[OpenSpending] XBRL for Local Government Financial Reporting

Wed Sep 4 23:38:29 UTC 2013

Concha

Thanks for these questions. 

Like PDFs, XBRL files can either be published or kept confidential.  The use
of XBRL by itself is not a guarantee of transparency.  However, a publicly
available machine readable file is better than a publicly available PDF,
since it is easier to process.  In the world of machine readable files, I
see XBRL as better than CSV because XBRL tags allow for more complete
self-documentation of the data, especially if it the data is complex.

I don't know how many Spanish cities actually file in XBRL format.  I
thought the fact that they had a fairly well developed site (at
http://www.e-local.es/index.html ) indicated a substantial investment and
perhaps substantial compliance.  On the other hand, I am not seeing recent
updates.

I see some Spanish local government statistics here:
http://www.minhap.gob.es/EN-GB/ESTADISTICA%20E%20INFORMES/Paginas/estadistic
aseinformes.aspx.  Have you see this before?

Regards,

Marc

From: openspending-bounces at lists.okfn.org
[mailto:openspending-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Conchita Catalan
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2013 3:38 PM
To: openspending at lists.okfn.org
Subject: [OpenSpending] XBRL for Local Government Financial Reporting

Hello Marc, 

Thank you for sending the article. It says 

"In Spain, the  <http://www.e-local.es/index.html> local government ministry
encourages more than
<http://hitachidatainteractive.com/2011/02/09/xbrl-developments-in-spain-201
1/> 16,000 municipalities and agencies to submit required budget reports in
XBRL format. "

>From a journalist's point of view, I've been trying to find more info about
this and xbrl format seems to be successfully used by private companies. I
have to add that that info is not public (no Freedom of Information Law in
Spain yet), although you can request it at a Registry and obtain it for an
expensive fee .  

But is there any data or evidence that local governments are using it to
submit their reports, or have they just been encouraged?  Do you know
whether using this format in other countries implies that reports will be
accessible to the general public? Can you help me find this info?

Thanks a lot, 

Concha Catalan 

-- 
Visita mi blog: http://barcelonalittleshell.blogspot.com.es/

Visita opengov.cat <http://opengov.cat> 

Message: 3
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2013 08:50:33 -0700
From: "Marc Joffe" <marc at publicsectorcredit.org
<mailto:marc at publicsectorcredit.org> >
Subject: [OpenSpending] XBRL for Local Government Financial Reporting
To: "'OpenSpending Discussion List'" <openspending at lists.okfn.org
<mailto:openspending at lists.okfn.org> >
Message-ID: <016c01cea986$7d906550$78b12ff0$@publicsectorcredit.org
<http://publicsectorcredit.org> >
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

A financial industry opinion site carries my case for using XBRL (eXtensible
Business Reporting Language) in the US municipal bond market. European
readers may be interested in the example of Spain using XBRL for its local
government financial reporting.

http://tabbforum.com/opinions/the-case-for-muni-xbrl-bringing-municipal-fina
<http://tabbforum.com/opinions/the-case-for-muni-xbrl-bringing-municipal-fin
ancial-disclosure-into-the-21st-century> 
ncial-disclosure-into-the-21st-century

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