Balanced scorecard within Italian and Australian local public sector contexts

New public management (NPM) changes in both the Australian and Italian government sectors have affected their modus operandi. This research aims to focus on how the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) has been used in both Italian and Australian local government organisations, focusing on implementation and practice. The findings of the paper suggest that the BSC has been used internally and, in part, externally to develop a public sector accountability reporting technology. The main finding is that internal experimentation with the BSC provided some material for an external accountability reporting technology (e.g., Best Value reporting; Social Mandate reporting).