Committee on Measures of Effectiveness for Social Programs.

Abstract The article highlights the report of the Committee on Measures of Effectiveness for Social Programs of the American Accounting Association. The charge to this committee is to prepare a report on the implications for Accounting of integrating into the formal accounting and reporting process various non-financial statistics and measures that are essential to the evaluation of efficiency and effectiveness in social programs. A social program is a plan of action, an experiment introduced into society for the purpose of producing a change in the status of the society or some of its members. In the area of social reporting, there is a predominant tendency, particularly among politicians and other individuals backing or resisting social reforms, to "sell" their own viewpoints with biased reporting. It was pointed out previously that one of the major problems in measuring social programs is in achieving comparability among measures over time, between different programs, over different communities, etc. The accountant is not likely to be the one looked upon to achieve such miraculous comparability. The lowest level of involvement would limit the accountant to simply auditing the disbursement of public funds.