Iqbal Khadaroo

ACCOUNTABILITY AND VALUE FOR MONEY IN PRIVATE FINANCE INITIATIVE CONTRACTS

Within the context of New Public Management (NPM), successive UK governments have claimed that PFI projects provide more accountability, and arguably, more value for money (VFM) than conventional procurement for the public (HM Treasury 1995, 2000, 2003a and 2003b). However, recent empirical research in the UK on PFI has indicated its potential limitations for accountability and VFM (Broadbent, Gill and Laughlin, 2004; Edwards, Shaoul, Stafford and Arblaster, 2004; Shaoul, 2005; and Ismail and Pendlebury, 2006) albeit these are based on either published accounts or a limited number of key stakeholders. This paper attempts to partially redress this gap in the literature by presenting an interesting case of the impact of PFI on accountability and VFM in Northern Irelands education sector. The findings of this research, based on forty-two interviews with a wide range of key stakeholders, suggest that stakeholders have different and often conflicting expectations and the actual PFI accountability and VFM benefits are much more obfuscated than those claimed in Government publications.

Corporate Reporting on the Internet: Some Implications for the Auditing Profession

Purpose – The exponential growth in corporate reporting on the internet has created numerous opportunities and challenges for the accounting and auditing profession, and regulators. This study aims to examine internet reporting practices of companies in Malaysia for the purpose of exploring their auditing implications.Design/methodology/approach – An examination of the 100 Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange Composite Indexed (KLSE CI) companies in Malaysia in 2003 and 2004.Findings – Although there has been an increase in both the number of companies and the types of information provided on the internet, the quality of internet reporting information to users has little improved. This problem is compounded because auditors have little control over web contents and the changes that can be made to audited information. Further guidance to standardise the types of internet reporting information may help protect the interest of users, provide more certainty to what information needs to be audited and reduce audit risk...

The diffusion of risks in public private partnership contracts

Purpose - The UK government argues that the benefits of public private partnership (PPP) in delivering public infrastructure stem from transferring risks to the private sector within a structure in which financiers put their own capital at risk, and the performance-based payment mechanism, reinforced by the due diligence requirements imposed by the lenders financing the projects. Prior studies of risk in PPPs have investigated “what” risks are allocated and to “whom”, that is to the public or the private sector. The purpose of this study is to examine “how” and “why” PPP risks are diffused by their financiers. Design/methodology/approach - This study focuses on the financial structure of PPPs and on their financiers. Empirical evidence comes from interviews conducted with equity and debt financiers. Findings - The findings show that the financial structure of the deals generates risk aversion in both debt and equity financiers and that the need to attract affordable finance leads to risk diffusion through a network of companies using various means that include contractual mitigation through insurance, performance support guarantees, interest rate swaps and inflation hedges. Because of the complexity this process generates, both procurers and suppliers need expensive expert advice. The risk aversion and diffusion and the consequent need for advice add cost to the projects, impacting on the governments economic argument for risk transfer. Originality/value - The expectation inherent in PPP is that the private sector will better manage those risks allocated to it and because private capital is at risk, financiers will perform due diligence with the ultimate outcome that only viable projects will proceed. This paper presents empirical evidence that raises questions about these expectations.

Costs, outputs and outcomes in school PFI contracts and the significance of project size

This article examines operational Private Finance Initiative (PFI) school projects and reports the experiences of UK headteachers. It considers the impact of project size on value for money (VFM). Headteachers involved in small projects are more satisfied with costs than those involved in large projects, but headteachers involved in larger projects are more satisfied with affordability. Generally, heads are more satisfied with the buildings than with the services. The authors question the governments recent policy changes to increase the size of PFI projects.

A changing market for PFI financing: Evidence from the financiers

Abstract Responses to a questionnaire survey received from PFI financiers, and interviews with senior managers, show that as the credit crunch took hold banks became more risk averse. The prediction of Toms et al. that collusion between the state and the private sector might cease in the face of austerity does not appear to have occurred. Rather the state has intervened to benefit the private sector. We argue that two successive UK Governments intervened in the market to protect the role of private finance in PFIs but whether such interventions represent value for taxpayers’ money is a question for future research.

A 'macro' analysis of the use of XBRL

eXtensible business reporting language (XBRL) is increasingly used for reporting to shareholders, filing with stock exchange regulators and for decision making and taxation purposes. This paper provides a macro analysis of the use of XBRL in the USA and UK and highlights some directions for further research. It finds that the pace of XBRL adoption across countries and industries varies. The country analysis suggests that there has been greater support and adoption of XBRL in the USA as compared to the UK. Moreover, XBRL seems to be widely used in the financial services sector as compared to others. This paper identifies several areas for research at the macro country and industry level and the micro company level. It is argued that greater support from the accounting profession and regulators is required to raise XBRL awareness and speed the pace of adoption in practice.

Agroecology accounting: biodiversity and sustainable livelihoods from the margins

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a socio-ecological counter account of the role that agroecology plays in supporting the sustainable livelihoods of a co-operative of smallholder coffee farmers, where very little value is created at their end of the coffee commodity chain. Agroecology may be defined as the science that provides the ecological principles and concepts for the design and management of productive agricultural ecosystems that conserve natural resources. Design/methodology/approach - This study uses a case study design of a coffee-producing co-operative in India using data collected from participant observation, focus groups and unstructured interviews with indigenous smallholder farmers. It combines the science of agroecology with the labour theory of value as a theoretical framework. Findings - An agroecological approach supports agricultural biodiversity, while promoting sustainable livelihoods since members of the co-operative are able to reduce their use of external inputs. However, an agroecological transformation is curtailed by the continued dependence on corporate value chains. A framework using the labour theory of value is used to explain the extraction of surplus value from the labour of both the smallholder farmers as well as nature. This study provides evidence of the role of government policy and practice in perpetuating the status quo by not promoting either research on agroecology or direct consumer to producer value chains while providing subsidies for the inputs of industrial agriculture. Originality/value - There have been very few studies that have provided an account of the limited value generated in agricultural commodity chains for smallholder farmers due to the need to purchase the inputs of industrial agriculture supported by government subsidies. This study extends the field of accounting for biodiversity into agriculture using the science of agroecology to explain the role played by biodiversity in increasing the amount of value generated by smallholder farmers. By utilising the labour theory of value, the authors have introduced the notion of the labour power of nature as represented by the environmental services that nature provides.

The relevance of International Financial Reporting Standards to Kazakhstan: perception of auditors

This paper discusses the relevance of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) to emerging economies in general and Kazakhstan in particular. It uses evidence from interviews conducted with senior auditors from two Big Four accountancy firms in Kazakhstan and prior studies exploring IFRS implementation in emerging economies to shed light on how complex institutional and cultural factors influence accounting. The findings suggest that accounting practices in Kazakhstan are dominated by the historically inherited institutionalised accounting system of the Soviet Union era, when corporate reporting was primarily geared towards meeting the needs of government agencies such as Statistics Committee and tax authorities. The main problems of implementing IFRS in Kazakhstan were pressures to comply with tax codes and the early stage of development of the accounting profession with the consequent lack of IFRS expertise and deficient IFRS enforcement mechanisms.

The governmentality and accountability of UK national museums and art galleries

Abstract This study furthers our understanding of the role of governmentality mechanisms in relation to other-forming and self-forming accounts of art organisations, by using empirical data collected from interviews with senior managers of UK national museums and art galleries (MAGs) and from secondary published sources. The findings highlight how governmentality mechanisms had power-effects through the creation of knowledge about MAGs and the resistance strategies of MAGs. Whilst the governmentality mechanisms were expected to ensure the automatic functioning of disciplinary power, in some instances the government directly intervened to over-ride decisions taken by senior managers when these conflicted with political imperatives.