[OpenSpending] XBRL for Local Government Financial Reporting

Thu Sep 5 15:58:29 UTC 2013

Hey Marc,

this is very interesting to see XBRL being picked up, but I have to say
that I'm critical of its use for non balance-sheet data [1]. XBRL is
basically a massive framework in which any type of data could be expressed
(it seems very committee-run), but the benefits really aren't clear to me.

You can have well-documented CSV or JSON, too - and for those formats there
is tooling which is useable by journalists and other end-users who do not
have the means to start a 3 year XBRL implementation effort. In the end,
releasing government data as XBRL could mean that only solutions from large
companies like IBM or SAP would be able to invest the effort necessary to
interpret the data.

Of course it would be nice to have a standard, but this one is so large and
ambiguous, I can't see it being useful in a technical sense.

Cheers,

- Friedrich

[1] http://openspending.org/resources/gift/chapter4-2.html

On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 8:38 PM, Marc Joffe <marc at publicsectorcredit.org>wrote:

> 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/estadisticaseinformes.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 *local government ministry encourages*<http://www.e-local.es/index.html> more
> than *16,000 municipalities and agencies*<http://hitachidatainteractive.com/2011/02/09/xbrl-developments-in-spain-2011/> 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****
>
> ** **
>
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2013 08:50:33 -0700
> From: "Marc Joffe" <marc at publicsectorcredit.org>
> Subject: [OpenSpending] XBRL for Local Government Financial Reporting
> To: "'OpenSpending Discussion List'" <openspending at lists.okfn.org>
> Message-ID: <016c01cea986$7d906550$78b12ff0$@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
> ncial-disclosure-into-the-21st-century
>
>
>
>
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