Running public sector organizations requires specialist accounting and finance skills to overcome the unique challenges of the sector. Citizens rely on their governments to provide a wide range of public services from an inevitably limited budget and therefore the better that the public money is managed the more services that can be delivered. Just as there is no single best way to manage a business there is no single best way to manage public finances.

Co-published by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), the world's leading professional public finance accountancy body, International Public Financial Management: Essentials of Public Sector Accounting provides an expert introduction to public sector accounting and finance. This book was conceived to accompany CIPFA’s International Public Financial Management (IPFM) qualifications as a resource for students that seeks to capture the essential elements of the modules they study, and reflects good practice as put forward by CIPFA in its examination syllabuses.

Students of public management and public sector accounting will find this a useful text. Practitioners working in the public sector will also find this concise book vital reading in seeking value for money in providing public services.