Financial management and reporting guidance

This category contains guidance to assist departments and their agencies and bodies in exercising good financial management and reporting. It also contains guidance on the Whole of Government Accounts process.

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Financial reporting

This section encompasses current guidance to ensure the highest standards of financial reporting for the central government sector, including their agencies and non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), and monitoring the laying and publication of resource accounts before the Northern Ireland Assembly. 

The guidance is categorised as follows:

Government financial reporting manuals and accounts proformas

This section contains current and previous years' government financial reporting manuals (FReM) and illustrative accounts proformas. In addition, this section also contains FReM exposure drafts currently open for comment:

Whole of Government Accounts (WGA)

This section contains guidance for Northern Ireland departments and NDPBs, local councils, health trusts and public corporations, required to prepare WGA returns, and the relevant Data Collection Tools (DCTs).

WGA is a consolidated set of financial statements for the UK public sector. It consolidates around 4,000 bodies in total, including central government departments, local authorities, devolved administrations, the health service, and public corporations. Accountability and Financial Management Division within Department of Finance (DoF) prepare two subconsolidations for Northern Ireland, which then feed into Her Majesty's Treasury's (HMT) overall consolidation:

Financial management

This section contains guidance in relation to the prompt payment of invoices, the disposal of public sector assets and the sponsorship of government events:

Financial audit

This section contains guidance relating to the legislative authority for Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) to audit all NDPBs, including companies, and the protocol for NIAO to access records held on RecordsNI:

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