An International Comparison of Materiality Guidance for Governments, Public Services and Charities

The annual report is promoted and regarded as the primary medium of accountability for government agencies. In Australia, anecdotal evidence suggests the quality of annual reports is variable. However, there is scant empirical evidence on the quality of reports. The aim of this research is to gauge the quality of annual reporting by local governments in Queensland, and to investigate the factors that may contribute to that level of quality. The results of the study indicate that although the quality of reporting by local governments has improved over time, councils generally do not report information on aspects of corporate governance, remuneration of executive staff, personnel, occupational health and safety, equal opportunity policies, and performance information. In addition, the results indicate there is a correlation between the size of the local government and the quality of reporting but the quality of disclosures is not correlated with the timeliness of reports. The study will be of interest to the accounting profession, public sector regulators who are responsible for the integrity of the accountability mechanisms and public sector accounting practitioners. It will form the basis for future longitudinal research, which will map changes in the quality of local government annual reporting.     

以问责为基础的国家审计发展研究

国家审计从产生之日起,就带有问责的含义。随着民主政治进程的加快,国家审计作为政府问责机制的重要组成部分,其问责的效能日益彰显。同时国家审计的范围随着政府责任的扩充而日益丰富。本文以问责为基础提出合规性审计、绩效审计以及经济责任审计的国家审计发展框架,以期对后期研究有所裨益。     

增强责任性与改善绩效——政府绩效审计的目标剖析

增强政府责任性与改善政府绩效是政府绩效审计的目标追求,但是,二者之间存在着明显的差异。本文分析在不能兼顾政府责任性与绩效的情况下,政府绩效审计更适合追求什么目标。文章指出,就政府绩效审计而言,它对标准的热衷、过程的关注及其从传统审计中沿用的查错途径,使得它在提高政府的责任性方面具有先天优势;然而,政府绩效审计对绩效标准的看重及其使用的绩效归因方法,却在一定程度上阻碍绩效审计实现改善绩效的目标。在这样的背景下,更为现实的政府绩效审计目标应该是力求提高政府责任性,而非兼顾两者。     

我国国家审计职能的演化规律研究

本文首先分析了国家审计职能的内涵和国家审计职能的演化特点。在此基础上,从国家审计的本质性职能和功能性职能两个方面,提出了国家审计职能演化的一般规律,即国家审计本质性职能恒久不变,但其内涵不断丰富外延不断扩大;国家审计功能性职能将被不断发掘和发现,具有发散性和收敛性。     

Accounting for Infrastructure Service Delivery by Government: Generational Issues

Infrastructure service provision by government creates huge distributional issues about service availability and performance over time and the relative funding burdens borne by successive generations of consumers across time. But providing financial disclosure on these issues through inter-generational accounting pre-supposes that accounting measurement is both generationally neutral (temporal neutrality) and does not legitimate any particular pattern of distribution. At the very least, accounting measurements of service provision costs should possess the attribute of distributional fairness. They should not bias the inter-generational allocation of cost or funding burdens. We argue that the forced application of inappropriate commercial accounting concepts of asset valuation, depreciation and capital maintenance does produce significant generational bias. More flexibility is required to produce the necessary accounting measurement attributes for financial disclosure on whether government has discharged its continuing accountability for inter-generational equity in burden sharing. We discuss three conceptual issues and illustrate the need for flexibility by proposing an alternative 'flow of obligations' approach which does not require reference to valuations of community service resources or arbitrary cost allocations under depreciation.     

Performance indicators and democracy: citizens’ views on the purposes of government websites

Despite the ongoing interest in performance measurement amongst public managers, little is known about citizens’ views on the purposes of performance indicators (PIs). A cross-sectional survey of the Australian adult population was used to examine citizens’ views on government websites which provide PIs. Citizens identified three distinct purposes for these: evaluation and improvement; transparency and accountability; and reward and punishment. These different purposes were found to be related to political attributes, indicating how PIs might support democratic empowerment.     

我国行政问责制实施中的困境及对策分析

突发公共事件应急管理中的问责是问责制中的重要内容.近几年来,我国对突发公共事件的责任追究取得了令人瞩目的成就:问责制度化逐渐提高,问责的领域越来越广泛.但同时也暴露出一些问题:问责的“应急”色彩比较明显,问责制度仍然比较粗糙,问责制的监督体制存在缺陷.针对这些问题,本文对此作了初步分析并进一步提出完善对策,从而健全政府职责体系,促进责任型政府建设.     

地方党政主要领导干部经济责任同步审计的探索和实践

领导干部经济责任审计无论是从世界范围来看还是从我国来看,都是比较新的课题。本文对目前党中央、国务院关于地方党政领导干部经济职责的文件规定进行了归纳综述,据此总结和分析了地方党政领导干部经济责任审计的主要内容和范围。并以审计署首次开展的省部级地方党委政府主要领导干部经济责任同步审计实践为基础,提出了开展经济责任审计应采取自上而下与自下而上相结合等3个基本方法,探讨了界定党政领导干部经济责任的主要原则及其在实践中的运用,并针对目前经济责任审计的难点问题给出了明确责任划分标准、建立规范的经济责任评价框架、进一步构建经济责任审计大格局等3点建议。     

党政主要领导干部经济责任同步审计探索

大力推进党政主要领导干部经济责任同步审计,是贯彻落实《党政主要领导干部和国有企业领导人员经济责任审计规定》的必然要求,对发挥国家审计的免疫系统功能、提升审计价值具有重要意义。深化党政主要领导干部经济责任同步审计,需要树立三个三的审计理念,确立促进权力运行公开化、资源配置市场化和操作行为规范化的审计新目标,进一步突出与权力运行、资源配置和决策行为紧密相关的审计重点内容,科学评价被审计领导干部的履责情况,按照党委管重大决策、政府贯彻执行的原则,合理划分党委书记的决策责任和行政首长的执行责任,监督党政主要领导干部履行经济责任的绩效,加强问效问责制度建设,实现问效基础上的问责。     

REGULATING CHARITABLE SOLICITATION PRACTICES – THE SEARCH FOR A HYBRID SOLUTION

A review of four fundraising regulatory models currently in existence in common law jurisdictions reveals a mismatch between the stated policy goals that these models set out to achieve and the practical, albeit unintended, consequences that flow from the implementation of these models. The paper highlights some of these policy/implementation discords. It proposes a hybrid model, which is designed to resolve some of these inconsistencies, and considers the potential for the model's practical application in one of the jurisdictions surveyed, Ireland.     

党政领导干部经济责任同步审计的实践与思考

党政领导干部经济责任同步审计的优势已经脱颖而出,并成为各级审计机关不断探索的方向。本文认为,我国政治体制、党的以经济建设为中心的路线、促进领导干部履职尽责、合理界定领导干部经济责任、提高审计效率等客观要求党政领导干部经济责任审计应同步进行。继而从审计管理、组织组合方式、审计内容、审计方法、审计评价原则等方面介绍了吉林省在党政领导干部经济责任同步审计中所进行的探索。最后从如何明确党委书记的主要职责,规范审计评价标准,加强审计结果的运用,延伸责任追究,提高审计干部素质等方面提出建议。     

Accountability and Transparency in English Local Government: Moving from ‘Matching Parts’ to ‘Awkward Couple’?

Although excessive transparency and accountability demands can have a counterproductive effect on organisational performance (Bovens, 2005), longstanding hierarchical accountability structures to ensure financial conformance in English local government continue to endure. Interestingly however, the previously top‐down regime for performance accountability in English local government has been replaced by bottom‐up mechanisms such as greater transparency and a more open market for public services. Using the framework developed by Hood (2010), this paper will show how such reforms mean that transparency and accountability are moving from being ‘matching parts’ to an ‘awkward couple’, and how this has significant implications for public services.     

加拿大政府绩效评价制度及其启示

本文从制度框架、组织构架和实施方式三个方面介绍了加拿大政府绩效评价的制度设计。并在此基础上总结出该国政府绩效评价制度高效运转的四大经验启示:以政府绩效管理的先进理念统摄整套绩效评价制度的设计,立意高远;三大管理制度环环相扣,将绩效评价功能发挥到极致;从内阁到具体项目管理者上下联动,使得绩效评价工作一气呵成;绩效评价类型全面,工具得力,步骤流程合理。     

Weathering the storm: Accountability implications for flood relief and recovery from a local government perspective

This paper investigates the role of accounting and the nature of accountability from the perspective of local government managers in the context of multiple flood events. The flood events occurred in the State of Victoria, Australia during 2010‐11, and rural regions were the most severely affected by this natural disaster. The findings demonstrate that convoluted governance and extensive State and Federal Government funding arrangements resulted in some confusion among local councils and communities as to their eligibility for, and the timing of, financial support. Within this context, the study findings revealed how, as the first point of contact for local residents, small rural shires with limited financial and human capacity used accounting to address the impact of a natural disaster on a personal level.