Christophe Vanhee

The effect of IPSAS on reforming governmental financial reporting: an international comparison

Over the past 25 years, significant New Public Management (NPM) reforms, particularly towards accrual accounting, have characterized the public sector in many countries. The diversity in public financial information systems created a need for harmonization, resulting in the elaboration of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). Despite their relevance, little is known on the adoption process of IPSAS. This study aims to examine to what extent IPSAS(-like) accrual accounting is adopted in central/local governments worldwide as well as to investigate which factors affect the differing level of their adoption. Methodologically, a specific questionnaire constructed to obtain relevant information from local experts was sent worldwide to a sample of countries. The study reveals an important move to accrual accounting, particularly to IPSAS accrual accounting, for which there still remains a level of reluctance mainly in central governments, especially in countries where businesslike accrual accounting has been developed. Points for practitioners IPSAS have become the international reference for the development of public sector accounting systems worldwide. For this reason, IPSAS deserve the attention of accounting policy-makers, practitioners and scholars. The current study offers a comparative study of the level of adopting IPSAS worldwide as well as an explanation of the reasons behind the differing levels of adoption. The present study reveals that the transition towards IPSAS necessitates a long period of implementation whereby existing local business accounting regulations hinder jurisdictions from implementing international standards. The explanatory findings provide input for reformers and legislators when designing and developing financial information reforms.

Innovations in Governmental Accounting Systems

In the last years a number Belgian public sector organisations have been reformed from cameralistic/cash accounting towards business-like accrual accounting. Recently, the Belgian legislator prepared the accounting reform of provincial governments (1999, 2000) starting as of 1st January 2002. Generally, the provincial accounting reform implies a maintaining of the traditional cameralistic accounting system together with the introduction of accrual accounting in order to obtain a patrimonial view of each province. Although provinces are more extensive than local governments, they have mostly a centralised accounting system.