Concepts Statement No. 5
Service Efforts and Accomplishments Reporting—an amendment of GASB Concepts Statement No. 2
(Issued 11/08)

Summary

This summary provides highlights of the changes to Concepts Statement No. 2, Service Efforts and Accomplishments Reporting. The Board has amended Concepts Statement 2 to reflect developments that have occurred since it was issued in 1994. The changes are based on the findings of extensive research by the GASB and others, as well as the results of the GASB’s monitoring of state and local governments that have been reporting service efforts and accomplishments (SEA) performance information.

This amendment eliminated one section and modified four sections of Concepts Statement 2. The section of Concepts Statement 2 on Developing Reporting Standards for SEA Information has been deleted. The sections of Concepts Statement 2 on Purpose and Scope, The Elements of SEA Reporting, Limitations of SEA Information, and Enhancing the Usefulness of SEA Information are presented first in this Concepts Statement as modified. Only these modified sections of Concepts Statement 2 are reflected in Concepts Statement 5. Conforming terminology changes were made to other sections as noted in the scope paragraph. For an entire version of the Concepts Statement, including those sections not modified, see the Codification of Governmental Accounting and Financial Reporting Standards, Appendix B, GASB Concepts Statement No. 2, Service Efforts and Accomplishments Reporting, as amended.

The changes to the purpose and scope section include a clarification that it is beyond the scope of the GASB to establish (a) the goals and objectives of state and local governmental services, (b) specific nonfinancial measures or indicators of service performance, or (c) standards of, or benchmarks for, service performance.

The section on the elements of SEA performance measures separates the elements of SEA reporting from related information. Elements of SEA performance measures for reporting purposes focus on the three different types of SEA performance measures—measures of service efforts, measures of service accomplishments, and measures that relate service efforts to service accomplishments. The discussion of related information that provides a context for understanding and assessing results has been expanded to include comparisons, unintended effects, the concept of demand for services, factors that influence results, and narrative information. A discussion of the initial, intermediate, and long-term nature of outcome measures also has been added. Changes to the discussion of explanatory factors shift the focus to both external and internal factors that influence results.

Clarifying revisions were made to the section on the limitations of SEA performance information and to the section on the usefulness of SEA performance information.

---

Unless otherwise specified, pronouncements of the GASB apply to financial reports of all state and local governmental entities, including public benefit corporations and authorities, public employee retirement systems, utilities, hospitals and other healthcare providers, and colleges and universities. Paragraph 7 discusses the applicability of this Concepts Statement.