Performance evaluation in the Australian public sector

Abstract

At all levels of the Australian public sector, cost constraints, coupled with the adoption of a total quality culture and associated performance evaluation techniques, have turned the attention of senior management away from financial accounting to the management of costs within a strategic framework. Argues that management accounting, planning and control systems can play a leading role in today′s dynamic and challenging public sector environment. Unlike traditional costing systems, which are often historical in focus and price‐based, new costing systems – such as activity‐based costing (ABC) – operate on the premiss that it is the activities and processes undertaken within the organization which add costs and value to the products and services. An ABC system also focuses management′s attention on the underlying causes of costs. However, warns that, in applying total quality management and ABC approaches, it is important to recognize the fundamental differences between the manufacturing industries in which they originated and the service industries which dominate the public sector.

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