Riccardo Mussari

Effects of Outsourcing on Performance Measurement and Reporting: The Experience of Italian Local Governments

Much has changed over the past few years regarding the financial and non-financial information Italian Local Governments (LGs) publish even as a consequence of the process of externalization of local public services. This paper is aimed at describing the causes and the effects of the administrative reform process that interested Italian LGs and at identifying the possible different dimensions of LG performance. In particular, this paper distinguishes among performance achieved by LGs strict sense (general performance), performance attained by the municipal group (group performance), and performance achieved by all other producers of local public services (global performance). The group and global dimensions of performance are briefly discussed, as well as the tools used to measure them.

The diversity of accrual policies in local government financial reporting: an examination of infrastructure, art and heritage assets in Germany, Italy and the UK

This paper examines the norms and practices for infrastructure, art and heritage assets in six cities, across three European countries, to determine how the national norms of accrual accounting compared with each other, and with IPSAS, and how the practices in each city compared with the norms. We identify significant diversity between actual practices and the norms imposed by national policy‐makers or set by IPSAS. Given that a longstanding concern of the literature has been on whether these kinds of assets should be included in governmental balance sheets and operating statements at all, it is striking how often the question was settled in practice by excluding art and heritage assets, even when this meant non‐compliance with national norms. In our three countries, it is clear that comparability of the financial statements between countries was not a concern of policy‐makers, and comparability between cities within each country not a concern of preparers.

Public administration reform in transition

Abstract This article investigates the contribution of public administration (PA) reforms to sustainable development, with particular reference to countries in transition. The case study of Albania is analysed with a specific focus on the scope, contents and sequence of reforms as well as on the role of international institutions. The Albanian transition clearly demonstrates how development achieved without paying attention to public administration and management can be easily reversible and hardly sustainable. Open issues include building consensus on a general prioritization of PA reform agendas in transition countries and identifying more effective approaches for evaluating reform projects. Further enquiry on the first point can help avoid incoherent reform initiatives, also exacerbated by the multitude of donors financing reforms in these countries, while a better evaluation could address the declining flows of foreign aid and benefit from an increasing results-oriented approach, in recipient countries, as well as in international institutions.

The effects of corporatisation on financial reporting: The experience of the Italian local governments

Much has changed over the past few years regarding the quantity and the quality of the financial information the Italian Local Governments (LGs) publish, even as a consequence of the corporatisation of the local public services. The paper is aimed at describing the causes and effects of the corporatisation process, which interested the Italian LGs, and at identifying the possible financial tools in order to improve internal and external accountability. The different dimensions of financial performance are briefly discussed, as well as the technical tools used to measure them according to the accountability and stakeholder approaches.

Using the Internet for Communicating Performance Information

This article analyses the use of the internet to communicate performance information by large cities in France, Italy and Spain (Barcelona, Marseilles and Milan). The internet has a major role to play in improving accountability and responsiveness to citizens. The authors recommend that the cities develop better knowledge management systems, increase the interactivity of their websites, and enrich the accounting information that they present.

1. ASSESSMENT OF PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REFORM AND STRATEGY

This book is organized into five sections. The first four sections are devoted to investigation of the seven different strategies to achieve public management reform delineated in this book. The seven strategies are: (1) increased accountability; (2) decentralization and delegation of authority and responsibility for decision making and management; (3) application of information technology to improve management and responsiveness of governments to citizens; (4) developing and improving management control systems in the public sector; (5) measures to reduce corruption in government, business and society; (6) development and use of performance indicators in public organizations; and (7) integration of performance measurement and management in public organizations. The chapters in each of the five sections address the need for and application of strategy, impediments to implementation, and use cases to support their analysis and conclusions.

Public Managers' Performance Evaluation Systems and Public Value Creation: Behavioral and Economic Aspects

In Western countries over the last two decades, personnel management has been one of the areas of greatest innovation within the management reform process. Managerial staff in PAs has been given the power and the responsibility to operate as entrepreneurs in relation to subjects operating within their “sphere of responsibility..” Throughout 2009 the Italian Minister of Public Service has made a significant effort to get the Government to approve a law intended to substantially reform the system for evaluating managerial staff. The results of his/her efforts have been analyzed, considering that he/she has tried to be coherent with remarks made in the most recent literature.

Some Considerations on the Significance of the Assets And Liabilities Statement In Italian Local Government Accounting Reform

The Italian public sector, and Local Government in particular, is experiencing an era of considerable change arising from a process of reforms that the Parliament is still introducing.1

Agricultural Accounting in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: The Case of the Noble Rucellai Family Farm in Campi

Abstract This paper was inspired by the discovery of some accounting books relating to the ‘Rucellai’ Family Farm (in Tuscany), and examines accounting in proprietorship farming in the nineteenth century. By conducting a source recognition, it was possible to demonstrate the role of agricultural accounting in the management control process. The authors first trace the historical context and accounting theory which characterised Tuscan rural areas during the nineteen and twentieth centuries, then utilises the Family Farm book to analyse agricultural accounting practices. From this analysis also emerges the important role of the farmer as administrator, who was held accountable for the yield of the estate.

Bookkeeping in the sixteenth-century building yard of the Castello of Crotone: an accountancy and architectural analysis

This article aims to promote interdisciplinary research between the history of accounting and that of architecture, and recognizes the different point of view that ancient accounting documentation offers to two scientific branches of study that only appear to be distant. The article analyses the surviving registries prepared during the renovation of the fortification of Crotone in Calabria (Italy) during the sixteenth century and, accordingly, it allows the reconstruction of a sufficiently broad outline of the architectural events that occur in a large building yard, connecting this intervention to an architectural history frame of reference that surpasses the limits of regional boundaries. At the same time, the specificity of the examined documentation has allowed us to identify the roles and the subjects assigned to keep accounts, within the complex system with which the disorderly Spanish administration managed its extremely vast dominion.