Efficiency in the civil service

Clarity in government publications is at the end of the rainbow. Obfuscation does not always come from jargon disguising complexity; on occasion, banality can be seen to be barely masking a vacuum.

We leave it to readers to judge which of those two caps fits the white paper on Efficiency in the Civil Service (Cmnd 8293). We give the text in the first column, together with a translation in the second. Our model for this, as it must be for any aspiring translator, is W.J.M. Mackenzie's incomparable rendering of an earlier white paper, Control of Public Expenditure (Cmnd 1432), which he first published in The Guardian of 25 May 1963.

We do, however, have one advantage over Mackenzie. Thanks to our resident Whitehall mole, we have been lucky enough to get a sight of what may well have formed the ‘Yes, Minister’ briefing for Lord Soames when he was considering presenting his white paper to the 1922 Committee. Extracts from this are printed in italics underneath our own translation. They provide a necessary gloss not only on what is contained in the white paper but also ‐ and perhaps more importantly ‐ on what has been left out.     

A consumer‐oriented culture?

Public sector managers are asked to ‘stay close to the customer’ and to develop a consumer‐oriented culture. While important lessons from the private sector ‐ if properly translated—can be applied to the public sector, this does not mean that existing skills need to be abandoned, rather supplemented.     

Public/private health care: The British scenario

The issue of public versus private health care is too often treated as an ideological issue, with each side unwilling to discuss common problems of cost containment and quality control which have to be faced, no matter what the financial framework. Thus, cost containment will worry the administrators of insurance funds just as much, if not more, than health service administrators. Health care is not, in the economist's sense, a perfect market; it cannot and does not remain unregulated. So what is at issue is whether regulation is carried out by government, by insurance companies, or by the professions, and what the balance between them shall be.

These and other lessons are drawn from a series of studies describing the workings of insurance systems in a number of countries, in Europe, as well as the United States, Canada and Australia. The findings of the book ‐ The Public/Private Mix for Health, edited by Gordon McLachlan and Alan Maynard, and published this autumn by the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust ‐ are too rich to be summarised here. What follows is an extract from the final chapter containing the editors’ own reflections on the material they have brought together.     

How far have the frontiers of the state been rolled back between 1979 and 1987?

The Conservative Government came to power in 1979, with the general aim of reducing the role of the public sector. One measure of their success or failure is the extent to which the public estate ‐ the financial and physical assets which go to make it up ‐ have been reduced or transferred to the private sector. Against that standard their record falls far short of what the rhetoric appeared to promise, and their opponents feared ‐ a wholesale dismantling of the State.     

A Note on the Composition of Public Expenditure under Capital Tax Competition

Keen and Marchand ( Journalof Public Economics, 1997, 66, 33–53) argue that undercapital tax competition, the composition of public expenditureis inefficient in that too much is spent on public inputs benefitinglocal business and too little on public goods benefiting residents.Their result depends on labor immobility. This note shows thatthe Keen-Marchand argument may not hold if both labor and capitalare mobile. An interesting case is identified where capital taxationdoes not distort the mix of public goods and public inputs, eventhough the overall level of public expenditure is inefficientlylow.     

Three bags full,minister: How the London electricity board fixed tariffs for 1984/85

Not before time, the Government have been thinking how to restructure relations with the nationalised industries. A Treasury consultation paper (see also page 8) suggests that, among other measures, the Government are seeking to make board chairmen and members more ‘accountable’ ‐ in practice, more ‘sackable’ ‐ than at present. The following account of how one board reacted to a Treasury‐imposed policy decision ‐ the raising of electricity tariffs from 1 April 1984 ‐suggests that, if anything, boards need to be given greater, not less, protection against political interference.

Unhappy at the way the London Electricity Board agreed to the 2 per cent rise, the London Electricity Consultative Council, as was its right under the Electricity Act 1947, protested to the Electricity Council. This account is a summary of the evidence submitted by the Consultative Council at a formal hearing before the Electricity Council on 25 April 1984. It was given to us by Alex Henney, who was at the time chairman of the Consultative Council and ex‐officio member of the London Electricity Board. Later in the year, the Minister for Consumer Affairs declined to renew Henney's appointment as chairman of the Consultative Council, and refused to give reasons.

For further background to the tariff increase and the way in which it was imposed upon an unwilling industry, see Public Money, June 1984 page 41, and Anthony Harrison's article in Public Money, December 1984, and particularly pages 44–45.     

Managing health authorities: One member's view

The Government have devoted a lot of energy to improving the quality of management in the Civil Service. Most of this effort has gone on internal management, leaving relatively untouched the management of Departmental and broader government programmes and of outside organisations such as the national health service ‐ with all its regions, districts, family practitioner committees, and medical practitioners. One reason for this imbalance may be that, as successive National Audit Office reports have shown, management in the broader sense is actually rather difficult.     

An Experimental Investigation of Alternative Going‐Concern Reporting Formats: A Canadian Experience*

This study questions whether the current or proposed Canadian standard of disclosing a going‐concern contingency is viewed as equivalent to the standard adopted in the United States by financial statement users. We examined loan officers' perceptions across three different formats ‐ namely, an integrated note with a clean auditor's report (the current Canadian standard), a stand‐alone note with referencing on the face of the balance sheet and income statement (the proposed and now rescinded standard), and a modified auditor's report with an explanatory paragraph in addition to a stand‐alone going concern note (the standard adopted in the United States and other countries). Bank loan officers were selected as the appropriate financial statement users for this study. The results of the test of the hypothesis suggest that once the going‐concern note is fully disclosed in the notes, the style of presentation within the notes (a stand‐alone note versus an integrated note) does not significantly influence the reactions and perceptions of risk if the auditor's report is unmodified (i.e., if no reference is made to a going‐concern contingency). However, when the auditor's report is modified with an explanatory paragraph detailing the uncertainty and referencing the going‐concern note in the footnotes, the format appeared to convey a stronger signal of financial distress to loan officers. These results appear to differ from prior research, which holds that once the information is released in the financial statements, the format has no additional effect. The finding of this study is that the proposed and withdrawn Canadian standard was not perceived differently by the bankers from the present Canadian standard, but the standard adopted in the United States and most other countries was. This makes a strong argument for moving all the way to that standard as opposed to the “halfway” approach of the now rescinded CICA exposure draft. Thus, the public interest in Canada may not be served by adopting a halfway approach.     

Financial & economic review

Statement by HM Treasury on the 1982 Pay Claim by the Council of Civil Service Unions HM Treasury, London, 1982, free

Budgetary Reform Sixth Report from the Treasury and Civil Service Committee, Session 1981/82, House of Commons Paper 137, HMSO, London, 1982, £10.90

The Roads Programme and the Transport Aspects of the 1982 Public Expenditure White Paper Fourth Report from the Transport Committee, Session 1981/82, House of Commons Paper 334, HMSO, London, 1982, £4.80

Public Expenditure on the Social Services Second Report from the Social Services Committee, Session 1981/82, House of Commons Paper 306–1, Volume I, HMSO, London, 1982, £4.35

Public Expenditure on the Social Services Second Report from the Social Services Committee, Session 1981/82, House of Commons Paper 306–11, Volume II, HMSO, London, 1982, £10.60

Financing of the Nationalised Industries Eighth Report from the Treasury and Civil Service Committee, Session 1980/81, House of Commons Paper 348‐II, HMSO, London, 1981, £9.15

Budgetary Reform Sixth Report from the Treasury and Civil Service Committee, Session 1981/82, House of Commons Paper 137, HMSO, London, 1982, £10.90     

Die Kommunalen Schadenausgleiche als Unternehmen i. S. d. § 99 Abs. 1 GWB

The German communities cover their need for a general liability insurance mainly by using Municipal Loss Compensation (Kommunale Schadenausgleiche — KSA). Being an association without legal capacity as it is understood in § 54 Abs. 1 BGB (nicht rechtsfähiger Verein), the KSA can have rights and duties just like a partnership under the German Civil Code (Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts). As a third-party supplier the KSA is a company in terms of § 99 Abs. 1 GWB (Law Against Restraints on Competition). Thus, the communities are to observe European Public Procurement Law when founding a KSA or when joining one. The ?in-house“-jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice is not applicable and therefore does not constitute an exemption of the European Public Procurement Law.     

Conviction politics and the public service

If the Government can successfully privatise British Telecom, then the way is open to taking the other large State monopolies, such as British Gas, out of public ownership. But a careful analysis of the way regulated competition is likely to work suggests that the intended benefits ‐ in terms of greater efficiency ‐ are not likely to materialise.     

A snapshot of public finance research from immediately prior to the pandemic: IIPF 2020

As the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped public policies and government finances, it has also influenced the topics that public finance economists are researching. Because the 2020 International Institute of Public Finance Congress featured papers that were submitted prior to the start of the pandemic, the Congress allows us to reflect on the state of research prior to the pandemic’s shock to both fiscal policies and our worldview. In this article, the Editors of International Tax and Public Finance reflect on interesting papers that were presented at this internationally representative conference in public economics. The exercise provides insight on where the field of public economics was heading prior to the pandemic and will provide a yardstick to see how the field evolves in the coming years afterward.

     

Review of Truth or Profit: The Ethics and Business of Public Accounting by Dean Neu and Duncan Green

Truth or Profit: The Ethics and Business of Public Accounting, by Dean Neu and Duncan Green, addresses timely issues from an original and creative perspective. The subtitle of the book describes its theme ‐ namely, the tension between the business and professional “calling” of the public accounting profession in Canada. It tracks the history of the public accounting profession in Canada from its inception until 2006, often through the eyes of the editor of the principal contemporary professional accounting magazine/journal. A subplot is that of the “normal accident", a term that is used to describe both the inevitability of this tension and the crises it produces from time to time. This work, slim (164 pages) and affordable, would be a useful resource for an upper‐level course that considers accounting ethics. Dans leur ouvrage Truth or Profit: The Ethics and Business of Public Accounting, Dean Neu et Duncan Green se penchent sur les questions de l'heure sous un angle original et créatif. Le sous‐titre du volume en indique le thème: celui de la tension entre les exigences commerciales de l'expertise comptable et ses exigences professionnelles, au Canada. Les auteurs relatent l'histoire de la profession d'expertise comptable au Canada, de sa création jusqu'en 2006, souvent à travers les yeux de l'éditeur du principal magazine contemporain sur la profession comptable. L'ouvrage traite, au second plan, de l'«accident normal», expression utilisée pour décrire à la fois le caractère inévitable de cette tension et les crises qu'elle provoque, à intervalle. L'ouvrage, succinct (164 pages) et abordable, peut être une ressource utile dans le cadre d'un cours de niveau supérieur portant sur l'éthique de la comptabilité.     

公共价值创造与政府会计改革研究

新公共管理理论自提出以来,对削减成本、提高效率等起到了重要的作用,但是难以反映政府提供公共服务的其他价值内涵。公共价值管理模式解决了新公共管理理论过于强调技术理性的缺陷,对政府活动、政策制定和服务提供产生重大的影响,政府会计作为信息收集、价值判断和管理矫正的重要工具,其改革应以公共价值为导向,充分发挥其在公共价值创造中的重要作用。     

Public sector audit history in Britain and Australia

The introduction of an independent public sector audit function was a critical element in the nineteenth century constitutional reforms of parliamentary and government accountability and created an essential precedent for current practice. By examining the extent of scholarly research on public sector audit history, findings reveal considerable research examined the teleological development of public sector audit and the modern history in a New Public Management context. However, there has been very little published regarding the complex rationales around the origins, development and importance of independent public sector audit notwithstanding that without an appreciation of these precedents it becomes very difficult to protect the Westminster‐based system of democratic government.     

公共部门理财学科的兴起与建设

随着我国政府职能转变和非营利组织的不断发展,公共资金的管理问题倍受社会公众关注,也成为学术研究的热点。但是,从教育层面来说,高等学校关于公共部门理财学科的建设比较滞后,存在理论交叉、课程互相取代和不完整的状况。本文从公共部门理财学科的兴起历程研究公共部门不同理财课程的内涵和外延,提出高校相关专业应当在背景学科、基础学科和核心学科三个层面设置公共部门理财类课程,以完善公共部门理财学科的课程体系,为培养复合型人才服务。     

高培勇:时代凸显财政的重要性

还是在那间稍显简陋的办公室,还是踏着非常忙碌的工作节奏,中国社科院财贸所所长高培勇热情地接待了我们。寒暄之后,我们的采访就这样见缝插针地开始了。2011年3月16日,中国社科院公布了"关于中国社科院学部委员增选结果的公告",在新     

Public and Private Sector Accounting - The Non-identical Twins

A debate in this journal, spanning severa1 years, over the accounting treatment of public assets has concentrated attention on the appropriateness of the Public Sector Accounting Standards Board's decision to apply private sector accounting concepts to the development of public sector accounting standards. The Case is examined here and it is shown why private sector accounting standards must be appropriately adapted to suit a very different and varied operating environment in the public sector. These differences have been largely ignored, with resulting problems for public sector accounting standards.     

Parliament and public spending

The Select Committee on the Treasury & Civil Service has been lobbying for improvements in the Government's presentation of public expenditure information to Parliament At last, it looks as though changes will be made. But will the House of Commons — and, in particular, the select committees — be able to seize the opportunity?     

国际公共部门会计准则的回顾、基本框架及其启示

本文通过回顾国际公共部门会计准则 (IPSASs) 的发展史, 从公共部门财务报告的目标、会计核算基础、会计要素的分类、定义、确认和计量, 以及财务报表的列报等方面, 简要地介绍了国际公共部门会计准则的基本框架及其对我国开展公共部门会计改革和会计标准制定的启示。