Government Accountability

Accountability is defined by department of defense as the obligation imposed by a law or lawful order or regulation on an officer or other person for keeping an accurate record of government property, documents or funds. The numerical end product of personnel accountability process reflects the combat power of a unit.

By adding the auditing process to line-item budgeting, government management focuses on expenditures, thus creating a type of accountability that confronts corruption, helps discourage public employees deviating from strict instructions, and enhances tighter control over the employees’ behavior. For these reasons, most governments utilize some form of line-item budgeting at some level within their organization” (Smith & Lynch, 2004).

Accountability is a critical factor for all public and private companies. In public companies accountability increases, public confidence in the board of management entrusted with a corporation. However, lack of accountability and transparency leads to loss of public confidence in the management of any entity. To this end, the state provides the legislative framework that ensures accountability and transparency prevails in public entities (McNally, 2013). Thus, the role of government is to ensure public companies are managed in a transparent and accountable manner as a way of attracting more investments and retaining public confidence. Sarbanes-Oxley Act is a law in the United States enacted to ensure public companies adhere to transparent standards of accounting in resource usage. The act

Public Finance is the role of government in the economy. Transparency and accountability in government financial management is crucial. The reading, “Understanding New York City’s Budget” references that due to government spending of taxpayer money to operate various services, several checks and balances such as Audits, City Council Oversight, Mayor’s Management Report (MMR), and Program Evaluation were put in place for accountability. The adherence to policy, procedures, rules, regulations and laws are important when compliance and integrity is the goal.

What does Congress do? The members of Congress are elected by the people to represent the public in the process of making and passing bills and laws for the government to run properly. It shares power with the executive and judicial branches. Article one of the Constitution states that congress has the power to make laws, declare war, raise and provide public money, impeach and try federal officers, approve presidential appointments, and approve treaties. In this paper, the following will be discussed. How Congress uses the Government Accountability Office to conduct audits on the budgets and appropriations. The executive branch of government role in creating foreign and military policies. And the effectiveness of Congress’s role in strategic

Accountability (noun) Being responsible or liable for someone or something at the state of event and or situation.

GASB Statement No. 34, Basic Financial Statements— and Management’s Discussion and Analysis—for State and Local Governments, was issued June 1999. The goal of GASB was “to make annual reports more comprehensive and easier to understand and use” (Governmental Accounting Standards Board, 1999). The four hundred and three page document has seven main sections that detail external reporting requirements. These seven requirements are “reporting

What is accountability? The obligation imposed by law or lawful order or regulation on an officer or other person for keeping accurate record of property, documents, or funds. The person having this obligation may or may not have actual possession of the property, documents, or funds. Accountability is concerned primarily with records, while responsibility is concerned primarily with custody, care, and safekeeping.

In this assignment I am going to state how financial information is used to support public services operational objectives and how they publish, report and measure financial performance. I am also going to evaluate how efficiency and effectiveness are measured by organisation, while evaluating good practice methods of managing procurement and contracting of services and also the impact of the political environment on the funding of public service organisations.

For as long as human interactions have allowed the exchange of value between goods or services, accountancy has been the language of which business transactions are speaking (Salem, 2013). Accounting keeps track of and explains how money is used by non-profit organizations, for-profit businesses, governments and other individuals. Sounds simple enough right? Well, in all reality it is not that simple. Nowadays, there are many different forms of accounting let alone different set of standards that certain, and sometimes all, organizations must follow. Today there are two main standard setters in the United States that is responsible for providing up to date standards for its corresponding organizations. Although these two standards are very similar in nature, they are also very different when it comes to their own individual reporting requirements. Throughout the rest of this paper I will not only compare and contrast the differences between the Governmental Accounting Standard Board (GASB) and the Financial Accounting Standard Board (FASB), but also how they differ when it comes to their reporting requirements.

When the government brings in private corporations and organizations to help them on specific tasks it is important for the government and private company to be transparent about what they are doing, why it is important, and how it will benefit the people whose money is being used to fund the program. Not only will this procedure be useful to help gain support, but it will also help ensure that the program stays in place and is not questioned as often. If a company and the government try to conceal what they are doing people will become suspicious and assume the worst. If people begin to make assumptions they will no longer trust the government system.

The Government Accountability Office has pointed out that the important part of effective risk management is a challenge for Congress and the administration. Risk management is a strategic process in helping policy-makers to make decisions about assessing risk, and having limited allocating resources in taking action under conditions of uncertainty (GAO, 2008). However, with the policy-makers recognizing risk management, it helps them to make decisions, while Congress and the administration have charged federal agencies to use a risk-based move to prioritize resource investments. In addition, the federal agencies often do not have enough comprehensive risk management strategies that merge well with the program, budget, and investment decisions

The responsibility and goal of each team member /sales rep is to generate business by making calls to merchants, delivering

2. Accountability: The existence of legitimate systems of control-particularly to provide shareholders and creditors with an effective structure to enable them to express and enforce their interests and concerns over the actions of a

In our society, being held accountable might make one think twice about being negligent in certain situations. Rules are created to protect and to regulate, nevertheless, when they are not followed correctly or at all, negative effects eventually occur. If there is no consequence to rebellious acts towards the rules for some individuals, but extreme consequences for others illustrates that the transparency of accountability is cloudy.