The EPSAS Governance Framework Task Force "EPSAS Governance" 2 October 2013 – Ampere, BECH building Directorate D: Government Finance Statistics (GFS) Unit D.4: GFS Quality Management and Government Accounting

Proposed EPSAS governance model, Sept.2013 =>analogous to the model for EU statistics =>The development of EPSAS calls for the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders, such as national standard setters, IPSASB, preparers, statisticians, courts of audit, public and private experts, and academics. =>binding legal acts, will in practice ensure direct participation of national standard-setters and government accounting authorities throughout the endorsement process.

Proposed EPSAS governance structure

EPSAS Regulatory Committee* - a governing body; - oversees the development of EPSAS; - provides opinions on the specific EPSAS to be endorsed by the EC, following established EU legislative procedures; - chaired and represented by Eurostat; - comprised of high-level representatives of the Member States. * in this context the term "regulatory" is meant to serve presentational purposes in analogy to the European Statistical System Committee (ESSC)

EPSAS Governance Advisory Group Entrusted with specific EPSAS oversight tasks; Provides an independent overview of EPSAS and its standard setting procedure and implementation of the key principles; Enhances the professional independence, integrity and accountability of EPSAS, key principles and quality of EPSAS; Provides advice to the EC on appropriate measures to facilitate the implementation of the key principles, on how to communicate the principles to users and providers.

EPSAS Advisory Group Represents a wide and representative range of stakeholders, such as national standard setters, IPSASB, the accountancy and the audit professions, preparers, statisticians and academia. Nominates delegates to the EPSAS working groups; Ensures that user requirements as well as the response burden on information providers and producers are taken into account in developing EPSAS;

EPSAS Working Group Comprises technical experts from public sector standards setters and government accounting authorities, in order to support technical development and drafting work; Two working groups: EPSAS Standards EPSAS Interpretation

Alternative models Two possible alternative governance models were suggested during the conference: - The governance system overseen by DG MARKT on IFRS for business accounting - The approach used for ESMA – the European Securities and Markets Authority