New development: Alternative reporting formats: a panacea for accountability dilemmas?

The need for accountability has given rise to new formats of reporting for public sector organizations. This article discusses the relative strengths and weaknesses of the main formats and concludes with a proposal for the adoption of an ‘Integrated Popular Report’ (IPR) to connect public sector organizations with ordinary people and encourage democratic participation in decision-making. Recently-developed reporting formats for public sector organizations (PSOs) are examined in terms of the need for accountability towards citizens. Many financial reports provided by PSOs are not easy to understand because they require specialist accounting knowledge and they can often conceal more that they show. The author explains why a solution could be to develop Integrated Popular Reporting (IPR)—a new form of disclosure which conveys accounting and non-accounting information to citizens in simple and accessible language. Professionals and standard-setters need to encourage PSOs to consider implementing IPR. Such a move would improve transparency and also foster greater citizen engagement in decision-making processes.