[wdmmg-discuss] Whole of Government Accounts Wikipedia article

Fri Jun 11 14:45:57 UTC 2010

Hi Jonathan,

I've found out loads more about whole of government accounts(WGA) since
then -- mostly from speaking to the WGA team.

1. The purpose of whole of government accounts is to identify transactions
    between public bodies and then to eliminate the double counting. So if
    body A gives money to body B then WGA would be responsible for
    subtracting the amount body B received from body A's total. You can see
    this going on in the adjustments table in the coins. There are scripts
    in coins to best guess the eliminations using the CPID, but the whole
    of government accounts perform lots of checks on this.

2. There is a report expected in spring 2011, that is going to be from the
    whole of government accounts, but it will very high level -- like
    company accounts. But unlike PESA, apparently it will include spending
    on PFIs.

3. What I don't yet understand is why the WGA instructions for LA require
    the LA to record their spending down to the nearest 1 million pounds,
    and it then says this information is recorded in COINS, but the spending
    we see in COINS does not include any local bodies.

You can see more what I mean here:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/localgovernment/localgovernmentfinance/governmentaccounts

Lisa

On Fri, 11 Jun 2010, Jonathan Gray wrote:

> Lisa: didn't we find some interesting archived pages on WGA on Wayback
> Machine? Francis: have you looked up any of the expired URLs?
>
> This is exactly why John Sheridan et al's work on Web Continuity
> project is so important! ;-)
>
> http://www.ijdc.net/index.php/ijdc/article/download/106/81
>
> Also what do you think about some kind of 'ask an expert' mini service
> -- with support from HMT/OPSI for details? I'm sure they could be
> interested. Understanding UK public finance evidently ultimately
> entails more than numbers and pictures!
>
> J.
>
> On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Lisa Evans <lisa.evans at okfn.org> wrote:
>> Thanks Francis!
>>
>> You're quite right, we should add more of the knowledge we've built up in
>> this project to wikipedia.
>>
>> I've added some guidance for they type of things we can add to wikipedia
>> pages at:
>>
>> http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYn3JiuouxLUZGN0eGIzOWNfMzdkN3ZncnJqNA&hl=en
>>
>> Basically it says:
>>
>> 1. pick a subject that interests you for where does my money go?
>> 2. check if it has relevant wikipedia pages
>> 3. check if you can add anything more to that page.
>>
>> Some suggestions for things to look up in wikipedia are:
>> - any of the main wdmmg data sets at (http://www.ckan.net/group/wdmmg)
>> - concepts like Resource Allocation Budgeting
>>
>> An e.g. of a wikipedia page that needs improvement is the whole of
>> government accounts.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_of_Government_Accounts
>>
>> Many thanks,
>>
>> Lisa
>>
>> On Thu, 10 Jun 2010, Francis Irving wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Lazy Web,
>>>
>>> I couldn't find a one paragraph or one article, general reader summary
>>> of what the phrase "Whole of Government Accounts" means anywhere on
>>> the web.
>>>
>>> I've done the best I can (with links to some references, thanks Donny)
>>> here:
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_of_Government_Accounts
>>>
>>> Please make it better if you know more!
>>>
>>> Francis
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> wdmmg-discuss mailing list
>>> wdmmg-discuss at lists.okfn.org
>>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wdmmg-discuss
>>>
>>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
>