Public Money & Management

Editorial Lead: Martin Wheatcroft, Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, [email protected]

Despite the effort that goes into producing and auditing local government accounts, they are little used or understood. Building on two recent PMM’s recent themes (see https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rpmm20/43/3?nav=tocList and https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rpmm20/42/3?nav=tocList), this new PMM theme will look at the ways that financial statements can improve local government effectiveness and accountability.

Topics to be covered might include:

• Should local government accounts include performance reporting?
• Do local residents use local government accounts? Is the local community engaged?
• Do local government accounts provide decision-useful information?
• Do local government accounts show where the money goes?
• Are local government accounts too much or too little ‘corporate-style’?
• Do local government accounts tell us how financially sustainable the local authority body is?
• Do local government accounts provide an understanding of how sustainable the organizations are trying to be? Do they mention the Sustainable Development Goals?
• How do we encourage greater use of annual financial statements by politicians?
• Who are the main users of local authority accounts; should local politicians be considered the primary users of the accounts?
• Do local government accounts allow local politicians to understand how effective the local authority is or whether they are achieving value for money?
• How could the financial statements be improved to meet the needs of local politicians?
• Would programmes of training of local politicians/journalists in understanding the accounts be helpful?
• Is IFRS, used only in the UK and one other jurisdiction, the right basis for local government accounts?
• Is it a problem that local politicians do not use or understand accounts? Can/should they obtain financial information from other means, such as budget documents and audit reports?
• What role should the system leader for local audit play regarding local government reporting?
• How do you create the community of analysts of financial statements as exists for FTSE companies to support investors?
• Scotland case study: does the Accounts Commission encourage greater use of accounts?

These topics are only suggestions. All articles on broadening the use and value of local government accounts are welcome.

This ICAEW/PMM theme will include research articles (maximum 8,000 words, excluding references), new development articles (maximum 3,500 words) and debate articles (maximum 1,000 words). Research articles must be suitable for both academic and reflective practitioner readers and are subject to the same conditions as PMM’s freely submitted articles as explained in PMM’s instructions to authors.

The deadline for submissions of research articles is 2 June 2024. Each research article will be sent to at least two independent reviewers for double-blind peer review (in the same way as regular submissions to PMM); guest editors will conditionally accept for publication but final publication decisions are with PMM’s editors. The deadline for new development and debate articles is 31 August 2024. Authors must submit research and new development articles through ScholarOne (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rpmm).

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article