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In Turkey for a long term, the public financial management system was carried out according to the provisions of the General Accounting Laws No. 1050 since this law was in force over a long period of time. This law had not been changed for long years and it became far from the needs due to developing dynamic conditions and rapidly changing economic conditions. In addition to these factors, the emergence of economic crises, the need for reform and the country’s EU harmonization process increased the need for revision in this field. The Public Financial Management Project was signed with the Ministry of Finance and the World Bank in 1995 and the Public Financial Management system was renewed with the Public Financial Management and Control Law No. 5018 dated January 01, 2006.

Due to the reasons mentioned above, these changes in public financial management led to the use of the concept of public sector accounting instead of state accounting. Public sector accounting is defined as a financial system that provides data for the effective and efficient use of resources. In this accounting, the current accounting system needs to provide the necessary data. While obtaining financial data in an economy, it is necessary to obtain information about the economic situation of that country in a healthy and transparent manner also.

The main objective of this study is to address a number of problems related to the effectiveness of public sector accounting auditing and to propose solutions. For this purpose, the public sector accounting system in Turkey has been handled by giving basic information on this subject; problems arising in this context have been evaluated and suggestions for solutions have been proposed.

Purpose and need for study: This study examines whether or not culture has a strong influence on the digitalisation of public services, including the adoption of an electronic tax system. The literature analysed made us consider the differentiation between developed and developing countries.

Methodology: To test the nexus between culture and digital public services (DPS), this study highlights the impact of culture, from various dimensions, on e-government in European Union member countries, over the period 2014–2018. Accordingly, the analysis proposes a methodological approach on multiple regression analysis, a method widely used in the social sciences for modelling and analysing several variables presumed to be in a relationship. Given that electronic taxation has no explicit index, but electronic government focusses on how effectively and efficiently government services are delivered to citizens and businesses, the proposed research employs the DPS indicator, part of the composite index of Digital Economy and Society Index. The independent variables employed in the study refer to the six dimensions of the national culture from Hofstede.

Findings: Empirical results reveal that cultural dimensions such as uncertainty avoidance, power distance and masculinity are significantly influencing the efficiency of e-government, carrying a negative influence for the sample of EU member states. Accordingly, a more developed e-government system is expected from countries presenting lower values of the three cultural dimensions. When analysing the sub-samples consisting of developed versus developing countries, results indicate better DPS for societies concerned for short-term gratification and spending (based on a negative influence from the long-term orientation dimension). Specific to developed economies and Northern countries was the fact that e-government is positively influenced by more individualistic societies, and by societies that require rigid codes of conduct and structured circumstances.

Practical implications: The practical contribution of this study is the provision of an extensive overview of the relationship between culture and DPS that could serve as useful information for researchers and practitioners, governments and e-government stakeholders.

On the one hand, the auditing of the public hospitals regarding their financial information is carried out by the State Audit Court which is the Supreme Auditing Institution in our country, on the other hand it is carried out by the auditors of the Ministry of Health. While the audits made by the Ministry of Health are generally about compatibility and medical controls, the financial information of the hospitals needs to be made by the external independent auditors and their impact on the general budget needs to be determined.

In this study, the subject matter of financial auditing has been elaborated on within the specificity of the public health sector and evaluated as to whether the conducted auditing is effective in determining the mistakes in the financial information of the organizations. For the purpose of conducting the evaluation, the six-year auditing reports between the years of 2012 and 2017 of the Supreme Auditing Institution (State Audit Court) conducting the financial auditing of the public health sector regarding the Public Hospitals Administration of Turkey (Türkiye Kamu Hastaneleri Kurumu). The auditing reports are addressed within the framework of the types and numbers of findings determined by the State Audit Court, the responses that the Public Hospitals Administration of Turkey has given against those findings and the opinion of auditing. In the consequence of the conducted evaluation, it was concluded that the Court of Accounts was effective in determining the mistakes in the financial reports and increasing the correctness and reliability of the financial information of the Administration.

Those charged and authorized with the acquisition and usage of all types of public resources are responsible for obtaining, using, accounting for, reporting resources in an effective, economical, efficient and legal way, and taking the necessary precautions to prevent their misusage. They have to report to the offices that are authorized regarding these issues. In this context, overpayment and undue payments made by public administrations become significant in terms of using public resources in an effective, economical, efficient, and legal way. One of the confusing issues for public institutions regarding salaries and similar payments to civil servants is on which legislation provisions should collection of salaries, additional course, severance, additional payment and similar payments should be collected in terms of overpayment and undue payments made for civil servants. In practice, most institutions interpret overpayments and undue payments to civil servants as public loss, and they carry out collection operations within the framework of the provisions of the Directive on Collection of Public Loss.

Overpayment and undue payment refer to all forms of payments that are determined to be excessively or improperly made by an institution to employers, insurance holders, voluntary insurance holders, those who receive income or monthly payment, beneficiaries of these, holders of general health insurance and their dependents. An institution might provide more payment to a civil servant than they deserve due to reasons originating from the civil servant themselves or the administration. The purpose of this study is to explain in detail what overpayment and undue payment are and describe operations regarding collection of overpayments and undue payments, calculation of interest to be applied on these and accounting for it by providing examples.

Government accounting shows the assets and resources of the government, the changes that occur in them, to provide the necessary information to evaluate the effectiveness of the government in revenue and expense management, and to produce the information required by economic management. In this context, the past, present, and future of the Turkish government accounting system discussed in the theoretical framework in the study.

Accountability and financial transparency came to be accepted as the basic principles in obtaining and using public resources in an efficient and productive manner. One of the most important tools to realize this goal is the annual report, also referred to in Public Financial Management and Control Law. Annual reports are comprehensive reports that also contain the realization outcomes according to the performance indicators that pertain to the activities that these institutions implement according to their strategic plan and performance program. The authors explain the reasons of variations from the plans, and also contain the administrative and financial information on the institution. The contribution of the annual reports, in presenting a transparent and accountable structure by enabling efficiency and productivity in municipalities that use a major part of public resources, is undeniable.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the financial and performance information within the annual reports issued by the municipalities of Turkey within the scope of accountability and to reveal the present condition from the results of this evaluation. In short, this study investigates to which degree the municipalities enlighten their stakeholders from the aspect of financial information via annual reports. Within the scope of the study, annual reports of metropolitan municipalities for the year 2017 and 2018 were obtained and the presence of several considerations, defined according to the extent of the financial and performance information they provide and their manner of presentation, were checked.

Country and company bankruptcies at international level have put the economies of the world and countries in a difficult position. As a result of these negative developments, the measurement of the effectiveness of internal audits system together with accounting and audits have become important. The unit that plays a key role in measuring the effectiveness of internal control, whether in the private or public sector, is internal audit. In this respect, the purpose of the present study was to outline the criteria that increase the effectiveness of internal audit in public institutions. For this purpose, the SWARA Method was used. The SWARA Method is a multi-criterion decision-making method that is employed by decision-makers to determine the weights of the criteria and to sort them out. The Questionnaire of the study was applied to a participant group that consisted of 11 experts. According to the findings, the criteria that had the highest importance were “the presence of an independent internal audit activity and impartial internal auditors,” “Performing internal audit activities in line with ethical rules, standards, and relevant regulations,” and “Determining the risks regarding the objectives and the purpose of the institution, and measuring the effects of these risks.”

The Public Sector is usually assumed to have a risk avoidance culture, with a reactive rather than proactive approach towards the management. However, an improved holistic approach seems to be required, especially when considering the complexity and size of the Public Sector, and the challenges it faces to connect the services, clients and the different levels of governance.

Within this chapter, the authors lay out a maturity level evaluation of Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) within the Maltese Public Sector. Through documentation analysis of the available literature on the subject, the authors determine the principal themes required to develop an effective GRC practice across the Public Sector. The authors then design statements based on the identified GRC themes and administer it using an online survey tool to Public employees across different Ministries, Departments, Agencies and Entities, in order to obtain their perception. This is in order to determine gaps, weaknesses or limiting factors towards the implementation of an effective GRC.

The results show that, although, there is a substantial percentage of scepticism and few disagreements towards some of the statements, especially those which related to Risk Management (RM) and Internal Auditing (IA), the majority of Public Sector bodies do in fact show high standards of GRC practices integrated and present in their day-to-day operations and internal environment, showing that there is a well-developed Governance, Compliance and Control structure and Internal Audit function across the Sector.

However, the perception of participants is that the RM function is the least developed area. IA needs some improvement especially where trust on advice is involved.