Angela M. Callejón-Gil, 2020. "Predicting Audit Opinion in Consolidated Financial Statements with Artificial Neural Networks," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-14, August.
    2. Rowan Jones, 2003. "Measuring and Reporting The Nation's Finances: Statistics and Accounting," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 21-28, January.
    3. Biondi Yuri, 2017. "Which Accounting Regulation for Europe’s Economy and Society: Workshop organised by the Laboratory of Excellence on Financial Regulation (Labex ReFi) Under the auspices of the European Parliament, Eur," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-5, July.
    4. Sheila Ellwood, 2003. "Bridging the GAAP across the UK public sector," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 105-121.
    5. Alessandro Lombrano & Luca Zanin, 2013. "IPSAS and local government consolidated financial statements—proposal for a territorial consolidation method," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(6), pages 429-436, November.
    6. Heald, David & Steel, David, 2018. "The governance of public bodies in times of austerity," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 149-160.
    7. Sheila Ellwood & Sue Newbury, 2006. "A bridge too far: a common conceptual framework for commercial and public benefit entities," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 19-32.
    8. Ouda, H.A.G., 2005. "Transition to Accrual Accounting in the Public Sector of Developed and Developing Countries : Problems and Requirements. With Special Focus on the Netherlands and Egypt," Other publications TiSEM dc37e60a-cd56-49a7-971f-6, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Andreea CIRSTEA & Stefan Dragos CIRSTEA, 2015. "A Brief Analysis Of Public Sector Consolidated Financial Statements Researches," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 6, pages 93-99, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Churyk, Natalie Tatiana & Stenka, Renata, 2014. "Accounting for complex investment transactions," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 58-70.
    2. Renata Stenka & Peter Taylor, 2010. "Setting UK standards on the concept of control: An analysis of lobbying behaviour," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(2), pages 109-130.
    3. Philippe Touron, 2000. "APPORTS ET LIMITES DE LA THEORIE INSTITUTIONNELLE DES ORGANISATIONS Etude de trois cas d'adoption de normes comptables internationales en France," Post-Print halshs-00587516, HAL.
    4. G. Thomas & Neal Jesse, 2012. "Social Well-Being in Northern Ireland: A Longitudinal Study 1958–1998," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 106(2), pages 199-212, April.
    5. Kieran James & Janice How & Peter Verhoeven, 2008. "Did the goodwill accounting standard impose material economic consequences on Australian acquirers?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 48(4), pages 625-647, December.
    6. Wolf, Robin, 2018. "Ganz oder gar nicht - wer nutzte die Quotenkonsolidierung? Eine Analyse der Ausübung des Bilanzierungswahlrechts unter IAS 31 im Prime Standard der deutschen Börse," Arbeitspapiere 183, University of Münster, Institute for Cooperatives.
    7. Kroszner, Randall S. & Rajan, Raghuram G., 1997. "Organization structure and credibility: Evidence from commercial bank securities activities before the Glass-Steagall Act," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 475-516, August.
    8. Øyvind Bøhren & Jørgen Haug, 2006. "Managing Earnings with Intercorporate Investments," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5‐6), pages 671-695, June.
    9. Colin Thain, 2010. "Budget Reform in the United Kingdom: The Rocky Road to ‘Controlled Discretion'," Chapters, in: John Wanna & Lotte Jensen & Jouke de Vries (ed.), The Reality of Budgetary Reform in OECD Nations, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Norman Wong, 2005. "Determinants of the Accounting Change for Income Tax," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(5‐6), pages 1171-1196, June.
    11. Denis Cormier & Paul André & Emmanuelle Cargnello-Charles, 2000. "Déterminants de la décision de consolider les filiales de financement : le cas de la France," Post-Print halshs-00587445, HAL.
    12. Araceli Mora & William Rees, 1998. "The early adoption of consolidated accounting in Spain," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(4), pages 675-696.
    13. Gavana, Giovanna & Gottardo, Pietro & Moisello, Anna Maria, 2020. "Did the switch to IFRS 11 for joint ventures affect the value relevance of corporate consolidated financial statements? Evidence from France and Italy," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    14. Maurice Wright, 1999. "Coping with Fiscal Stress: Illusion and Reality in Central Government Budgeting in Japan," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance, pages 349-376, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Watts, Ross L., 1992. "Accounting choice theory and market-based research in accounting," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 235-267.
    16. Atul Shah, 1998. "Exploring the influences and constraints on creative accounting in the United Kingdom," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 83-104.
    17. van Lent, L.A.G.M., 1995. "Pressure and politics in financial accounting regulation," Research Memorandum FEW 686, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Petroni, Kathy R. & Shackelford, Douglas A., 1995. "Taxation, regulation, and the organizational structure of property-casualty insurers," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 229-253, December.
    19. Simon Lee, 2011. "The Political Economy of the Third Way: The Relationship between Globalisation and National Economic Policy," Chapters, in: Jonathan Michie (ed.), The Handbook of Globalisation, Second Edition, chapter 20, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Norman Wong, 2005. "Determinants of the Accounting Change for Income Tax," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(5-6), pages 1171-1196.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:30:y:2000:i:2:p:153-167. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RABR20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.