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This paper is concerned with International Accounting Standards (IAS) and their impact upon existing accounting practices for property within the UK. It also anticipates the wider international and European demands for IAS. There are two primary points to consider. First, the European Union (EU) has stated that it expects publicly listed companies quoted on the stock exchanges of EU member states to adopt International Accounting Standards by 2005. Others are encouraged to do so, with an implication that this will become mandatory at some future date. In earlier papers, the authors examined the recent changes within property accounting and the role played by property professionals within that process. This paper examines the requirements of international standards within the context of the British position as explained earlier. Differences are noted, the contrasting debates analysed and suggestions offered for corporate real estate professionals to consider. Secondly, unlike British Accounting Standards, IAS do not recognise property professionals or any professional organisation representing them, such as the International Valuation Standards Committee (IVSC), and none of their regulations are represented within the standards. This situation is examined, and commentary provided upon the repercussions and possible solutions.

The paper proposes to outline the rules, regulations and generally accepted accounting principles that must be followed when recognising and valuing property in UK financial statements. Its aim is to give the professional surveyor or corporate real estate adviser a clear understanding of the underlying principles involved and also the rules and conventions that must be followed. A plethora of new regulations has led to a range of new practices that must be understood by those advising upon corporate property matters. Not least of the reasons are the direct effects property matters now have upon balance sheets and profit and loss accounts. The aim of this paper is to offer corporate real estate managers an overview of the accounting framework in which they must offer advice to businesses. Traditionally, non‐property companies have tended to relegate property matters to advisers, who found themselves excluded from the key strategic decision‐making processes of the company, despite the large amounts of capital frequently tied up in their premises. The rise of facilities management and new forms of serviced office structure began to increase awareness of the issue. However, recent changes to accounting standards by the Accounting Standards Board (ASB) will impact directly upon the balance sheet and profit and loss account. In short, property issues directly impinge upon a business’s ability to report profits. Even so, relatively few property‐related views were put forward as part of the consultation process in the creation of these new standards. The area that has achieved most notice recently has been desire for accurate and consistent valuation and depreciation of assets ‐ including the management and maintenance of properties, and the selection of the property valuer. The basic premise behind such changes was to make accounts more visible and to demand clear logic and rationality of sensible business decisions. The paper deals solely with firms operating as manufacturers or service providers, with no interest in their property except as a place to do business, and an asset held as part of that business. Neither investment properties nor leased properties are discussed here, for reasons of space.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of compliance with a voluntary professional Code of Practice. It aims to take service charge management as its subject and it also to discuss how current notions of “best practice” have evolved in order to explain the poor performance uncovered. From this it seeks to derive an alternative perspective and develop a new framework for managing agents to consider utilising in order to advance the generalised principles within the existing RICS Code of Practice, Service Charges in Commercial Property.

The paper applies an inductive reasoning by applying best practice from other disciplines (the specific) to commercial property (hence arguing for their adoption to the general). It utilises a critical review of the secondary literature on the wider aspects of best practice and original data on commercial service charge management to devise an ideal type framework for accounting for service charge moneys.

It provides an idealised conceptual framework for managing agents to consider applying to their management of the service charge process, specifically with regard to accounting issues therein. The paper is not proposing a definitive adoption of accruals accounting, but provides an analysis of the potential advantages – and problems. The intention of this work is to drive consultation for better practice, rather than provide a de facto template for adoption.

The work relies on data previously generated by the authors, and produces an original template and example for the practitioner. The work's primary value is that it proposes an innovative approach to the occupation of the commercial service charge manager. Within this, it also offers advice to the wider profession on how to better regulate the discipline. While the proposed approach offers advantages over the existing best practice paradigm, it generates its own conceptual problems that will need to be considered by professionals.

Joint working between health and social services has been a key focus of policy in recent years, albeit ‐ underneath the protocols and partnership agreements ‐ integrated processes have developed unevenly. A single shared assessment tool has been one of the concrete expressions of policy on the ground. This paper explores the implementation of the shared assessment process in Scotland. It discusses the broader policy agenda, before exploring the introduction of the shared assessment tool in a large urban authority. Based primarily on interviews with front‐line staff in health and social work and managers charged with delivering shared assessment, the paper suggests a lack of engagement on issues such as working cultures and equity of workloads, while some of the main reasons behind the implementation of shared assessment, such as overcoming duplication, have not generally materialised for staff. Overall, single shared assessment has been driven by process rather than by engagement with wider ideas about joint working, which has led to uneven and at times unwilling implementation.

The paper seeks to measure compliance by owners and their managing agents with the RICS Code of Practice Service Charges in Commercial Property, emphasising the financial reporting to tenants in multi‐let financial services buildings.

Data were hand collected by examining original source documents provided to commercial leaseholders as part of the service charge management process. This removes bias from relying on secondary respondents to provide data.

The paper finds that requirements of the Code of Practice are not onerous, and whilst service charge management has improved, the majority of landlords still fail to achieve its requirements.

The sample represents approximately 6.2 per cent of multi‐let office space in England and Wales 1998‐2009. The content analysis method used requires some subjective interpretation by the researchers.

Data are original to this research and the paper offers an analysis on the current standards of accounting practice by service charge managers.

This paper is concerned with accounting for leasehold property. While property professionals are familiar with commercial and technical aspects of leases, recent proposals offer serious implications beyond the notional historical reporting of an entity’s financial position. Current proposals issued by the ASB will markedly impact upon the financial position reported by businesses holding leasehold properties, with consequent effects upon their reported profitability and their ability to raise finance. This paper examines the current position, whereby leases are regarded as either a finance or an operating lease. It then examines the conceptual framework in which accountants view the existing lease reporting provisions, examining the unease the current provisions cause. Finally, it discusses the most recent proposals and offers a commentary upon responses to them. It concludes with a warning to the owners and users of leasehold property to be ready for change ‐ or to make their voices known.

The relationship between the owner and an occupier of a commercial property is determined by the lease, inasmuch as it sets out the legally enforceable duties and obligations of each party. However, it is only that, a legal framework; it is not a practical management handbook on how best to operate the premises and generate an amicable business relationship. The purpose of this paper is to consider the role of the lease in reinforcing and disrupting the generation of best practice within real estate management.

The paper examines actual leases to understand the service charge and how data pertinent to it is collected, disseminated and interpreted by both parties in carrying out their activities within and about the property. This is then benchmarked against provisions of the Service Charge Code of Practice.

Despite a number of incarnations of a code of practice on service charges during the lifetime of the leases examined, the research finds a troublingly small uptake of its ideas within new leases.

The findings predict future problems in the practical management of multi-tenanted properties, coupled with a call that leases are written to the Code’s requirements.

No such lease examination has been undertaken to date.

This chapter investigates how integrated reporting (IR) can contribute to a better corporate social responsibility (CSR) implementation through diffusion and adoption of CSR practices and actually applying the CSR discourse. Based on innovation diffusion theory, we intend to analyse the diffusion and adoption of CSR on the grounds of IR. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that IR does indeed represent a mean of reducing the gaps between CSR discourse and its implementation. In order to select the most relevant papers in the area of CSR and IR, we applied the method of positive research. Therefore, the review of literature was made by analysing various theoretical and empirical studies. Setting the main coordinates for CSR and IR through theoretical background, we continue with an empirical analysis on 23 companies that voluntarily publish integrated reports. We intend to demonstrate that IR encourages a diffusion of CSR practices, as companies become more interested in their CSR behaviour.

This study explores the impact of parents’ and children’s early expectations on children’s later school persistence and completion of compulsory and secondary education, paying special attention to the parent-child agreement in early educational expectations. Results from analyzing longitudinal data from the Gansu Survey of Children and Families (GSCF) show that children often carry educational expectations quite different from their parents’. Consistent with previous research, children’s and their parents’ early expectations are strong predictors of children’s later educational attainment. More importantly, the analysis reveals that children benefit greatly when they share with their parents’ high expectations. Those children whose high expectations aligned with their parents fair best in later educational outcomes: They are more likely to complete compulsory education and secondary education. The combined determination of parents and children can help moderate the negative impact of poverty and facilitate children’s continued efforts in fulfilling their expectations. This positive impact holds even for children from the most impoverished families. This study points to the importance to recognize that there are non-material resources that family could provide to advance children’s education.

The paper benchmarks compliance for 2010‐2011 with the RICS Code of Practice for Commercial Service Charges 2006.

Whether the proxy adopted is measured by floorspace or number of commercial office buildings, the sample size conforms to Kreycie and Morgan's determination for representative sample size. Data are generated directly from the original documents provided to commercial leaseholders to ensure authenticity and remove the need for third party reporting of said data. This guarantees the data are valid.

The research discovers that compliance with the RICS Code of Practice for commercial service charges is poorly, if variably, implemented. This contrasts with claims by the professional body.

The work only concerns 17 corporate tenants operating principally in the financial services sector and data are drawn from the clients of one property services company. Content analysis is utilised in order to interpret the data and requires some subjective judgement by the researchers. The work only refers to multi‐let office space in England and Wales.

Data are original and the paper offers a unique benchmarking test. This contrasts markedly with the anecdotal evidence offered by the profession in defending their standards of practice and whilst the paper has limitations, it is the largest and most accurate study yet carried out in the field.