SBR is an Australian Government initiative to reduce the business-to-government reporting burden. SBR has been co-designed by Australian, state and territory government agencies in partnership with software developers, business and their accountants, bookkeepers, tax agents and payroll professionals.
SBR is endorsed by COAG as part of its regulation reform agenda. SBR is supported by Australian Government funding of $243 million over four years, to 2010. Led by Treasury, SBR has 12 partner agencies.
SBR is governed by an SBR board, chaired by the Secretary to The Treasury and includes the heads of all agencies involved in the Program and representatives from business and industry. A Business Advisory Forum, comprising government representatives and business and industry organisation leaders, is the Program’s key advisory body providing a communication channel between the program and the business reporting community.
The Australian SBR solution follows the lead taken by the Netherlands, collaborating across agencies to agree to develop a single set of definitions and language for the information reported by business to government. New Zealand is also progressing with SBR, and in August 2009 signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Australia to assure alignment between the SBR Australia and SBR New Zealand taxonomies.
While the current scope of SBR is to reduce the burden of business-to-government financial reporting, there is broad potential for SBR methodologies to ease regulatory burdens in other sectors. The Australian Productivity Commission’s Annual Review of Regulatory Burdens on Business: Social and Economic Infrastructure Services, released in September 2009, noted as a key point that ‘Many industries complained of overly burdensome, duplicative and redundant reporting requirements. Extending the SBR principles and methodology to many of the sectors covered in this review could substantially reduce the reporting burden.’ Sectors reviewed in report included aged care, child care, information media, telecommunications, energy, air transport and education.
