International Comparative Issues in Government Accounting: The Similarities and Differences between Central Government Accounting and Local Government Accounting within or between Countries

366 Pages·2001·19.03 MB·English

by  Ad J. E. Havermans (auth.)

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.