New public management,accounting, regulators and moral panics

摘要

Purpose - Accounting and regulators are an integral part of new public management (NPM) acrossrnpublic sectors. This article aims to look at one of their potential drawbacks by investigating how arnpolicy was deemed as a failure by regulators because of its limited financial controls.rnDesign/methodology/approach - A case study of Individual Learning Accounts (ILAs) in the UKrndraws on secondary sources organized into a chronology of events to show how concerns about arnsmall number of providers were followed by claims of widespread abuse of ILAs being reported byrnregulators; claims that were disseminated widely by the media, but which were not substantiated byrnprosecutions.rnFindings - There is insufficient evidence to substantiate claims of widespread abuse and fraud ofrnILAs. This suggests that regulatory bodies helped amplify concerns about fraud and abuse,rncontributing to a minor moral panic.rnResearch limitations/implications - The absence of accounting that promoted concerns ofrnfinancial abuse, also takes away one of the potential forms of evidence that could be used tornsubstantiate the moral panic.rnPractical implications - To help avoid moral panics, regulators should report only forms of fraudrnand abuse that are proven, rather than sharing in conjectures of those that might have taken place.rnOriginality/value - This paper is one of the few academic studies of ILAs and the only one to date tornexplore the detrimental role of NPM arrangements in generating moral panics.