IMPLEMENTATION OF THE OFFICIAL PUBLIC ACCOUNTING PLAN IN AUTONOMOUS SERVICES OF CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION: STUDY AND ANALYSIS

Abstract

The Official Public Accounting Plan (POCP), approved through Decree-Law n.º 232/97, of 3 September, and the sector plans that followed it, considered as a corollary of the Reform of the Financial Administration of the State, has as its principal objective the creation of conditions for the integration of a modern patrimonial, analytical and budgetary accounting that provides and answer to the new accounting requirements within the scope of public accounting. Designed and presented at a useful moment, according to criteria that allow comparison, confirming credibility and obtainment of the true and appropriate image of the entity that it is reporting on, due to the public financial information satisfying all of its users, in the analytical, patrimonial and budgetary aspects. By means of this new instrument of support, management sections of agencies and their examiners are the first that must analyze and translate the data into concrete measures for the correction of efficiency, effectiveness and economy of the activities that they develop. Raising the point of the situation relative to Public Accounting in Portugal in Autonomous Services allows us to identify the work already made with this material and those parts still not made, thus contributing to the improvement of accounting practices in these services of the public sector.