Disclosure and accountability in public financial statements as instruments for social control

Abstract

One of the objectives of public accounting is to support the practice of social control. Therefore, the aim in this study is to discuss: How can average citizens’ understanding of the information in public financial statements be improved? Therefore, the objective is to discover the level of understanding of community leaders in the city of Curitiba about the information extracted from the Budgetary Balance Sheet. The research used documentary analysis and a field research, based on the application of a semistructured questionnaire and data treatment using uni/bivariate analysis techniques and validation by means of the statistical test χ2. Although most respondents do not seek information on the use of public money, the large majority affirms great or average interest in discovering the content of the statements. It is argued that the difficulty to seek information is actually due to the lack of understanding of the public accounting terminology. As a result, it is observed that the bottlenecks in accounting communication can be reduced if easily understandable language is used, mediated by complementary disclosure that presents not only the results, but also the analysis and interpretation of these results. Hence, this preliminary study is expected to contribute to the construction of a social control model and its use in society, with a view to enhancing and qualifying citizens’ participation in the management of the public good. Finally, public policies are needed, essentially involving education, aiming for the true social ownership of public accounting information.

Keywords

• Contabilidade Pública
• Controle Social
• Disclosure
• Accountability.