ACCA SBL Syllabus B. Governance - Governance Arrangements - Notes ^{4 / 5}

There is no single way in which public sector organisations are governed.

Accountability is gained in part by having a system or reporting and oversight of one body over others.

The oversight body may be a board of governors, a council of reference or a board of trustees, an oversight board or similar.

In each case, it holds the management to account, acting in the interests of service funders (usually taxpayers)

Oversight body roles include:

• Ensure compliance with regulations

• Ensure it meets any performance targets

• Monitor performance against budget

• Make senior appointments to the public sector body

There is an increasing move in some situations to run some public services along similar lines to private companies.

This means they may have an executive board and also some non-executive membership on the board also.

The contestable nature of public sector policy

Many wonder if public sector organisations are operated properly and even if the power of the state is so big that perhaps they shouldn’t exist at all

Some governments prefer a larger state sector, while others prefer more to be achieved in the private sector and less by government.

As governments change, some public sector organisations grow in size and become more important, and others become small and less important.

One upshot of this is privatisation.

Taking a public sector service and allowing it to be provided by the private sector, hopefully leading to better value to the customer.

Opponents of privatisation argue that some strategic services, such as utilities, water, etc, are too important to be subject to the market forces of private enterprise.

Privatised businesses are often subject to a great deal of internal change including changes in culture, structure, and governance.