Planning and Controlling UK Public Expenditure on a Resource Basis

Likierman, Andrew

doi:10.1111/1467-9302.00340

Cited by 49 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Governments claimed that better accounting, budgeting and measurement practices would provide more appropriate information for decision makers; better information would lead to superior decisions; and better decisions would lead to a more efficient and more effective public sector (Chan, 2003;Likierman, 2003). Since the late 1980s, there has been a significant and progressive movement away from the traditional Public Administration (PA) systems, in favour of NPM-type accounting tools and ideas inspired by the private sector.…”

Section: A Comparison Of the Uk Austrian And Italian Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…NPM has been presented as "the rise of a global social movement with considerable force" (Meyer, 1998, p. 7) and a quasi-global paradigm superseding the traditional 'old' PA logic (Dunleavy and Hood, 1994;Hood, 1991;Hughes, 1994). Accrual accounting, in particular, is claimed to support better-informed decisions (when compared with the traditional cash-based system) on the balance between current and capital expenditure, taking into account the opportunity cost of capital and its consumption over time (Anessi-Pessina and Steccolini, 2007;Bergmann, 2009;Chan, 2003;Likierman, 2003;Lüder and Jones, 2003). Consistently, the focus of accounting tools is expected to shift gradually from spending and incremental budgets to costs and revenues, assets and liabilities, definition of goals in terms of outputs, and efficiency and effectiveness.…”

Section: Reform Discourses and Public-sector Financial Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The translation and sedimentation of accounting reforms. A comparison of the UK, Austrian and Italian experiences

Hyndman¹,

Liguori²,

Meyer

et al. 2014

Critical Perspectives on Accounting

123

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The translation and sedimentation of accounting reforms. A comparison of the UK, Austrian and Italian experiences AbstractSince the late 1980s, there has been a significant and progressive movement away from the traditional Public Administration (PA) systems, in favour of NPM-type accounting tools and ideas inspired by the private sector. More recently, a new focus on governance systems, under the banner Public Governance (PG), has emerged. In this paper it is argued that reforms are not isolated events, but are embedded in more global discourses of modernisation and influenced by the institutional pressures present in a certain field at certain points in time. Using extensive document analysis in three countries with different administrative regimes (the UK, Italy and Austria), we examine public sector accounting and budgeting reforms and the underlying discourses put forward in order to support the change. We investigate the extent to which the actual content of the reforms and the discourses they are embedded within are connected over time; that is, whether, and to what degree, the reform "talk" matches the "decisions". The research shows that in both the UK and in Italy there is consistency between the debates and the decided changes, although the dominant discourse in each country differs, while in Austria changes are decided gradually, and only after they have been announced well in advance in the political debate. We find that in all three countries the new ideas and concepts layer and sediment above the existing ones, rather than replace them. Although all three countries underwent similar accounting and budgeting reforms and relied on similar institutional discourses, each made its own specific translation of the ideas and concepts and is characterized by a specific formation of sedimentations. In addition, the findings suggest that, at present in the three countries, the PG discourse is used to supplement, rather than supplant, other prevailing discourses.

show abstract

Section: A Comparison Of the Uk Austrian And Italian Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Reform Discourses and Public-sector Financial Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The translation and sedimentation of accounting reforms. A comparison of the UK, Austrian and Italian experiences

Hyndman¹,

Liguori²,

Meyer

et al. 2014

Critical Perspectives on Accounting

123

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The adoption of accrual accounting in the public sector is one of the most important outcomes of the global adoption of the so-called NPM (Hood, 1991(Hood, , 1995, an approach inspired by business practices which, privileging quantification and measurement of economic performance (economy, efficiency, and effectiveness), and refocusing public administration from procedure onto results, bestowed a central role upon accounting. The link between NPM and accruals accounting has been so strict that without accruals accounting, part of the NPM agenda would be significantly weakened (Likierman, 2003).…”

Section: Epsas Ipsas and Accrual Accountingmentioning

confidence: 99%

EPSAS and the Unification of Public Sector Accounting Across Europe

Mussari

2014

Accounting, Economics and Law

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Th e public management policies and organizational routines of government agencies in New Zealand ( Norman 2003;Schick 1996 ), Australia ( Wanna, Kelly, and Forster 2001 ), the United Kingdom ( Likierman 2003 ), and Sweden ( Arwidi and Samuelson 1993 ) provide concrete examples of this generic practice. Similar examples in the U.S. federal government are rare.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Responsibility Budgeting at the Air Force Materiel Command

Barzelay

Thompson

2006

Public Administration Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The case study reported here challenges conventional wisdom about the feasibility of implementing responsibility budgeting and accounting practices in U.S. government. A variant of this practice took root and operated effectively in a large federal agency—the Air Force Materiel Command—during the period of study. Contrary to conventional wisdom, implementing a meaningful form of responsibility budgeting and accounting does not require changes in public management policies or systemic institutional reform. However, the evidence shows that instituting practices of responsibility budgeting and accounting may require considerable administrative ingenuity in adapting the generic practice to the situation at hand.

show abstract

Planning and Controlling UK Public Expenditure on a Resource Basis

Cited by 49 publications

References 0 publications

The translation and sedimentation of accounting reforms. A comparison of the UK, Austrian and Italian experiences

The translation and sedimentation of accounting reforms. A comparison of the UK, Austrian and Italian experiences

EPSAS and the Unification of Public Sector Accounting Across Europe

Responsibility Budgeting at the Air Force Materiel Command

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About