Developing strategic financial management control systems in local government

To enhance accountability, financial reporting in local government has seen the rise of commercially oriented accounting requirements. There is growing concern that these systems do not meet the needs of local governments for either accountability or internal management. It is internal financial management which should predominate for accountability purposes, not financial reporting. Research suggests there is a lack of strategic orientation in financial management and control systems, and a lack of technical expertise to remedy this. The impact of culture in developing and using these systems has been ignored. This paper suggests a model to examine how culture can be harnessed to improve these systems.