Discovering its own relevance? Reflections on the ‘new’ management accounting in the public sector

The observation that accounting is central to an on-going drive to reform the public sector is hardly new. The case of benchmarking, however, illustrates that a ‘new management accounting’ has been appropriated by public sector reformers and the accountants who serve information ‘needs’ generated by the dichotomous ‘problem’ of central governmental fiscal control versus decentralised empowerment. The case of benchmarking illustrates how, via its rhetorical power, the ‘new management accounting’ plays a central role in legitimising old demands placed on accounting. Caught up in the discourse of new public financial management reforms, accounting in the public sector is mired in a search for its own ‘relevance’.