Whole of Government Accounts Training 2013-2014
The series was designed to provide practical training and support to practitioners involved with the Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) submission process for 2013-2014.
In response to feedback from previous events the 2013-2014 training programme offered a choice of a full day ‘beginners’ session for those brand new to the WGA process, or a half-day update for those wanting to know what had changed for this year.
The events covered the key facts, figures and learning points from the latest published WGA and a summary of the key changes to the 2013-2014 Data Collection Tool (DCT), centred around a walk-through of the DCT by members of the HM Treasury WGA Team. Delegates were given the opportunity to ask questions of both Treasury and FAN and raise issues on an interactive basis during the events.
Key areas of discussion focused on the change to the submission deadline for the 2013-2014 unaudited DCT and the relaxation of the materiality threshold for disclosing counter-party (CPID) transactions and balances, with the aim of being able to reduce the overall level of un-eliminated transactions between WGA bodies, something that has been a qualification in the WGA since it was first published for 2009-2010.
Other areas of focus included the new Validations sheet added this year as a work-around to the short-comings of the DCT macros, the completion of the CPID sheet, and how the CPID information can be extracted from the DCT using the DCLG Bridging Tool, developed by Michael Ning at DCLG to allow authorities to extract the CPID data without the need to have completed all the validation checks, again, another work-around of the DCT macro short-comings.
A summary of the key issues discussed during the training is available as a webinar here
The slides from the series are available below, together with a guide to the DCT pages and answers to questions raised at the events.
Guidance Notes for practitioners and the latest DCT can be downloaded from the GOV.UK website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/whole-of-government-accounts-2013-to-2014-guidance-for-preparers
Download hand-outs from the event