Australian Bureau of Statistics
5518.0.55.001 - Government Finance Statistics, Education, Australia, 2011-12 Quality Declaration
Previous ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 30/04/2013
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7 General government transactions included in the calculation of data presented in this release relate to those transactions which have been classified to 'GPC 04 – Education'. There are some issues, however, relating to the structure and application of the GPC that should be considered when interpreting the data. Nurse education carried out in hospitals is included in 'GPC 05 – Health' because of the difficulty in separately identifying these expenditures in the accounts of hospitals.
8 In addition, differences in institutional structure and accounting practices make it difficult to implement the GPC in a way which leads to fully comparable statistics between the states. For example, in some states expenditure on the education of disabled children (which should be classified to special education) is included under primary and secondary education because data are not separately available. These differences need to be taken into account when comparing the statistics between states and over time.
9 Users interested in the definition of the various GPC groupings used in this release should consult Australian System of Government Finance Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods (cat. no. 5514.0.55.001) electronic version or (cat. no. 5514.0) pdf version.
10 From 2008–09 onwards, Australian Accounting Standard Board 1049 Whole of Government and General Government Sector Financial Reporting (AASB 1049) has replaced Australian Accounting Standard 31 Financial Reporting by Government (AAS 31) as the standard Governments should follow in the preparation of their financial statements. Information on AASB 1049 is available from the Australian Accounting Standards Board website <http://www.aasb.gov.au>.
11 A key feature of AASB 1049 is the requirement that where the Australian System of Government Finance Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods (cat. no. 5514.0) differs from the accounting standards, a reconciliation to the key GFS aggregates and an explanation must be presented. The key fiscal aggregates are the net operating balance, net borrowing / lending, cash surplus / deficit, and net worth. A functional statement of expenses should also be reported. AASB 1049 covers General Government and Whole of Government, but does not apply to individual government agencies. Whole of Government for each jurisdiction is referred to as Total public sector in GFS.
12 There are a number of known differences between AASB 1049 and Australian System of Government Finance Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods (cat. no. 5514.0). These differences include the treatment of provisions for doubtful debts and constructive obligations, treatment of dividends payable by Public Corporations, tax effect accounting, treatment of coins issued by government, measurement of concessional loans, and the treatment of finance leases.
13 Data presented in this publication may differ from data published by Treasuries if:
PRIVATE EXPENDITURE ON EDUCATION
14 Expenditure on education by the private sector (as recorded in the National Accounts) consists of household final consumption expenditure on education services and gross fixed capital formation mainly by private educational institutions.
15 Household final consumption expenditure on education services is estimated as:
16 Expenditure on such items as school books, uniforms, etc. and expenditure by parents’ associations on school equipment are not included in household final consumption expenditure on education, but are treated in the Australian System of National Accounts (ASNA) as household final consumption expenditure on other goods and services (such as clothing, books, etc.). Fares paid by students travelling to and from educational institutions are not counted as part of household final consumption expenditure on education, but are included in transport services in ASNA.
17 Private gross fixed capital formation in the field of education is estimated in ASNA from statistics of the value of work done on new building and major additions to buildings of private educational institutions.
18 It is important to note that estimates of government expenditure on education and of private expenditure on education cannot simply be aggregated to derive an estimate of total expenditure on education. This would result in double counting of some expenditures as transfers between governments and private education institutions would not be eliminated.
19 The current price estimate of GDP is used in Table 19. Current price GDP is obtained by reflating the average chain volume estimate, derived from the three independent approaches, by the implicit price deflator derived from the expenditure–based estimates. GDP is as published in Table 43, Expenditure on GDP, Current Prices in the December quarter 2011 issue of Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product (cat. no. 5206.0) pdf version.
20 GFS data are revised on an annual basis. For this reason differences can occur between equivalent aggregates published in earlier years.
21 Users may refer to the following publications which contain related information:
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This page last updated 27 May 2014