ACCT341-11S1 (C) Semester One 2011
Public Accounting and Finance

Description

Democracy, education, social welfare, security, law and order, business infrastructure and more besides are organised in New Zealand and most other Pacific countries as public services.  Among the institutions and other means of providing these services are universities, schools, hospitals, military organisations, police forces, transport infrastructure, courts, government ministries, local councils and legislatures; also involved are world and regional multilateral bodies (e.g. United Nations, Asian Development Bank). Public finance and accounting are one of the many things that shape, sustain and change these services, organisations and the political, official and professional actors involved (e.g. highway engineers, doctors, teachers, soldiers, social workers, quangocrats. aid workers).  

The academic rationale of the course is to examine accounting and finance as part of the props used by such actors in various branches of governments, social enterprises and multilateral organisations.  Curriculum content will range from micro level activities of street level bureaucrats and volunteers, and take in such ancient notions as "no taxation without representation" and modern ones, such as "transparency and accountability".  The learning will be student-centred, allowing participants ample opportunities to assemble ideas about the roles and practices of reporting publicly about policies, performances and resource allocation and the theories that underlie such reporting; and to analyse, discuss, synthesise and evaluate them.  Assessment strategies will mirror the learning ones.

Learning Outcomes

To successfully complete the course, students must be able to exemplify and discuss with some critical awareness:
• Constitutional bases and roles of legislative and executive branches of government (and political, official and professional actors) in preparation, enactment, application, control and audit of public finances (and performance and financial budgets and accounts) in NZ and other Pacific jurisdictions.
• Resource allocation processes and related accounting and finance ideas in the context of not only the microeconomic but also the macroeconomic and socio-political actions of those involved in and/or affected by government and social enterprises.
• Other selected concepts, ideas and techniques, and theoretical frameworks underpinning them, associated with public and social financial management, management control and policy/strategy implementation.
• Skills inherent in group working and group project outcomes (including communicating, negotiating, coordinating, presenting, other inter-personal skills entailed in accounting practice), and questioning and evaluating the work of other individuals and groups.

Pre-requisites

Restrictions

For further information see Department of Accounting and Information Systems on the department and colleges page.