Il Sistema Contabile Degli Enti Locali Australiani Riflessi Dell’Unificazione Della Unificazione Tra Pubblico E Privato (The Transition of Australian Local Councils to Accrual Accounting : The Role Played by the Accounting Profession)

The paper describes the process that took Australian Local Councils to a business-like accounting and highlights the role played in it by the accounting profession. Taken over by the Government in the standard setting process for the private sector, the Australian accounting profession set up the Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (PSASB) with the unconcealed purpose to export to the public sector the whole set of accounting rules used in the private sector. But in order to obtain the needed enforcement power for the standards issued by the PSASB, the profession had to allow the Government to take part to the standard setting process and this has progressively reduced its role. Nowadays the Australian council are required to comply with IAS/IFRS and this has reduced the importance of PSASB. But as IAS/IFRS are the same standards the private sector entities have to comply with the original goal the profession was seeking when it set up the PSASB might be said achieved