New public-management reforms
The public sector remains a significant area of the economy in all countries, typically composing 30-40% of GDP. This is despite the New Public Management Reforms of the last 25 years, especially in New Zealand, Australia and the UK. These reforms have included:
- privatisation
- involvement of the private sector in the provision or management of public-sector services
- introduction of pseudo-markets and independent public-sector organisations
- adoption of private-sector techniques by the public sector, eg accrual accounting
and
- introduction of choice and contestability in the provision of public-sector services
Specifically these reforms have involved the use of the following accounting approaches:
- Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks, eg, UK Comprehensive Spending Review
- programme budgeting, eg, French central Government reforms
- output/outcome reporting - objectives and performance indicators
- activity based costing
- accrual accounting
and
- integrated financial management information systems.