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- Title
An Accounting Framework for Local Authorities.
- Authors
Sidebotham, Roy
- Abstract
This article suggests an accounting framework for services provided by local authorities in New Zealand. To produce accounting reports to meet several ends is not easy. A basic problem is that tittle serious attention has been given to the provision of a conceptual framework within which local authorities' accounts can be drawn. There are considerable difficulties, some arising from the legal and political structures of authorities, some from the nature of the work they do, and others from the diversity of services they provide--diversity not only in function, but in the extent to which they are governmental or commercial in nature. Though the concept is clear, there are some difficulties of the application of accounting to fund a local authority administers. Since a local authority will have a number of separate services to administer, and will require financial reports for each, it must account not only for the fund, but also several subfunds. Meanwhile, concept of revenue or net income as a surplus of income over expenditure in an accounting period has relevance only in a special sense in local government or, for that matter, in any part of the public sector. The earning of revenue is not the objective of the authority: it is concerned with the provision of services whose cost might be met wholly, partly, or not at all by those who benefit.
- Subjects
NEW Zealand; ACCOUNTING; LOCAL government; FINANCIAL statements; PUBLIC finance
- Publication
Abacus, 1966, Vol 2, Issue 1, p24
- ISSN
0001-3072
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1467-6281.1966.tb00325.x