ABSTRACT
This opening chapter sets the management of public money in context and identifies some key differences between the private and public sectors. In the report Holding to Account, Lord Sharman of Redlynch proposed a definition of public money for the purpose of accountability that picks up all these separate actors and facets. There are numerous instances where professional management has been introduced to PBEs. New Public Management (NPM) describes the broad policy approach adopted by governments and public organizations in many countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) since the mid-1970s. NPM places a great emphasis on performance management, to the extent that the UK government in the 2000s had hundreds of published performance indicators (PIs) covering all manner of public services. Accrual accounting is based on the principle of matching income and expenditure to the time period when a transaction occurs rather than when payments are made or received.
