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The data expected from the governmental accounting, in which all the budget operations are recorded, and the reports based on these data couldn’t be achieved until recently. To meet the necessities of society, the most important instrument of the modern state aiming to maximize the level of welfare is the taxes collected from the citizens, and the state has responsibilities in front of the society playing a funding source role. Moreover, in order to successfully manage the public administrations, which nowadays have more duties and authorities, it is a necessity to make use of the management information and methods. Thus, the development of public accounting, which refers to the determining, recording, and reporting all the financial operations performed by the state, has become inevitable. Many international regulations, modern accounting systems, and modern approaches have been developed for the public sector. In the present study, it was aimed to emphasize the development and importance of public accounting for the management and administration of the state.

This chapter is based on the Annual Report on Public Accounts prepared by the Maltese National Audit Office (NAO), Malta’s Supreme Audit Institution. Its objectives are to analyse and classify the reported issues, evaluate their significance and how the findings are reflected in the Public Sector, and assess the adequacy of the communication of these findings through the Annual Report. The research consisted of a qualitative analysis of the Annual Reports for the three years 2007, 2009 and 2011. This analysis was supplemented by unstructured interviews conducted with both NAO and Government officials. Findings report a significant number of issues emerging from different factors. The highest incidence of weaknesses was related to record-keeping and compliance with policies and procedures. Moreover, the interviews with NAO officials showed that the departments were not always taking on board the recommendations made through the Annual Reports, thus indicating a passive attitude towards the reported findings. The results also show that while the Government has its own structures of checks-and-balances to prevent and detect errors, and no internal control system is completely effective, there is still much room for improvement within the Public Sector to ensure that public funds are appropriately utilised. The detection of various issues by the NAO is therefore inevitable, particularly given the complexity and size of the Public Sector. In conclusion, the NAO findings should be more thoroughly examined to reduce the incidence of issues. Furthermore, the way forward should be directed at enhancing the current systems and promoting a more positive relationship between the NAO and auditees.

Information and communication technologies can transform how services can be and are delivered as has already happened in other arenas, such as civil aviation, financial services and retailing. Most modern health care is heavily dependent on e-health, including record keeping, targeted information sharing and digital diagnostic and imaging techniques. However, there remains little scientific knowledge base for optimal system content and function in primary health care, particularly for children. Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) aimed to establish the current e-health situation in children’s primary care services. Electronic health records (EHRs) are in regular use in much of northern and western Europe and in some newer European Union Member States, but other countries lag behind. MOCHA investigated the use of unique identifiers, the use of case-based public health EHRs and the capability of record linkage, linkage of information with school health data and monitoring of social media influences, such as health websites and health apps. A widespread lack of standards underlined a lack of research enquiry into this issue in terms of children’s health data and health knowledge. Health websites and apps are a growing area of healthcare delivery, but there is a worrying lack of safeguards in place. The challenge for policy-makers and practitioners is to be aware and to lead on the innovative harnessing of new technologies, while protecting child users against new harms.

Hospital nurse managers are in the middle. Their supervisors expect that they will monitor and discipline nurses who commit errors, while also asking them to create a culture that fosters reporting of errors. Their staff nurses expect the managers to support them after errors occur. Drawing on interviews with 20 nurse managers from three tertiary care hospitals, the study identifies key exemplars that illustrate how managers monitor nursing errors. The exemplars examine how nurse managers: (1) sent mixed messages to staff nurses about incident reporting, (2) kept two sets of books for recording errors, and (3) developed routines for classifying potentially harmful errors into non-reportable categories. These exemplars highlight two tensions: the application of bureaucratic rule-based standards to professional tasks, and maintaining accountability for errors while also learning from them. We discuss how these fundamental tensions influence organizational learning and suggest theoretical and practical research questions and a conceptual framework.

The Franciscan Friar Luca Pacioli is considered the “father of accounting” because of his 1494 publication Summa de Arithmetrica, Geometrica, Proportioni et Proportionalita (Summa) which included a section double entry accounting. While accounting systems existed before Pacioli, he introduced double entry accounting as a more efficient means of keeping business records because that would lead to better business operation and profits. Subsequently, double entry accounting systems have contributed significantly to the rise of capitalism in Europe and the developed world.

Pacioli also advocated a moral and social role for accounting, business, and the successful business person whose actions help serve the public interest. This clearly indicated that Pacioli understood business was about more than bookkeeping and profitability.

Catholic Social Teaching (CST) has played a significant role in business ethics for at least a century. Starting with Rerum Novarum, 1891 and continuing through numerous Papal Encyclicals (e.g., Caritas in Veritate, 2009; Centesimus Annus, 1991), CST has carefully examined how businesspeople, labor, and capital can cooperate to build a more just and peaceful society that fulfills the entire person. CST thus predates and contributes to contemporary business ethics efforts.

Pacioli’s contributions reflect and underlay much of contemporary CST, which is why we believe it is important to examine his social responsibility teaching in the context of contemporary CST principles. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss Pacioli’s view of the moral roles of accounting, business, and businesspeople in the context of CST principles, particularly (1) purpose of accounting profits, (2) purpose of business in society, (3) ethical and efficient business practices as they relate to accounting, and (4) the undivided life.