I'll start by saying that it's not a question of accrual or cash. To have any sort of comprehensive financial reporting picture there are places for both.
As I've mentioned, accrual for the budget and financial statements makes perfect sense. The government has done it since 2003. When you're into the appropriations, one of the key questions is, does Parliament understand what is being spent? There's a lot of history as well as discussion.
The Australian government was the first national government I'm aware of that went to an accrual model. They went back to cash recently because they found that parliamentarians weren't understanding what they were approving.
Given the nature of the study this committee undertook, which was all about improving Parliament's scrutiny of the estimates, as well as understanding what members were approving, based on the experience of Australia and a few other countries, as well as some discussions with the OECD, there was enough evidence to say that accrual would further muddy the picture rather than clarify it. There is still a place for accrual information, absolutely.
When you are looking at the spending plans of a department, understanding the cash that will effectively go out the door is a good way to look at it. It's understandable; there's less judgment involved. Cash is cash; it goes out the door. When you're into accrual there's a lot of assumptions and projections. There is nothing wrong with that. But when you're asking Parliament to approve something, it was thought that the certainty cash provided both in terms of less judgment—cash is cash—as well as clarity for parliamentarians because they're not all accountants, and it's not reasonable to assume they will all be accountants, offered a greater benefit.