Cost accounting for the public sector and the usefulness of information in decision making (A case study of government institutions in the city of Kut, the center of Wasit Governorate)

Abstract

Public sector accounting is an important matter that must receive greater, more appropriate, and more responsive support. Cost accounting information is part of operations controlled by the public sector for the planning, the private sector, and control by a third party. Therefore, it plays a central role in the usefulness of information, and its purpose is to support unit managers to improve their performance. . The aim of this research is to verify the use of cost accounting outputs in public sector institutions. And the statistical community for this study is all workers in the accounting and finance departments in government departments in the city of Kut, whose number is 300 people, using the Cochran equation, using a statistical sample of 168 people, where the same number of questionnaires were distributed and 114 questionnaires were completed in order to test hypotheses, using a one-sample t-test and path analysis. The results showed that the public sector institutions in the city of Kut do not use cost accounting information in decision-making by the administration. The results also showed that cost accounting information for the public sector has a positive and significant impact on the usefulness of the information in decision-making. However, there are many limitations in the path of full implementation and expansion of its use in public sector institutions, the most important of which is the lack of performance evaluation on the basis of cost, and the lack of administrative support., lack of IT support, lack of training, research, and development of facilitation skills by staff.