5514.0.55.001 - Australian System of Government Finance Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2003
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 10/10/2003
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2.2. The analytical framework adopted by the ABS for compiling government finance statistics has been structured to provide for:
2.3. To achieve these objectives the analytical framework has been designed to enable integrated recording of government economic flows and stocks. Thus, the framework requires that there be a balance between the opening values of economic stocks, the value of the transactions and other economic flows during the accounting period and the resulting values of the stocks at the end of the accounting period. The balancing requirement relates to the total of all stocks and to totals for individual classes of assets and liabilities. 2.4. In order to provide statistics for each component of the public sector, the framework provides for the identification of the level of government, jurisdiction and economic sector of each statistical unit in the system. The framework includes consolidation rules that govern the aggregation of data for individual units into totals for each level of government, jurisdiction and sector. The rules provide for the elimination of flows and stocks that occur between units in the same level of government, jurisdiction or sector. 2.5. As well as providing the foregoing classification of units by level of government, jurisdiction and sector, the framework provides for the classification of economic flows by type and function and economic stocks by type. At the broadest level, flows are subdivided between transactions, revaluations and other economic flows. Transactions are categorised as either revenues, expenses, net acquisition of non-financial assets, net acquisition of financial assets, net incurrence of liabilities or net contributions of capital. Stocks are subdivided by type between non-financial assets, financial assets, liabilities, and shares and other contributed capital. Each of the classifications is hierarchical, such that each of the broad categories is disaggregated into sub-categories, which in turn are further broken down into classes. The degree of disaggregation varies from category to category and is designed to cater for all analytical requirements. 2.6. The classification of stocks and flows by type reflects a set of three financial statements that comprise the basic structure of the analytical framework:
2.7. The framework provides a structure within which very detailed presentations of government finance statistics can be formulated. In theory, the items in each of the basic statements can be disaggregated to the finest levels of each of the stocks and flows classifications and cross-classified according to the level of government, jurisdiction and sector of each unit in the system. In practice, there are practical and quality limits to the degree of detail that can be tabulated. However, the previously discussed objectives of the framework are readily achieved with this design.
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