Running public sector organizations requires specialist accounting and finance skills to overcome the unique challenges of the sector. Citizens rely on their governments to provide a wide range of public services from an inevitably limited budget and therefore the better that the public money is managed the more services that can be delivered. Just as there is no single best way to manage a business there is no single best way to manage public finances. Co-published by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), the world's leading professional public finance accountancy body, International Public Financial Management: Essentials of Public Sector Accounting provides an expert introduction to public sector accounting and finance. This book was conceived to accompany CIPFA’s International Public Financial Management (IPFM) qualifications as a resource for students that seeks to capture the essential elements of the modules they study, and reflects good practice as put forward by CIPFA in its examination syllabuses. Students of public management and public sector accounting will find this a useful text. Practitioners working in the public sector will also find this concise book vital reading in seeking value for money in providing public services.

The Handbook is a virtual encyclopedia of public financial management, written by topmost experts, many with a background in the IMF and World Bank. It provides the first comprehensive guide to the subject that has been published in more than ten years. The book is aimed at a broad audience of academics/students, government officials, development agencies and practitioners. It covers both bread-and-butter topics such as the macroeconomic and legal framework for budgeting, budget preparation and execution, procurement, accounting, reporting, audit and oversight, as well as specialist subjects such as government payroll systems, local government finance, fiscal transparency, the management of fiscal risks, sovereign wealth funds, the management of state-owned enterprises, and political economy aspects of budgeting. The book sets out numerous examples and case studies describing good practice in public financial management, and is highly relevant for use in both advanced and developing countries.

The first two decades of the twenty-first century have witnessed an influx of innovations and reforms in public financial management. The current wave of reforms is markedly different from those in the past, owing to the sheer number of innovations, their widespread adoption, and the sense that they add up to a fundamental change in the way governments manage public money. This book takes stock of the most important innovations that have emerged over the past two decades, including fiscal responsibility legislation, fiscal rules, medium-term budget frameworks, fiscal councils, fiscal risk management techniques, performance budgeting, and accrual reporting and accounting. Not merely a handbook or manual describing practices in the field, the volume instead poses critical questions about innovations; the issues and challenges that have appeared along the way, including those associated with the global economic crisis; and how the ground can be prepared for the next generation of public financial management reforms. Watch Video of Book Launch

This project, based on the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) data set, researched how PEFA can be used to shape policy development in public financial management (PFM) and other major relevant policy areas such as anticorruption, revenue mobilization, political economy analysis, and fragile states. The report explores what shapes the PFM system in low- and middle-income countries by examining the relationship between political institutions and the quality of the PFM system. Although the report finds some evidence that multiple political parties in control of the legislature is associated with better PFM performance, the report finds the need to further refine and test the theories on the relationship between political institutions and PFM. The report addresses the question of the outcomes of PFM systems, distinguishing between fragile and nonfragile states. It finds that better PFM performance is associated with more reliable budgets in terms of expenditure composition in fragile states, but not aggregate budget credibility. Moreover, in contrast to existing studies, it finds no evidence that PFM quality matters for deficit and debt ratios, irrespective of whether a country is fragile or not. The report also explores the relationship between perceptions of corruption and PFM performance. It finds strong evidence of a relationship between better PFM performance and improvements in perceptions of corruption. It also finds that PFM reforms associated with better controls have a stronger relationship with improvements in perceptions of corruption compared to PFM reforms associated with more transparency. The last chapter looks at the relationship between PEFA indicators for revenue administration and domestic resource mobilization. It focuses on the credible use of penalties for noncompliance as a proxy for the type of political commitment required to improve tax performance. The analysis shows that countries that credibly enforce penalties for noncompliance collect more taxes on average.

Public Financial Management covers the five major pillars of this sub-discipline of public administration: context, public finance, retirement systems, performance measurement and budgeting, and international perspectives. This text offers practitioners information valuable in their day-to-day operations, while also providing students in public adm

This book reveals how to create efficient institutions and coordinate policy on a transnational scale to ensure that European Union integration can best meet social needs. It offers a combined technocratic and humanist perspective on the discussion of public financial management. The state, as part of its public policy, should seek to preserve our social and environmental values, yet there are mounting imbalances in society which point to the growing role of the state in minimising them. Under such circumstances, it is worth reflecting on how new challenges could require updated, more complex formulas, to deal with crises in current times and for social and economic policy making by states and the European Union generally, which would ensure their compatibility with the world financial markets. The work offers an in-depth and unique performance analysis of European Union institutions compared to the national entities of EU Member States. It contributes to the ongoing debate on global public goods and the processes involved in managing their provision. Further, it discusses public finance management instruments, indicating their historical evolution in practice and their effectiveness measured with the Human Development Index. The author presents a proposal of how to manage global, European and national public goods across three areas: environmental protection, transnational infrastructure projects and social policy. The book analyses public financial management instruments used during the recent pandemic, making a distinction between regular and emergency instruments and assessing their effectiveness in specific economic situations. This will be of interest to researchers and students of economics and finance, as well as decision makers and practitioners from governments, international organisations and specific non-governmental organisations concerned with issues of public finance management.

The impact of the global financial crisis on government funds has been significant, with squeezed budgets having to satisfy ever-increasing demands for public services. Managers working in the public sector are confronted daily with targets and demands that are often set in confusing accounting and financial language. In Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector, Gary Bandy employs a clear and concise narrative to introduce the core concepts of accounting and financial management in the public sector and how to deliver services that represent value for money. This second edition has been revised and updated throughout, offering: an increased focus on post-crisis austerity more international examples of public financial management greater coverage of governance, accountability and risk management With a glossary of terms to help managers understand and be understood by accountants, as well as learning objectives, case studies and discussion questions, this practical textbook will help students of public management and administration to understand the financial and accounting aspects of managing public services.

Transparent and prudent local financial management has come to be recognized as critical to the integrity of local public sector and to gaining and retaining trust of local residents. Such integrity and trust is sometimes lacking in some local governments in developing countries, especially in the Africa region. This volume attempts to provide practical guidance to local governments interested in establishing sound financial management systems. Leading international experts have contributed to all relevant aspects of local public financial management - cash management, internal controls, accounts, audits, and debt management.

This book analyses the role of public sector accounting, and the relevance of accounting frameworks, in assisting financially sustainable policy making. Focussing on the European context, the book examines financial reporting, management accounting, budgeting and other reporting requirements, for example, Government Finance Statistics. It also analyses emerging forms of reporting, such as popular reporting and integrated reporting, which may also be considered by policy makers, standard setters, and managers of public sector entities.

Reforming public-sector organizations--their structures, policies, processes and practices--is notoriously difficult, in rich and poor countries alike. Even in the most favorable of circumstances, the scale and complexity of the tasks to be undertaken are enormous, requiring levels of coordination and collaboration that may be without precedent for those involved. Entirely new skills may need to be acquired by tens of thousands of people. Compounding these logistical challenges is the pervasive reality that circumstances often are not favorable to large-scale reform. Whether a country is rich or poor, the choice is not whether, but how, to reform the public sector--how optimal design characteristics, robust political support, and enhanced organizational capability to implement and adapt will be forged over time. This edited volume helps address the “how†? question. It brings together reform experiences in public financial management and the public sector more broadly from eight country cases in East Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, and Vietnam. These countries are at different stages of reform; most of the reform efforts would qualify as successes, while some had mixed outcomes, and others could be considered failures. The focus of each chapter is less on formally demonstrating success (or not) of specific reform, but on documenting how reformers maneuvered within different country contexts to achieve specific outcomes. Despite the great difficulty in reforming the public sector, decision-makers can draw renewed energy and inspiration, learning from those countries, sectors, and subnational spaces where substantive (not merely cosmetic) change has been achieved, and they can identify what pitfalls to avoid.