Compiling Public Sector Balance Sheets (PSBS)

Source details

Target Audience:
- Officials in the ministries of finance, central banks, or statistics bureaus of SARTTAC member countries who would benefit from more advanced knowledge of the concepts, principles, sources, and methods used to compile PSBSs.
Qualifications:
- Participants are expected to possess a degree in accounting, economics, or a related field and/or have relevant work experience, engage in regular compilation or intensive use of GFS and/or PSDS.

Fiscal analysis continues to evolve and the changed economic environment requires improvements in data to formulate and evaluate fiscal policies.
Demand for fiscal data to identify and manage fiscal risks has grown.
Public sector balance sheets (PSBSs) provide the most comprehensive picture of public wealth and account for what the state owns and owes at any point in time, offering a broader fiscal picture beyond gross debt and flow measures such as the deficit.
PSBS is aligned with the methodology outlined in the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014 (GFSM 2014).
Course content includes:
- Financial and nonfinancial assets and liabilities of the public sector and the metrics that can be derived from these data (including debt).
- Specific topics such as pension liabilities and measurement of nonfinancial assets including natural resources.
- Concepts of contingent liabilities and what should be reported, given relevance for fiscal risk analysis.
Format:
- Presentations, group exercises, and homework designed to provide skills to assist in improving entries for participants’ home country on the Public Sector Balance Sheet database.
- Participants' questions/concerns will be invited and entertained throughout.

Primary objectives:
- Enable participants to deepen their knowledge and understanding of how to compile a PSBS and how it can be used for fiscal analysis.
- Facilitate peer-learning about similar compilation issues in other countries.
- Provide insights on improving measurement of a country's public sector balance sheet for both nonfinancial and financial assets and liabilities.
- Help identify areas for future support, including during technical assistance missions by SARTTAC.
Upon completion, participants should be able to:
- Understand the evolution of the concept of the PSBS over time
- Identify the full range of stocks of assets and liabilities to be included in PSBS
- Calculate the main aggregates and balancing items from the coverage of flows in the GFSM 2014 framework
- Identify appropriate data sources
- Use appropriate methodologies for valuing assets and liabilities
- Understand the methodology used to estimate specific categories of assets and liabilities
- Conversion of financial statements in GFS
- Complete a government balance sheet
- Use data from other macroeconomic statistics and administrative data
- Consolidate
- Consistency checks of input data
- Compile a PSBS for their home country
- Know how to use PSBSs for fiscal analysis