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Although the topic of performance budgeting has received considerable attention in the literature, it is mainly explored in the field of public management and administration, and little research exists in the field of public sector accounting. The purpose of this paper is to provide more insight into how non-performance indicators are integrated in budget documents, thereby bridging the gap between the literature in both fields. Furthermore, the influence of potential drivers of differences in the incorporation of non-financial performance indicators are explored.

This study starts with an overview of historical developments in Dutch local government for a period of 50 years. This is followed by an empirical assessment of the current incorporation of non-financial performance indicators based on a dataset of 107 municipal budget documents for FY2019.

The authors' historical overview shows that several initiatives were employed to encourage municipalities to integrate non-financial performance indicators in their budget documents. A search to connect policy and means can be observed, which has not developed linearly over time, but mostly in reaction to major changes in national legislation. The authors find a large variation among the municipalities in their current incorporation of non-financial performance indicators. Contrary to theoretical expectations, output indicators (and not outcome indicators) are most frequently incorporated. Furthermore, the authors find that more indicators are incorporated if a municipality is larger, more willing to innovate and if it has less financial resources.

This article contributes to the understanding of how to incorporate non-financial performance indicators in public sector financial statements. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is an area that is not explored before.

The involvement of politicians in the introduction and use of financial management techniques in the public sector deserves more attention. This paper analyses the influence of members of Parliament (MPs) on the development of financial management regulations for Dutch central government executive agencies.

This paper uses desk research and analyses formal evaluation reports, as well as minutes of meetings of Parliament to analyse the influence of MPs on the changes in financial management regulations.

MPs' influence on the change of prescriptions seems to have been small. The authors observe that modifications were most often already formulated in general evaluation reports by the Ministry of Finance, in advance of parliamentary debates. The analysis also reveals that the criteria to be met by the executive agencies became more detailed in the initial years of the agency model and became more global in recent years.

This paper aims to contribute to the literature on the influence of politicians on financial management regulations.

The paper shows that the influence of MPs on the prescriptions is quite small in daily practice and therefore, their role in the legislative process, as far as financial management techniques are concerned, is limited.

The results show that politicians are both in charge of, as well as subject to NPM-inspired financial management regulations, whereas their influence on the rules is small. The authors advise to further analyse this, as well as to explore how their role can be enlarged.

The interplay between politicians and financial management techniques in general, and the influence of MPs on the legislative process in specific, is an underresearched area. This paper aims to contribute to this literature and shows that the influence of MPs on the development of financial management regulations is limited. Several changes were made in these prescriptions in a period of more than 25 years, whereas discussions in the Parliament hardly played a role in these modifications.

Purpose: This study examines whether changes in environmental and funding uncertainty during the first three years after the outbreak of the global financial crisis (which we presume to have increased significantly) are associated with changes in cost system design and intensity of use.

Design/methodology/approach: A dataset of survey responses from 56 Dutch municipalities is used for the empirical analyses. In the questionnaire, a senior-level financial manager reflected on the changes that he or she had perceived during the three years prior to the study (which was conducted at the end of 2010).

Findings: The results show that during these years, on average, ­environmental and funding uncertainty have indeed significantly increased, whereas cost system design and intensity of use have shown little change. The results further indicate that change in environmental uncertainty is positively related to changes in cost system complexity and cost system inclusiveness for activities and/or programs, whereas change in funding uncertainty is positively related to change in cost system intensity of use for product costing purposes. Also, change in cost system complexity is positively related to changes in cost system intensity of use for both operational control and product costing purposes.

Originality/value: Whereas previous large-scale research tends to focus on how the level of cost system design and/or intensity of use characteristics is related to the level of contextual factors, this study focuses on how changes in cost system design and intensity of use characteristics are related to changes in contextual factors. Also distinctive is that this study focuses on local government organizations experiencing a fiscal crisis.

In the Netherlands, the majority of financial and compliance audits of local government are conducted by private audit firms, while courts of audit are in charge of conducting performance audits. External auditors are appointed by the municipal council based on a tendering procedure, creating a dual system of responsibilities between the council and the Board of Mayor and Aldermen. The recent trend that several large audit firms have withdrawn from the municipal audit market and the strong need for public sector expertise because of the complexity and uniqueness of local government call for rethinking current auditing practices in this sector.