Is there an audience for public sector annual reports: Australian evidence?

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate the role and importance of the annual report as a source of information about public sector entities. Design/methodology/approach – This research uses a survey methodology to access users of public sector annual reports and is innovative because it has directly studied actual users across the entire public sector. Findings – The findings of this research indicate that the annual report is an important source of information about public sector entities but it is not the most important source of information. This study also found that the annual report is not regarded as equally important across all public sector entity types. Differences in the importance attached to the annual report by different stakeholder groups were also noted. Research implications/limitations – These findings have important implications for policy makers with respect to the information content of public sector annual reports. In particular the blanket approach to legislative requirements for annual reporting may need to be reviewed in view of the findings of this research that there are differing levels of importance attached to the annual report as an information source by users from different public sector entity types. Originality/value – The research in this paper is original in that it has, systematically and directly accessed users of public sector annual reports to determine their information sources.