This paper outlines contextural processes that resulted in the comprehensive transformation, in 1998, of a state audit institution in Australia. The reforms to the Victorian Auditor-General's Office were ostensibly an outcome of the implementation of institutional economic theories, and more...

This study investigates the challenges associated with designing a system to evaluate the mature operating phase of long-term partnerships with the private sector for the provision of public services (PPPS), an area largely neglected by a performance audit (PA) focus. It argues that assessing...

This paper examines a political struggle in the Australian federal sphere over parliament's right, exercised through the office of the Auditor-General, to oversee the accounts and management practices of the executive and entities created by legislation to deliver public services. The period...

With the introduction in the 1998-99 state budget of accrual output-based management (AOM), the state of Victoria in Australia is now at the cutting edge of a global public sector management transformation movement. The fundamental elements of financial management change are a full accrual...

Internationally, the past two decades have seen considerable changes in the management and control of public sector organisations. Reform has been promoted on the grounds that the public sector was too large and cumbersome, organised on the wrong principles and in need of re-invention and...

This paper documents the growing dependence of Australian governments on the use of private funding to provide infrastructure and related services to the public. Using a Habermasian framework proposed by Broadbent and Laughlin in 1999 the paper examines their second research question: “what is...