The public sector’s balance sheet isn’t looking too healthy after Gordon Brown’s spending spree on the banks – and there is little chance of a quick fix as the economy heads into a recession. Charles Tilley, the chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), is adamant that this highlights the importance of accountants, but not of the beancounting variety.

CIMA is dedicated to putting strategy and management into accounting, and the difference between a financial accountant and a management accountant, he explained, is simple. The former counts and records data; the latter puts the figures into the wider business context. “At the heart of management accounting is the need to make sure that organisations have got the right data, that there are key performance indicators in place to meet the organisation’s objectives and that management has the information it needs to make the right decisions and manage the risks,” he said.

Mr Tilley is talking to the Treasury about how CIMA’s ideas can be put in to practice and have a positive impact. His hope is that the public sector’s looming monetary crisis will focus ministers’ minds.

He is keen to ensure that finance professionals are given a central role in public sector organisations and that they receive the full backing of chief executives and permanent secretaries. The quality of accounting in the public sector was given a significant boost with the requirement for all government departments to have a professionally qualified finance director by the end of last year. The capability reviews, which examine the ability of civil servants to meet their objectives, also help to focus attention on what improvements need to be made. But there is still a way to go before high standards to which Mr Tilley aspires are achieved.

This year CIMA produced a report for the Government called Doing the Business: Managing Performance in the Public Sector. Mr Tilley said: “The No 1 message from this report was that we need to have in place the right culture, that is just so, so important. The right culture is one where performance management is seen to be something of importance right across a government department or a public sector entity and it isn’t just something for the finance function. There has been a substantial move in the right direction. But there is a still a very long way to go. You need a culture in which everyone is thinking ‘What is it that I am trying to deliver?’ and ‘How can I deliver that as efficiently as possible?’ ” The second lesson is the need for organisational structures to be put in place to deliver services efficiently. And the third is the need for training at the most senior levels. He singles out Monitor, the organisation that oversees foundation trusts in the NHS, the British Library and Companies House as good examples – “Organisations which are being run very much in the same way as private organisations (with corporate-style structures and clear performance indicators) although subject to different government policy.” Although he admits that this is difficult for much of the public sector.

“Having that culture in a government department is substantially more challenging. And when you talk about something like crime reduction: the indicators to measure that are quite difficult to put in place because there are just so many elements – it is not just policing, it is education, it’s families – and then saying I want it to be as effective as possible, that is a difficult thing to do. It requires real joined-up government and it requires a real focus on getting absolutely the right measures in place and transparency and then the drive for efficiency.”

The lowdown

Who: Charles Tilley, who has been the chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) since 2001. A former partner at KPMG and former finance director of the Hambros Banking Group.

What: CIMA is a membership organisation offering a professional management accounting qualification. It has more than 164,000 members in 161 countries – 16 per cent of its UK members work in the public sector.

When: CIMA published its report Doing the Business in February. It is now tallking to the Treasury about how best to implement its recommendations across the public sector.

Why: “With public sector debt moving where it is, we have got to have efficiency and a plan to get the debt under control, which means we really must speed up reform. My own personal opinion is that whoever manages to really manage the public sector efficiently and effectively will be applauded and lauded by the country as a whole.”

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