Assurance Engagements on General Purpose Water Accounting Reports
The Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AUASB) and the Water Accounting Standards Board (WASB) have issued a joint consultation paper: Assurance Engagements for General Purpose Water Accounting Reports. Input is sought from stakeholders in relation to the development of a standard for assurance engagements on general purpose water accounting reports.
Comments are to be submitted by 31 October 2011 on all or any of the matters raised in the consultation paper . Comments received will be published on the AUASB and Bureau of Meteorology websites unless requested otherwise.
Feedback on this paper will be used to develop an exposure draft of an assurance standard which will be released for further public comment. A final standard is expected to be available by the end of calendar year 2012.
Consultation Paper: Assurance Engagements on General Purpose Water Accounting Reports (1.5MB)
Consultation Paper: Response Form (424KB)
Consultation Paper: Feedback
Background to water accounting and assurance
There is both national and international interest in making water accounting a key part of water resources reporting.
In 2004, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) established the intergovernmental National Water Initiative. COAG identified the need for consistent water resources accounting that could be standardised, compared, reconciled and aggregated.
The Commonwealth Water Act 2007 reaffirmed the national importance of water information and identified new functions for the Bureau of Meteorology in water accounting, including issuing national water information standards. The WASB was established in April 2009 as an independent advisory board to the Bureau of Meteorology to oversee and coordinate water accounting standards development.
The WASB has issued the Water Accounting Conceptual Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of General Purpose Water Accounting Reports (WACF) and an exposure draft of Australian Water Accounting Standard 1, Preparation and Presentation of General Purpose Water Accounting Reports (ED AWAS 1). The WACF and ED AWAS 1 are available to download at www.bom.gov.au/water/standards/wasb.
The WACF requires that General Purpose Water Accounting Reports must be audited or reviewed, but does not establish the framework for assurance engagements on these Reports. Accordingly, the AUASB and the WASB agreed to work together to develop an assurance standard for such engagements.
