Abstract
PurposeThe 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.Design/methodology/approachThis 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.FindingsMPs' 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.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper aims to contribute to the literature on the influence of politicians on financial management regulations.Practical implicationsThe 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.Social implicationsThe 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.Originality/valueThe 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.
Highlights
Like many other countries, The Netherlands have experienced a wave of New Public Management (NPM) reforms from the early 1980s onwards
We focus on the fifth phase of this model, which insights were provided by formal general evaluation studies of executive agencies and how these studies played a role in discussions in the Parliament on the development of the regulation
Inspired by scholars’ calls for further research on politicians’ involvement and influence on public sector reforms (Van Helden, 2016), we conducted a desk research on executive agencies introduced into the Dutch Central Government during the early 1990s
Summary
The Netherlands have experienced a wave of New Public Management (NPM) reforms from the early 1980s onwards. We focus on the fifth phase of this model, which insights were provided by formal general evaluation studies of executive agencies and how these studies played a role in discussions in the Parliament on the development of the regulation. These themes are considered as main elements, both in the NPM theory and in the regulation of executive agencies in The. Netherlands: (1) governance model, (2) accrual accounting, (3) full cost information and cost systems and (4) efficiency. This suggests that the influence of Parliament in the making and changing of financial management regulation is limited It shows that it was difficult in the daily practice to prove that the implementation of executive agencies resulted in efficiency gains. C entity should have an external system of planning and control, connected to an internal system of planning and control C entity should have an external system of planning and control, connected to an internal system of planning and control C by an available external system of planning and control, connected to an internal system of planning and control
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