Le analisi di bilancio nell'ente locale

The increasing level of financial autonomy granted to local authorities, which corresponds to a progressive difficulty in balancing the ratio between available resources and public needs to meet, determines an increasingly important responsibility of government and management bodies, which must necessarily take criteria of effectiveness and efficiency. This situation emphasizes the importance of financial analysis to support strategic and operational decisions of local authorities. In fact, every decision concerning the operational and organizational structure of services offered, and each choice of investment and related funding should also be assessed in relation to the reflections on current and prospective financial equilibrium of the institution. In this respect, financial analyses meet the knowledge needs of political and technical actors involved in the roles of government, management and control of the institution. Nevertheless, financial analyses, helping to make more understandable the data contained in the records, can meet the information needs of a wide range of stakeholders. In this volume, financial analyses are studied in their composite finalization, in their methodological approach and in the tools and techniques used in operational terms. Taking into account the hierarchy of sources of local information and accounting system, we first consider the analysis techniques related to the traditional financial accounting reports, for then treat the analysis techniques related to the more innovative accrual accounting statements. Specific attention is also devoted to the use of financial analyses, referring to the main classes of stakeholders inside and outside the institution and explaining the support these analyses can offer to their decision making, evaluation and control processes.