Elaborates a model of accountability as a relationship of three parties: principal, steward and the codes on which stewardship is established, executed and adjudicated. Describes how the enhancement of accountable management in the public sector, through the Financial Management Initiative, the Next Steps Agencies and, most recently, market testing, has brought changes to these codes and thus to accountability itself.

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Changes to the study of public administration tend to follow those in the practice of the administration of government. The recent shift to public management is characterized and assessed both as a practice and a field of study. The result has been less a revolution in paradigm than the emergence of a vision of government which competes with but does not supplant traditional public administration.

The Conservative government announced the Financial Management Initiative in 1982. This article is based on research into the genesis, development and impact of the FMI. The findings suggest that the FMI has contributed significantly to the institutionalization of resource management in general and cost awareness in particular. Implementation has been influenced, however, by the differentiation of departmental tasks and contexts, the inevitable tension between management and politics, and the difficulty of meeting the conditions for the successful engineering of cultural change.