Setting high professional standards in the public sector

Areas of responsibility include healthcare, education, the environment, defence, employment and economic infrastructures - all at a ti me when people’s expectations about the quality of public services are growing.

People look towards their governments for the creation of effective and sustainable improvements to their country. But crucially they look for them to demonstrate accountability and transparency of public funds. Earlier this month, The Dominican Republic announced that it will strengthen its tax administration and public resource management with a $50 million investment loan from the Inter-American Development Bank. This program will help reduce the country’s fiscaldeficit sustainably by raising tax revenues through improvements in administration and an increase in information and resources to help attain efficient cash management practices. The program will seek to reduce tax evasion, strengthen tax surveillance and transparency processes, and help improve services for taxpayers while cutting compliance costs. It is expected to lead to a tax revenue increase of at least 0.5 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of the project’s life, which will be highly beneficial for the country; freeing up more government resources to push forward public policies.

Governments and finance professionals must work together to ensure public services are fi t for the future. Their partnership influences how the funding is used to address national and local priorities, the availability of resources for investment and the effectiveness of public services.

Finance professionals play a pivotal in promoting public confidence and trust in the stewardship of public finances as they navigate through operational, governance and risk management issues.

This is public financial management and good public financial management instils trust. Trust is created when the public are able to understand how their money is spent, and on what. To ensure that the public is able to hold public sector organisations to account, this information needs to be understandable, accessible, clear and timely.

Practices of disclosure and reporting, whilst retaining accuracy and precision, should be communicated with their interests firmly in mind. Financial management in the public sector must also strive to ensure that the public receive the best possible service.

Like other organisations, finance professionals need to be efficient to identify and mitigate financial risk. An efficient department means that financial planning, monitoring and control are integrated in performance management, so that there is a strong emphasis on budgetary control, reporting and decision making.

Another is to ensure that budgets are effectively linked to policy objectives and that value for money is secured, as well as to improve the credibility of financial reporting.

Given the pace of change and size of expenditure, it is critical that finance professionals working within the public sector are equipped with the right skills to deal with the challenges ahead. ACCA is well placed to help as we the largest international membership, working in 181 countries around the world in the public and private sectors.

This means that organisations benefit from having finance professionals who adhere to a strong ethical code and are equipped with both private and public sector skills.

More specifically, our members in the public sector work across a diverse range of organisations, including government departments, regulators, healthcare providers and in regional and local governments, and are well placed to spread best practice, experience and knowledge on a host of technical issues.

Public services do go overlooked and people sometimes take what they do for granted.

The finance professionals that support them are often forgotten about too, but they do very important work to ensure a number of community needs are supported.

The ability to communicate the meanings and implications of financial realities in a useful way to key decision-makers, for example, is something provided by a well-trained finance team. Great technical skills are a given, but a top finance team also brings strong leadership skills, effective decision-making and change management skills to the public sector.

The Caribbean economy is still facing slow economic growth, in spite its strong tourism growth. With these challenging circumstances ahead for the economy, innovation is essential for finance professionals in the public sector to solve the problems with smaller public budgets.

The Caribbean public service sector will continue to grow so long as there are finance professionals spearheading its financial prudence and accountability. These ethics are essential to ensuring high professional standards in the public sector.