Catalogue description HM Treasury: Public Services Sector: Expenditure Support Group: Accountancy, Finance and Audit Division: records (PSA prefix)

Records are arranged in prefix order and in chronological order.

Accountancy, Finance and Auditing Division was created in 1982 under the Expenditure Support Group and both there under the Public Services Sector of HM Treasury. Its sibling Divisions under the Expenditure Support Group included: Operational Research Division; Public Services Economic Division; and the Statistics and Computing Services Division. In 1984, the Group title changed to Accountancy Advice.

Management accountancy is primarily concerned with presenting information on which cost conscious management decisions will be made. Government management accountants must decide, through analysis of the cost variances concerned, the precise amounts of funding necessary for expenditure in any particular area or function of government. They are also concerned with budgetary control (it is upon the figures which they supply that budgets are ultimately agreed) and standard costing (where products and services are costed on the basis of budgeted output).

Records of the Expenditure Support Group will have touched upon its lead responsibility for maintaining a framework for government accounting which makes clear how public sector resources are used. This will have included work on audit procedures; the application of accruals based budgeting procedures to the Public Expenditure Survey, planning for capital in-year control, and considering their application to parliamentary reporting; and also producing a timetable for the implementation of resource accounting and budgeting.