Government Finance Statistics, Education, Australia methodology

Unrequited payments by government to finance the acquisition of non-financial capital assets by the recipient, or compensate the recipient for damage or destruction of capital assets, or increase the financial capital of the recipient.

Transactions in which the ownership of an asset (other than cash and inventories) is transferred from one institutional unit to another, in which cash is transferred to enable the recipient to acquire another asset or in which the funds realised by the disposal of another asset are transferred. Includes capital grant expenses.

The change in the value of inventories arising from transactions over the accounting period.

Voluntary transfers intended to finance the current activities of the recipient. Includes grants for current purposes to private non-profit organisations serving households, grants made to foreign governments and organisations including grants made for aid projects, and current grants from one level of government to another (eg. Commonwealth to State) and between units in different jurisdictions within the same level of government.

Refers to payments that are current in nature for which no economic benefits are received in return for payment. Includes current grant expenses, subsidies and current monetary transfers to households.

The accounting process of systematically allocating the cost less estimated residual value of an asset over its expected life.

Employee expenses relate to compensation of employees and reflect those expenses accrued as a result of services provided by employees in the current period. They include wages and salaries, annual leave, long service leave and superannuation.

Total market value of goods and services produced in Australia within a given period after deducting the cost of the goods and services used up in the process of production, but before allowance for the consumption of fixed capital (depreciation).

The value of acquisitions of new and existing produced assets, other than inventories, less the value of disposals of new or existing produced assets, other than inventories.

Replaced by HELP in 2005, HECS required students to pay a contribution towards the cost of their higher education. Payments could be made direct to the institution attended at the time the education course was undertaken, or students could enter a loan agreement with the Commonwealth Government to discharge their obligation on their behalf. Students then progressively repaid the loan at a later date through the taxation system.

The Higher Education Loan Programme (HELP) was introduced on 1 January 2005 and replaced the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). HELP comprises a number of schemes which enable eligible students to obtain a loan for either all or part of their tuition fees.

 In GFS, the HELP and HECS loans are recorded as advances from the Commonwealth Government to the students while the payment of contributions on behalf of the students are treated as payments for a service by students to higher education institutions.

Net expenditure on goods and services by persons and expenditure of a current nature by private non-profit institutions serving households on the consumption of educational services. These include expenditure on salaries paid to non-government school teachers and HECS and HELP payments (both up front and deferred) by students.

Transactions or transfers between levels of government that are eliminated during the GFS consolidation process. Includes grants from one level of government to another.

Those operating expenses other than compensation of employees (employee expenses), depreciation, or current or capital transfer expenses.

Revenue from the direct provision of goods and services.

Statistics presented in Government Finance Statistics, Education, Australia (formerly known as cat. no. 5518.0.55.001) are based on information provided in, or underlying the published accounting statements and reports of governments and their authorities. For the Commonwealth Government and all state governments the primary data sources are:

• public accounts and budget management systems of state treasuries and the Australian Department of Finance;
• annual reports of government departments and authorities;
• budget papers; and
• reports of the Auditors–General.
   

For local government, the main data sources are annual local government consolidated data collections conducted on behalf of a range of stakeholders by departments of local government in each of the jurisdictions, as well as published financial statements.

For information on the institutional environment of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), including the legislative obligations of the ABS, financing and governance arrangements, and mechanisms for scrutiny of ABS operations, please see ABS Institutional Environment.

The term 'Government Finance Statistics' refers to statistics that measure the financial activities of governments and reflect the impact of those activities on other sectors of the economy. The Australian system of Government Finance Statistics (GFS), is designed to provide statistical information on public sector entities in Australia classified in a uniform and systematic way.

GFS enables policy makers and users to analyse the financial operations and financial position of the public sector by the level of government, institutional sector or set of transactions. The system of GFS is based on international standards set out in the System of National Accounts 1993 (1993 SNA) and the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Government Finance Statistics Manual (GFSM). The System of National Accounts has been updated and the System of National Accounts 2008 (2008 SNA) was endorsed by the United Nations Statistical Commission in February 2009. The ABS compilation of GFS adopts the updated 2008 SNA treatment in two cases. The first is that Defence Weapons Platforms are treated as gross fixed capital formation. The second is in the treatment of Special Drawing Rights. These changes have been updated in the Australian System of Government Finance Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2005 (AGFS05), but do not apply to education statistics. The ABS GFS Manual has also been updated to include the treatment of emissions schemes in ABS GFS data.

The IMF has published a revised Government Finance Statistics Manual (GFSM 2014), and the Australian system has been updated to reflect the new international standards. These changes are presented in the Australian System of Government Finance Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods, 2015 (AGFS15), and will be implemented for data reported for periods from 1 July 2017 onwards.

The system of GFS provides details of revenues, expenses, cash flows and assets and liabilities of the Australian public sector and comprises units which are owned and/or controlled by the Commonwealth, state and local governments.

This release presents GFS operating expenses on education on an accrual accounting basis for each jurisdiction for the general government sector.

Annual expenditure on education statistics are released within 11 months of the end of the financial year.

The main influence on the accuracy of GFS data is non–sampling error. Non–sampling error arises from inaccuracies in collecting, recording and processing the data. The most significant of these errors are misreporting of data, and processing errors. Every effort is made to minimise error by working closely with data providers, training of processing staff and efficient data processing procedures.

 Revisions are made to the annual expenditure on education data as required as a result of new and updated information available from providers.

In 1998–99, the ABS adopted an accrual basis of recording for its GFS. Prior to this the ABS GFS was cash based. In addition to the information published, some GFS data are available back to 1961–62. However, due to the different compilation and data sources, data from 1998–99 onwards are not directly comparable with earlier cash data. The ABS has not established a quantitative measure of this break in series because the existing data sources do not permit this. Data on a pure accruals basis are only available from 1998–99.

In 1992–93 the Commonwealth and state governments implemented the uniform presentation framework (UPF) in their budget documents to introduce uniformity into the presentation of GFS.

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. A key feature of AASB 1049 is that where the Australian System of Government Finance Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods (AGFS15) differs from the accounting standards, a reconciliation to the key GFS aggregates and an explanation for these must be presented in a reconciliation statement. Data presented in this publication may differ from data published by Treasuries in their reconciliation statements for the key aggregates where Treasuries have not adjusted their data to a GFS basis, where ABS have a different view on classification treatments, where ABS employ a different consolidation methodology, or where data have been included that were not available when a jurisdiction's GFS presentations were published.

The statistics in this release have been compiled using standard definitions, classifications and treatment of government financial transactions to facilitate comparisons between levels of government and between states within a level of government. However, the statistics also reflect real differences between the administrative and accounting arrangements of the various jurisdictions and these differences need to be taken into account when making interstate comparisons. For example, only a state level of government exists in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The ACT government performs a number of functions which are undertaken by local government authorities in other jurisdictions.

To compile statistics about the financial activities of a particular level of government, or any other grouping of public sector units, transactions and debtor/creditor relationships between units within the chosen grouping (sector or subsector) have to be matched and eliminated to avoid double counting. The process of matching and eliminating these items within the chosen group is known as 'consolidation'.

The publication Government Finance Statistics, Education, Australia (formerly known as cat. no. 5518.0.55.001) contains an Explanatory Note and Glossary that provide information on the data sources, terminology, classifications and other technical aspects associated with these statistics.

Detailed information on the concepts, sources and methods used in compiling GFS can be found in Australian System of Government Finance Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods (AGFS15).

For inquiries about these and related statistics, contact the Customer Assistance Service via the ABS website Contact Us page. The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to us.