The HM ‘Treasure's Island’: The Application of Accruals-based Accounting Standards in the UK Government

Yuri Biondi

Accounting in Europe, 2016, vol. 13, issue 1, 81-102

Abstract: Since the 1990s, UK has been progressively adopting a governmental accounting reform purporting to interpret and mimic accounting standards and practices from the private sector. Since 2009, the UK set of accounting standards applicable to the whole of governmental entities is based upon the HM Treasury's official interpretation of the international accounting standards initially designed for commercial enterprises, the latter standards having extensively inspired the International Public Sector Accounting Standards. This article analyses some representational concerns raised by its application of a balance sheet accounting approach to the public administration, pointing to consolidation perimeter, current value measurement of assets and liabilities and the case of public--private partnerships. This theoretical analysis develops relevant implications for representation and control of public spending and borrowing in UK and in general.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17449480.2016.1142096 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:acceur:v:13:y:2016:i:1:p:81-102

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAIE20

DOI: 10.1080/17449480.2016.1142096

Access Statistics for this article

Accounting in Europe is currently edited by Lisa Evans

More articles in Accounting in Europe from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().