IPSASB 2025 Work Programme Consultation

Our strategy is underpinned with adopting international standards and ensuring they are locally relevant. Internationally, the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) is consulting on its work programme. Having set its overall strategy for the period 2024-2028, the IPSASB seeks to understand stakeholders’ greatest needs in relation to individual financial reporting projects, post implementation reviews, and sustainability reporting projects. Hearing from our stakeholders allows our submissions to capture the needs of New Zealand, advocating for the standards we think are most in need of review and for guidance on types of transactions that we think might become more prevalent going forward. Understanding where the pain-points in our standards are helps inform our submission to the IPSASB.

Your feedback is important

We encourage you to read the XRB Draft Comment letter and Consultation Papers and to share your comments with us.

The IPSASB’s financial reporting work programme affects future developments relating to financial reporting standards for Tier 1 and Tier 2 PBEs, which are largely based on IPSAS, so it is important that we receive comments from preparers and users of PBE financial statements. 

The consultation

The IPSASB staff paper Potential Projects provides a list of potential 

• Financial reporting projects, 
• Post Implementation Reviews (PIRs); and 
• Sustainability and other reporting projects.

The paper describes what each project could entail including IPSASB staff’s initial against the IPSASB’s project prioritisation criteria.

The Work Programme Consultation itself does not propose any specific projects, as the IPSASB wants to hear from respondents about the projects that are the highest priority to them, whether they are on the Potential Projects list or not.

XRB draft comment letter

The XRB supports the IPSASB’s initiative to review its work programme for 2026 and beyond. Our draft comment letter: Encourages the IPSASB to undertake a research project on the architecture of its existing literature, to clarify where guidance is best situated and to clearly define the applicability of different types of guidance, including materiality considerations. Supports maintaining alignment with IFRS Accounting Standards where transactions are the same or similar in the public and private sectors. Encourages the IPSASB to develop an IPSAS based on IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts.

Let us know your views on the XRB draft comment letter, including:

• Whether you agree with the proposed project priorities and recommendations; and 
• Whether there are additional projects or issues that you consider should be prioritised. 

Please note:

• The IPSASB indicated that a PIR will generally not commence until at least five years after the IPSASB’s effective date of a standard, to allow sufficient time for standards to be adopted by individual jurisdictions and application issues and trends to emerge.
• At present, there is no mandate for the XRB to issue public sector sustainability reporting standards.

Accessing the consultation documents

Commenting on the Proposals

Submissions to XRB closed on 13 April 2026 and to the IPSASB on 4 May 2026. You can read XRB submission to the IPSASB here.