The International Experience Of Government Financial Information Publication And China’s Reform

The realities of today’s fiscal challenges at all levels of government have created more interest in the implementation of transparency and social accountability initiatives worldwide. Advances in technology, public failures of our governments and the desire to know how governments are spending tax dollars are creating more demand for accountability and transparency from our governments to its citizens. Constituents are demanding access to more information and data.Government financial information publication refers to government releases financial information to the public at the request of the laws and regulations, its main way is the financial report, budget report and relevant financial operation documents. The so-called publication is to allow the public access to information, achieve the goal of transparency. Government financial transparency not only refers to the government provides comprehensive, prompt and accurate financial information to the public, but also using the measures to improve financial transparency in this process, to ensure the whole government capital operation process open and transparent.From the theoretical basis of government financial information disclosure, mainly including principal-agent theory and new public management. New Public Management(NPM) originates from new ways of thinking about the role and nature of government and public administration. It thinks that good governance in public administration requires transparent and publicly accountable institutions. NPM emphasizes the accomplishment of a stable financial balance, the search for quality in service provision and higher transparency of management and information. Agency relations within public sector organizations have been argued to constitute an incentive for public managers voluntarily to disclose the information that will allow their actions to be monitored and analyzed. Higher disclosure can weaken information asymmetry, and in this way it may solve the agency problem.From the practice of the foreign government financial information publication, the United States, Britain and New Zealand has a wealth of practical experience in this aspect, has the high transparency. These countries have perfect legal framework, comprehensive public content, diversity of open channel, the innovation of information technology application as well as the practice of citizen participation and so on, provides enlightenment for our country to improve the financial information disclosure.Our government financial information disclosure from confidential stage when new China was founded to "actively promote the budget openness", our country has entered the stage of comprehensively promoting financial information disclosure under the background of financial system reform. "the regulation of government information disclosure" and "the government accounting standards- basic principles" release is an important point of government financial information public roads, and has a great promotion for our country to establish a transparent government. But due to late starting and some historical reasons, the main content is public budget information presently, it’s not financial information of complete meaning, there are some problems such as incomplete legal system, imperfect open content and ways of open information construction is not perfect.On the basis of theoretical study and practical experiences from foreign governments, in view of the existing problems in China, this paper proposes some measures in the construction of legal system, the accounting reform and information construction. First of all, the current government information disclosure regulations should be increased to information disclosure law, provide powerful legal guarantee for enhancing transparency, regulate open subject, object, way and time limit, also can prevent the scope and degree of information exposed by equivalent agencies being uneven. To enhance the transparency in the process of budget, enriching the content of financial disclosure, such as prediction information and performance information. Promoting the application of XBRL technology in Chinese government financial system to enhance the efficiency of financial disclosure. Finally, improve network portal construction, increase the convenience and easy availability of citizens access to information.