Measuring the Use of Financial Information: Understanding the Use by Politicians in the Local Government

Nogueira, Sónia P.; Jorge, Susana; Gomes, Patrícia; Pimentel, Liliana

http://hdl.handle.net/10198/29692

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Abstract(s)

This paper proposes a tool to assess the level of financial information (FI) use – the FIU Index. Particularly developed considering the local government context, this Index combines items of information used, with the main types of meetings, and politicians of political bodies (executive committee and local council) where FI is discussed. The FIU Index produces a score resulting from its application to written records of politicians’ speeches, such as those from the minutes of the meetings, allowing to classify the use of FI in a political body, meeting and entity, in ‘low’, ‘moderate’ and ‘high’. With an illustrative example of applying the FIU Index to a sample of Portuguese municipalities, the paper explains how it can be implemented to assess and rank entities, evidencing what needs to be improved so politicians can reach the best use possible of FI, as a tool to improve dialogue with several stakeholders.

Keywords

Financial information Dialogic accounting Index of use Municipalities Politicians Portugal

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10198/29692

Citation

Nogueira, Sónia P.; Jorge, S.; Gomes, P., & Liliana, P. (2024). Measuring the use of financial information: understanding the use by politicians in the local government. IV Congresso Internacional de Contabilidade Pública (CICP). Instituto Politécnico de Leiria, Portugal.