Shah, Haider (2006) Accountability for performance : the case of a tax administration. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

Improving public sector managers' accountability with performance measurement is
one of the dominant themes of the New Public Management (NPM) literature. With a
case study of HM Customs & Excise (HMCE), this PhD research analyses NPM-inspired
accounting changes using evidence from interviews with HMCE personnel,
official publications and parliamentary reports. There are four important research
findings. First, unlike other service delivery organisations, two sets of competing
accountability relationships exist in a tax administration, which are operationalised by
two performance measurement regimes. This necessitates adaptation of leading
private sector performance measurement models to accommodate the duality. Second,
HMCE used accounting as a change vehicle in an attempt to shift emphasis from a
traditional, compliance-driven accountability relationship to a customer-focus driven
one. Third, the compliance-driven relationship remained the dominant relationship in
practice despite implementation of the first round of customer-focused accounting
changes. Fourth, a second round of accounting changes, i.e. a tax gap reduction
approach, attempts to harmonise the two competing performance measurements. This
arguably represents a notion of shared accountability of taxpayers and tax
administration for 'tax gap' reduction. From an institutional theory perspective,
however, adoption of the tax gap approach represents an exercise to (re)gain
legitimacy in the eyes of Government. The PhD evidence, therefore, suggests that
success of accounting changes is context specific. Moreover, based on a notion of
reciprocity of accountabilities in the public sector, the PhD research also develops a
theoretical framework. This is a significant contribution as existence of multiple
accountabilities is recognised in the literature but using accounting changes to shift
emphasis from one accountability form to another is not well addressed. In addition to
these theoretical contributions, this PhD research is a first field study of PMS of a tax
administration, and therefore, also improves our understanding of managerial issues
of a neglected, but important, research site.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HF Commerce H Social Sciences > HJ Public Finance
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Great Britain. H.M. Customs and Excise -- Officials and employees -- Rating of, Great Britain. H.M. Customs and Excise -- Accounting, Tax administration and procedure -- Great Britain -- Case studies, Responsibility, Performance standards
Official Date:	September 2006
Dates:	Date Event September 2006 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Warwick Business School
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Lamb, Margaret ; Fitzgerald, Lin
Extent:	vi, 342 leaves
Language:	eng
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/4077

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