MPs want PFIs included in IFRS government reporting
Treasury committee urges government to include PFIs on the book when reporting "whole of government" accounts
MPs are demanding the Treasury publish Public Sector Net Debt statistics –
calculated according to International Financial Reporting Standards taking PFI
contracts into account.
The demand is in a report from the
Commons
Treasury committee which repeated the concern of MPs that although
departmental accounts will be prepared under IFRS, the PFI figures “will not
appear in the calculation of net debt in the Whole of Government Accounts”.
The committee said: “Future pre-budget and budget reports should include a
reconciliation between public sector net debt calculated on a national accounts
basis and the same figure calculated using the IFRS principles which apply to
departmental accounts.”
The report said Treasury ministers had told the committee that the revised
timetable for preparing public sector accounts for 2009-10 – which previously
slipped from 2008-09 – remains “important”.
It said ministers had also reassured the committee the government remains on
track to publish WGA for the first time in July this year for the 2009-10
financial year.
Accountancy
Age revealed last September that around £32bn of debt would be
kept off the government’s externally reported figures.
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