Performance and Other Accounting Information in the Public Sector : A Prominent Role in the Politicians’ Control Tasks?

In recent years, politicians' use of performance and other accounting information has attracted a lot of attention of researchers engaged in the study of public sector accounting and public sector management. New Public Management (NPM) attaches great value to these types of information, which are particularly aimed at helping elected politicians – who are considered as the principals in government organisations – to control their ‘agents'. Based on research findings, some re-searchers have suggested to both increase politicians' knowledge of accounting and to improve the accounting information made available. However, the effect this had on the use of the avail-able information by politicians is unclear. The various changes introduced in the local governments in the Netherlands over the past thirty years or so, have improved the financial management and may also have helped to create a more performance-oriented and ‘business-like' culture in the Dutch public sector. However, the empirical research presented in this paper suggests that neither performance nor other accounting information in formal, written or digital documents plays a very prominent role in the politicians' control tasks. The use of these types of information by politicians in controlling their agents still seems to be limited. Further, politicians indicate that they attach a lot of value to more qualitative and probably subjective types of in-formation. Such types of information are in their eyes very important to fulfill the role of representative of the citizens who has the task ‘to give voice to the interests of citizens'