Deloitte comment letter on the future governance of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board

Published on: 30 Apr, 2014

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited has responded to the IPSASB Governance Review Group’s public consultation: The Future Governance of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (the Consultation).

We support the ongoing work of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) to establish high quality accounting standards for the public sector, which we see as critical to bringing about a desirable change in fiscal transparency.

Our comment letter highlights the following points:

  • We support bringing the IPSASB within the governance framework of the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation. In our view, the oversight and monitoring provided by the IFRSF Trustees and Monitoring Board would mitigate the threat of the politicisation of public sector accounting standard-setting
  • Bringing IPSASB within the governance framework of the IFRS Foundation would reduce the overall cost of international accounting standard-setting. It would also allow both private- and public-sector standard-setters to follow the same due process, which is the best guarantee that International Public Sector Accountings Standards will be of high-quality, promote transparency and improve accountability of governments
  • A single oversight and monitoring framework would mean that the scope of private- and public-sector financial reporting standards would be set by the same body, thus ensuring that there would be consistency about which standards apply to any given reporting entity. We are concerned that some public sector items, liabilities in particular, are not reported in any balance sheet
  • We think that the IFRS Foundation Trustees would be able to provide appropriate oversight of the work of the IPSASB, given that at least half of the Trustees have public sector or public policy experience. We acknowledge that it will be necessary for the IFRS Foundation to follow its own due process to amend its Constitution, oversight and monitoring arrangements to achieve this function.

The full comment letter is available for download below.

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