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The purpose of this paper is to introduce and review the papers contained in this special issue on accounting and organizational change in the public sector and reflects on their key themes and findings.

The paper draws on general desk research and the papers in this special edition.

This paper finds that there is a variety of valid research approaches that can usefully be employed to investigate accounting change in the public sector.

This paper concludes that accounting change is more likely to achieve the objectives set for it if there is a high degree of local involvement in its implementation.

Drawing together a collection of papers that investigate the important topic of the involvement of accounting in organizational change.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/09513559610109466. When citing the article, please cite: Howard Mellett, Jan Williams, (1996), “Accountability and the accounting regime in the public sector”, International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 9 Iss 1 pp. 61 - 70.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the changes in accounting practice in UK hospitals, focussing on costing, funding and budgetary control, and to place more recent accounting changes in their historic context.

The paper is largely chronological and draws from previous research by the author and other secondary sources, both of which are supplemented by reference to government publications, accounting practitioner journals and public records.

The paper argues that contrary to many implicit assumptions in academic accounting studies, our accounting ancestors promoted, and sometimes used, accounting data in pursuit of similar objectives to those advocated in the twenty‐first century. But, although cost information “evolved”, within its historical context, the process of establishing standard costs was slow and sometimes controversial, and the use of such information for funding hospital activity was avoided. In addition, the history of accounting reform in UK hospitals is one littered with disappointing results.

The paper provides an historical context to more recent accounting reforms in UK hospitals and suggests that the long history of “problems” documented in the paper may provide some cautionary counsel to contemporary accounting reformers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption of a time‐based activity‐based costing (ABC) information system in resource planning (ABP) in the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) of England and Wales, a public service organisation in the United Kingdom, for the period of 2000‐2005. The aims of the study are to provide a technical review of the ABP application and to explore roles of the ABP system in achieving a “fairer” internal resource allocation and an improved understanding of business processes.

The CPS's experience of adopting an ABP system is explained through the use of a case study involving interviews, observations, work shadowing and archival data over a period of six years, 2000‐2005. The longitudinal nature of the study has enabled the researchers to align the outcome of ABP adoption with concurrent organisational changes.

The study reveals that the growing understanding of the intrinsic links between business processes and the ABP information and its rationale, which remains unchanged throughout various phases of organisational changes, has promoted a sense of stability amongst CPS staff members.

This study provides an in‐depth understanding of the practical use of ABP and its evolving roles in the face of the changing organisational environment.

This research discusses the prerequisite of the ABP system, a time‐based ABC system, and the evolving roles of ABP from a cost‐effective planning tool to a stability mechanism in face of constant organisational changes. This experience is invaluable to companies and practitioners seeking to implement a cost‐effective planning tool.

Discusses managerial objectives in the National Health Service and compares service to patients with financial considerations. Reviews the growing influence of financial criteria and the manner in which financial objectives have been introduced. Asks if managers see their mission in terms of financial targets or patient service. Reports on the results of a questionnaire survey of all the managers in the provider units within two District Health Authorities. Managers were asked to rank a set of five statements in order of the extent to which they agree with them. Analysis of the overall results shows a large measure of agreement within the group of respondents that service to patients ranks first, with financial aspects coming last. The same outcome occurred when the results were disaggregated to NHS Trust/non‐Trust level and between staff categories.

In the UK, the Government is keen to introduce private sector procedures into the public sector. The latest stage of this process has been to suggest the adoption of accruals accounting by those parts of the public sector where it is not already operated. This approach to accounting was introduced into the NHS as part of the reforms which implemented a quasi‐market to match the demands of purchasers of health care with its providers. Outlines the assumptions which underlie accruals accounting and considers whether the environment created for NHS Trusts is sufficiently like that of the private sector to justify its use. Shows that the initial ideas of the extent to which Trusts could mimic private sector organizations have not been fulfilled in practice, and concludes that it is not possible to justify the use of accruals accounting in the public sector simply on the grounds that as it is the technique used in the private sector it must be superior to the available alternatives.