Abstract
PurposeWithin the stream of research on public sector accounting standards, heritage asset accounting represents a difficult and challenging issue. This paper intends to join the debate on heritage reporting by carrying out a critical review of the Consultation Paper (CP) “Financial Reporting for Heritage in the Public Sector” issued by the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) in order to highlight its strengths and weaknesses and to make recommendations.Design/methodology/approachTo this end, the current study adopts document analysis as a qualitative research method by referring to Italy as a typical and critical case study. Moreover, the authors actively took part in the Italian working group on heritage assets reporting, so they are well-informed people about the Italian point of view as well as the broad discussion underpinning the Italian response.FindingsEvidence demonstrates that, although the proposals included in the CP represent a new step towards an organic regulation of heritage asset reporting, if these preliminary views are confronted with the reality of an emblematic context, as in the Italian case, much room for improvement remains regarding the definition, recognition, measurement and disclosure of such assets.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper lies in its contribution to overcoming the current controversial aspects of heritage assets reporting and the issuing of an accounting standard. In doing so, the authors also attempt to answer the call made by Anessi-Pessina et al. (2019) to investigate in detail an individual country experience to better understand the state of the art in national and international accounting standards on heritage assets.
Highlights
Background to the studyThe harmonization of accounting systems is currently undergoing an intense debate, concerning first the accounting systems of the private sector and, subsequently, of the public sector
This study reveals that the lack of a reference accounting treatment and the difficulties of establishing reliable and meaningful valuations result in only 43% of OECD governments reporting heritage assets
The Consultation Paper (CP) issued by the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) has undoubtedly drawn further attention to the unresolved issue of heritage asset accounting
Summary
The harmonization of accounting systems is currently undergoing an intense debate, concerning first the accounting systems of the private sector and, subsequently, of the public sector. Focusing on the latter, during the New Public Management (NPM) era (Hood, 1991, 1995), there has been a push to introduce accrual accounting systems (Christiaens and Rommel, 2008). Some public sector entities started to adopt accruals accounting but based on different standards. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
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