International Comparative Issues in Government Accounting: The Similarities and Differences between Central Government Accounting and Local Government Accounting within or between Countries PDF
Preview International Comparative Issues in Government Accounting: The Similarities and Differences between Central Government Accounting and Local Government Accounting within or between Countries
INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE ISSUES IN GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING International Comparative Issues in Government Accounting The Similarities and Differences between Central Government Accounting and Local Government Accounting within or between Countries Proceedings of the 7th CIGAR Conference Edited by AadBac Tilburg University, The Netherlands SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V. A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-4419-4881-6 ISBN 978-1-4757-5563-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4757-5563-3 Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 2001 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2001 Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 200 I No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner. CONTENTS Contributors IX Foreword XIII Aad. D. Bac Part I Dutch Government Accounting 1. Dutch Government Accounting from the perspective of the 1 Suppreme Auditing Institution Ad J.E. Havermans 2. Dutch Central Government Budgeting and Accounting System 9 Harman W. OL.M. Korte 3. The Dutch Provincial and Municipal Accounting System 19 Cees Schouten 4. The Financial Management System of the City of Tilburg 39 Pieter G. van der Poe! Part II International Comparative Research 5. A Comparison of Japanese and Australian Second Tier 53 Government Performance Reporting Mark Christensen and Hiroshi Yoshimi 6. Central Governmental Accounting of Egypt and the Netherlands: 71 Similarities and Differences Hassan A.G. Ouda 7. Accounting and Democratic Governance: A Comparative Study of one 91 Norwegian and one Russian County Anatoli Bourmistrov and Frode Mellemvik Part III National Comparative Research 8. Transferability of Reformed Local Government Accounting 123 to Provincial Government Accounting in Belgium Johan Christiaens 9. Comparing Cameral and Accrual Accounting in Local Governments 135 Norvald Monsen and Salme Nasi 10. Financial Management Initiatives at Different Governmental Layers 159 in the Netherlands G. Jan van Heiden en Nico P. Mol 11. Financial Management Reform in New Zealand Local Government: 177 A Central Government Initiative or a Response to Local Needs June Pallot 12. Accounting and Financial Reporting in Spanish Regional 195 Governments: Exploring Similarities and Differences Vicente Montesinos, Jose Manuel Vela and Bernardino Benito 13. Accruals Accounting Approaches in the UK Public Sector: 213 Diversity and Convergence Sheila Ellwood 14. Accounting for Capital Assets in the Public Sector: Difference 233 between Accounting Standards Boards in the United States Josep L. Cortes 15. Transforming Government Accounting in Japan: Revolution or 251 Fashion? Kiyoshi Yamamoto Contents VII Part IV National Non-Comparative Research 16. Polish Public Sector Accounting in Transition: The Landscape 265 after Early 1999 step in the State Redefining Wojciech A. Nowak and Barbara Bakalarska 17. A Diffusion-Contingency Model for Government Accounting 279 Innovations Alan D. Godfrey, Patrick Devlin and M. Cherif Merrouche 18. The Effects of Reform on China's Public Budgeting and 297 Accounting System James L. Chan, Cong Shuhai and Zhao Jianyong 19. Implementing the Municipal Accounting Reform in France 315 Jean-Baptiste Gillet and Claude Heiles 20. Local Government Accounting in Norway: Central Norms Create 327 Confusing Information at the Local Level Helge Mauland and Frode Mellemvik 21. Budgeting and Accounting Practices for Subsovereign Debt Issuers 341 Krzystof Cichocki, Jeanine Kleimo and James Ley CONTRIBUTORS Aad D. Bac Tilburg University THE NETHERLANDS Barbara Bakalarska Ministry of Finance POLAND Bernardino Benito University of Murcia SPAIN Anatoli Bourmistrov Bode Graduate School of Business NORWAY Krzystof Cichocki Local Government Partnership Project POLAND Mark Christensen Southern Cross University, Lismore AUSTRALIA James L. Chan Univesity of Illinois, Chicago U.S.A. Johan Christiaens University of Gent BELGIUM Josep L. Cortes University of Balearic Islands SPAIN Patrick Devlin Glasgow Caledonian University UNITED KINGDOM Sheila Ellwood Aston University, Birmingham UNITED KINGDOM Jean-Baptiste Gillet Ministry of Economics, Finance and Industry FRANCE Alan D. Godfrey Glasgow Caledonian University UNITED KINGDOM Ad JE. Havermans Court of Audit THE NETHERLANDS x Contributors Claude Heiles Ministry of Economics, Finance and Industry FRANCE G. Jan van Heiden University of Groningen THE NETHERLANDS Zhao Jianyong Shanghai University of Finance and Economics CHINA Jeanine Kleimo Local Government Partnership Project POLAND Harman W o.L.M. Korte Ministry of Finance THE NETHERLANDS James Ley Local Government Partnership Project POLAND Helge Mauland Stavanger College NORWAY Frode Mellemvik Bod0 Graduate School of Business NORWAY M. Cherif Merrouche Glasgow Caledonian University UNITED KINGDOM Nico P. Mol University of Twente THE NETHERLANDS Norvald Monsen Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administation, Bergen NORWAY Vicente Montesinos University of Valencia SPAIN Salme Nasi University of Jyvaskyia FINLAND Wojciech Nowak University of Lodz POLAND Hassan A.G. Ouda Tilburg University THE NETHERLANDS Contributors XI June Pallot University of Canterbury, Christchurch NEW ZEALAND Pieter G. van der Poel Municipality of Tilburg THE NETHERLANDS Cees Schouten Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Affairs THE NETHERLANDS Cong Shuhai Shanghai University of Finance and Economics CHINA Jose Manuel Vela University Jaume I, Castellon SPAIN Kiyoshi Yamamoto Okayama University JAPAN Hiroshi Yoshimi Hokkaido University JAPAN FOREWORD AadD. Bae Government is continuously developing all over the world and over time. Especially in the last decades the role of government has changed. In several countries the tasks government has taken up grew out in number and size. The idea that nevertheless the specific characteristics of government from an economic point of view as well as from an organizational point of view, government activities should be able to be performed on an efficient basis and managed in a more business-like way won adhesion. The adherence to this way of looking at government proved even to be exaggerated insofar that blind application of private sector management instruments was seen. In the same period, which for the majority of countries was characterized by fiscal stress, the interest in accrual accounting increased. The instrumental importance of confronting real cost with fares or usefulness was increasingly recognized. Furthermore it was assumed that control of government activities cost would improve by means of accrual accounting. Nevertheless the consequences of an accounting reform should not be underestimated. Logically a number of countries and especially those who had to cope with important macro-economic challenges still saw advantages in cash-based accounting or at least hesitated whether the advantages of accrual accounting would exceed the disadvantages. ICT -developments increased the possibilities of offering more than one type of accounting figures from the same accounting system. That is why we still see a wide range of different accounting systems all over the world. The variety goes from pure cash accounting to full accrual accounting, with a series of modified variances inbetween, depending the dominant aspects either called modified cash or modified accrual. The demands on types of information differs when looking at either central government or local and regional government. For instance macro-economic information needs are less to be expected on another level than the central government level. As far as a judgement on the adequacy of government accounting systems is concerned a fmancial accounting as well as a management accounting point of view is possible. Starting from a fmancial accounting point of view it should be recognized that the financial accounts play a role in the political discharging process of the magerial execution of by means of the budget assigned tasks to the Executive of a government entity. On the other hand they playa role in the accountability of Parliament or Council to the electorate. If regularity, efficiency and effectiveness are the key aspects of accountability, in the first role regularity and efficiency are dominant and in the second role regularity and effectiveness are. In the first role accountability concentrates on budget-execution or policy-execution and in the second role especially policy-choice is.
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