The govern(mentality) of financial reporting reform: lessons from UK central government

Drawing on the concept of governmentality and Dean’s (2010) analytics of government, this paper examines how public sector financial reporting reform has shaped forms of power, rationales and practices in United Kingdom (UK) central government. Informed by semi-structured interviews with key actors involved in the implementation, oversight and day-to-day application of the financial reporting regimes, the results illustrate accounting’s constitutive power and the challenges in determining the accounting boundary. Given ongoing public sector accounting reform globally, learning from the UK experience, where such practices have been commonplace for many years, can help identify what is (or not) effective and under what circumstances.