TREASURY’S STRATEGY TO IMPLEMENT AUSTRALIAN ACCOUNTING STANDARDS

NSW Treasury’s strategy to implement Australian Accounting Standards, including Australian equivalents to International Financial Reporting Standards (AEIFRS) and GFS/GAAP convergence includes the following steps:

• Analyse and comment to the Australian Accounting Standards Board on all exposure drafts of standards;

• Identify and assess the impacts of all significant changes in finalised standards and make this information available to all agencies (see ‘Treasury Analysis’);

• Keep the Treasurer, the Government, government agencies and all other stakeholders informed;

• Develop new or amended policies and guidance as necessary;

• Establish and maintain an up-to-date website to keep all stakeholders continuously informed;

• Facilitate a collaborative approach to managing change by means of an ‘Agency Reference Panel’. The role of the panel is to assist Treasury in identifying the impacts of changes, including information and systems changes and to provide Treasury with both input and feedback;

• Present training and development seminars to all NSW public sector agencies;

• Facilitate agencies’, which have primary responsibility for assessing the impacts of changes in Accounting Standards on their budgets and financial reports, information needs and required system changes. Encourage all agencies to be actively involved and to provide input and feedback to Treasury. Treasury’s analysis of standards will focus on the general impact of significant changes on public sector financial reporting. Each agency must assess any additional impacts that are not addressed in our analysis. Therefore, agencies should contact Treasury if they believe there are other significant policy or implementation issues that have not been identified.