Premium
Statutory Budgetary and Financial Reporting by Australian Universities
Author(s) -
WALKER R. G.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
australian accounting review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.551
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1835-2561
pISSN - 1035-6908
DOI - 10.1111/j.1835-2561.2000.tb00050.x
Subject(s) - accounting , legislation , government (linguistics) , statutory law , agency (philosophy) , business , finance , administration (probate law) , state (computer science) , political science , law , linguistics , philosophy , epistemology , algorithm , computer science
A review of reporting practices in 1998 suggested that New South Wales universities were systematically breaching requirements for the publication of budgets in their annual reports, since the coverage of published budget documents did not encompass all financial transactions reported in financial statements. A government funding agency has required universities to present operating statements in a standard format. But the definitions used in these instructions lead to understatement of spending on administration by not counting expenditure incurred in faculties, schools or departments. It is argued that the combination of reporting practices based on government instructions and the failure of NSW universities to comply with state legislation has led to the production of accounts which are of limited usefulness to key stakeholders.