Public Sector Performance Reporting : The Intellectual Capital Question?

Over the past two decades, the reporting frameworks used within the public sectors of a wide variety of jurisdictions have undergone significant change. Much of this change has arguably been relatively incremental, resulting in reporting frameworks still being cast in highly traditional form. At the same time, events in global capital markets have resulted in many elements of traditional reporting frameworks being discredited. In this paper, we examine the possibility that alternative reporting frameworks, and specifically those related to intellectual capital (IC), might be beneficially adopted in public sector settings. We examine reasons why such an outcome might be beneficial, and examine a range of established alternative reporting frameworks that address IC, together with some of their strengths and weaknesses. We argue that there is room for the adoption of elements of these systems in public sector settings, and that it is plausible to anticipate material accountability and transparency benefits as a result