Dr Elaine Stewart, Queen’s Business School, Queen’s University of Belfast.
The fiscal landscape of countries around the globe is marked by chronic underfunding, persistent overspending, high economic inactivity, skills gaps and infrastructure deficits. Those are compounded by demographic shifts (such as ageing populations) and growing costs due to, for example, increased demands on health and social care, which exacerbate the risks of inefficient and unsustainable services. Reliable and robust financial information should be foundational to evidence-informed decision-making when developing, agreeing and implementing policy, legislation and budgets. In Northern Ireland, that is acutely relevant amidst persistent inter-connected challenges relating to fiscal, economic and public spending considerations.
Accruals accounting provides such financial information; and though Northern Ireland has operated such accounting since the early 2000s under United Kingdom-wide standards, lessons could be learned from recent international reforms that align with a global trend led by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC): lessons regarding its purported benefits for transparency and decision-making and its implementation challenges around capacity, systems and meaningful use of accrual information.
To help inform Assembly consideration in this area, this presentation highlights the experience of the Irish Government when transitioning to accruals accounting, drawing on both research and practice-led work involving workshops and training designed to inform and advance the knowledge of public sector finance professionals on the changes implemented to date, along with forthcoming developments. It also explains cross-border opportunities to compare such accruals information, to allow for, for example, enhanced data comparability for shared services, all-island economic analysis and collaboration on infrastructure, health, and trade, particularly post-Brexit.
In addition, the presentation highlights the use of financial information on an accrual basis to improve fiscal evaluation when developing/scrutinising bills and support Northern Ireland policy/law-makers when navigating fiscal constraints and taking evidence-informed decisions. For example, the forthcoming Regional Jobs, Skills and Investment Bill, which is to address regional imbalances, such information can enable transparent tracking of investments relating to training facilities/infrastructure assets, to enable better evaluation of outcomes. Alternatively, for the forthcoming Good Jobs Employment Bill, which is both to increase “good jobs” and to protect rights specified under the New Decade New Approach political agreement, such financial information better captures long-term liabilities relating to pensions and training costs, as well as performance metrics to aid sustainable planning.
This seminar took place on 10 June 2026.
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