Management Accounting in Public Service Decision Making

Chapter12

Management accounting and risk management in public services

Introduction

The future is always uncertain and it is inevitable that the further into the future one looks, the more difficult it is to have confidence in the projected information being used for decision making. Consequently, decisions about strategies and actions are often taken on what might be regarded as “soft” data. Hence, a key part of management in any organisation must be to take account of that risk/uncertainty, and identify approaches to managing the inherent risk/uncertainty that exists in life.

Thus, risk management is a key component of corporate governance and management in both private and public sector organisations, in terms of their structures, processes, ...