Now, you want to talk about recent news, this may mean something also:
All,
Something BIG has just gone on here, but I'm just not putting the two & two together properly yet, guess its early.
EXPERIMENTAL REPORT ON TRANSPARENCY PRACTICES:
United Kingdom
March 15, 1999
Prepared by a staff team from European I, Fiscal Affairs, Monetary and Exchange Affairs, Policy Development and Review and Statistics Departments with the cooperation of the United Kingdom authorities
Preface This report is one in a series of experimental studies aimed at considering how to present information on an economy's transparency practices and some of the standards that lie behind these practices. The report has been prepared by IMF staff with the cooperation of the U.K. authorities. Staff discussed aspects of transparency and the evolution of the government's institutional policy management framework with the authorities in late 1998. Subsequently, the authorities responded to staff requests for information contained in a series of questionnaires. The authorities also provided comments on an earlier draft of the report. The objectives of a report on transparency practices are twofold. It can assist authorities in identifying areas where transparency can be enhanced further, with benefits for the accountability of policy makers and for economic performance. Second, by providing information on the extent to which countries observe internationally recognized standards deemed important for the effective functioning of financial systems, a report on transparency practices and other associated standards can contribute to well-founded lending and investment decisions. It is important to recognize the limitations of this experimental report. It does not attempt to provide an in-depth assessment on the quality of the published information. Rather, it considers transparency practices, focussing on whether the disclosure elements of international standards?requirements to make information available to the public?have been satisfied and also goes some way in considering whether the basis on which the information is reported to be compiled is consistent with the definitional or framework elements of the relevant standards.
I. Overview
1. There have been significant changes in the policy-making process in the United Kingdom in recent years. The objective of these changes has been to improve the substance of economic policy-making by:
introducing explicit medium-term objectives for policy;
clarifying institutional responsibilities and better aligning these with the medium-term objectives of policy; and
increasing transparency and accountability in the setting of policy objectives, in the process by which policy is developed, and in the responsibility for outcomes.
2. The recent re-assignment of institutional responsibilities and the clarification in the objectives for fiscal, monetary and financial supervisory policies, are outcomes of this process. Efforts have also been made to enhance transparency in the policy process more generally by requiring that all legislation imposing new regulations on the private sector be accompanied by a Regulatory Impact Assessment, which is required to state the costs and benefits of the regulations and their impact on various sectors of the economy.
3. In the context of this experimental report, the staff have considered the authorities' practices against a set of internationally accepted standards. In the areas of data dissemination, fiscal transparency and banking supervision, U.K. practices have been considered primarily against the Fund's Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), its Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency, and the transparency aspects of the Basle Committee's Core Principles of Effective Banking Supervision.1 The report also considers the transparency practices in the area of monetary and financial policies, using the broad principles underlying the February, 1999, preliminary draft Code of Good Practices on Transparency of Monetary and Financial Policies. In addition, the report provides a summary of the authorities' views on the extent to which domestic practices are consistent with existing international standards in the areas of securities market regulation, insurance regulation, accounting and auditing, and describes how domestic standards are promulgated and enforced. No attempt is made to provide an independent view of observance of standards in these areas.
4. In the staff's view, the United Kingdom has made important strides in enhancing its transparency practices in several key areas of economic policy. While progress in this direction has been underway for some time, in recent years the agenda has been advanced substantially. As a result, the United Kingdom has achieved high levels of transparency in the four areas assessed here - data dissemination, fiscal, monetary and financial policy transparency, and the disclosure aspects of banking supervision.
5. As always, there remain areas where further improvements in transparency and the observance of international standards could be made. Specifically:
it will be important to achieve observance of the SDDS by bringing the DSBB metadata into line with actual practices on the dissemination of data and addressing those few remaining areas where dissemination practices are inconsistent with the standard;
better integration of existing data on contingent liabilities with the budget documentation would help to provide a more comprehensive picture of the fiscal position and attendant risks; and
an economic classification and a more detailed functional decomposition of government expenditures in the main budget documents would help facilitate policy analysis.
6. In addition, a key area under development is the impending legislative framework underpinning the regulatory arrangements for the financial sector. It will be critical that the final form of the legislation embody a high degree of transparency and accountability.
imf.org
also note this:
26 September 1999
16. Surveillance, transparency of both public and private actors, availability and disclosure of data, and technical assistance are of utmost importance in preventing a crisis. It is a matter of urgency to implement relevant international standards and codes of conduct for private sector, public sector and international organisations. The IMF in close co-operation with the World Bank and other standard setting bodies is in a key position to survey the implementation.
17. The EU and its Member States strongly support all efforts to make prudential supervision of the financial markets more effective, especially in emerging countries, and to address the risks posed to the financial system by the activities of highly leveraged institutions. They urge for the adoption by offshore financial centres of internationally agreed supervisory and regulatory standards. Emerging market economies themselves have a responsibility for adequate debt management.
imf.org
& lastly
Press Release No. 99/41 September 10, 1999 International Monetary Fund 700 19th Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20431 USA
Interim Committee Selects U.K.'s Brown as New Chairman
The members of the International Monetary Fund's Interim Committee have selected Gordon Brown, the U.K.'s Chancellor of the Exchequer, as Chairman of the Committee. Mr. Brown succeeds Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Italy's former Minister of Treasury, Budget and Economic Programming, who resigned in May 1999.
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