Friday, October 5, 2012: 9:00 AM
The Belgian public accounting system is continuously evolving. Indeed, it has been modified several times since the law of 15th May 1846 on State accounting. At first, public accounting only consisted of budgetary accounting but it then evolved and now consists of two parts: budgetary accounting and double-entry general accounting based on transactions and inspired by the one used by the private sector. Such a system has the advantage of providing more information about the financial and economic situation of public entities and of being more accurate, which enables us to estimate, among other things, public property and public debt. At the same time as this national evolution there has also been a modernization of accounting at the international level through the introduction of the IPSAS (International Public Sector Accounting Standards) and at the European level through the implementation of the ESA (European System of Accounts). These national and international reforms to modernize accounting tally with the concept of New Public Management which aims to give the public sector the benefit of the private sector’s most effective management methods. The implementation of international accounting standards makes it possible to harmonize national accounting systems which are considered as very heterogeneous by Benito, Brusca & Montesinos (2007), Brusca & Condor (2002), Carvalho, Jorge & Fernandes (2007), the Federation of European Accountants (2007), Lüder & Jones (2003) and Pina & Torres (2003). The aim of our paper is consequently to describe the development of Belgian public accounting, with particular attention to the 2003 accounting reform, its content and triggering factors, and to analyze the current state at each level of power. Then we will situate this system in an international context. We will therefore describe the level of implementation of reforms aimed at adopting an effective accounting system inspired by IPSAS standards, on the basis of the papers of Benito, Brusca & Montesinos (2007), des Robert & Colibert (2008) and Christiaens, Reyniers & Rollé (2010). We will also evaluate the compliance of Belgian public entities with three IPSAS standards of particular interest to them, namely IPSAS 1 “Presentation of financial statements”, IPSAS 6 “Consolidated financial statements and accounting for controlled entities” and IPSAS 22 “Disclosure of financial information about the general government sector”. The analysis of public entities’ accounts as well as a contact with the Belgian Court of Audit enable us to conclude that the implementation of the 2003 accounting reform as well as the compliance with IPSAS standards vary greatly from one entity to another.
This paper has the advantage of contextualizing the Belgian reform of 2003 by being based on a strong retrospective study. It enables us to visualize clearly the current accounting situation. It also offers the advantage of synthetizing several studies on the implementation of IPSAS at the international level. The originality of the article also lies in analyzing the compliance with three IPSAS, interesting for several reasons (relevance to the public sector and ESA 95 and the link with the current Belgian accounting legislation).