Managing resources

Analysing resource accounts: a user’s guide

This guide provides detailed advice on interpreting government departments’ annual resource accounts. The ratios and measures included are tools for analysing and interpreting the raw figure in the accounts. The results of the calculations will indicate areas in which further analysis might be undertaken, rather than providing definitive conclusions.

To illustrate the ratios and measures, a detailed case study is included in this guide, which is based on the 1999-2000 Resource Accounts for the former Department for Education and Employment (DfEE). Following the machinery of government changes announced by the Prime Minister in June 2001, many of the functions of DfEE have been taken over by the Department for Education and Skills. The references throughout the rest of this guide are to the DfEE’s 1999-2000 Resource Accounts.

A shorter version of this guide, “Analysing resource accounts: an introduction” was published in June 2001. The shorter guide is intended for general users without detailed knowledge of accruals accounts or government resource accounts.

Analysing resource accounts: a user’s guide is available below in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer you can download the software free of charge from the Adobe website. For alternative ways to read PDF documents and further information on website accessibility visit the HM Treasury accessibility page.

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PDF file of Analysing resource accounts: a user´s guide