Is the Annual Report an Accountability Medium? An Empirical Investigation into Italian Local Governments

What is the actual role of the local government annual report as an accountability medium in the context of Italian public sector reforms? The empirical analysis, conducted on a sample of Italian local governments, shows that annual reports do not seem to play the role of 'general purpose' reports. They are rather prepared to comply with very detailed legal requirements and mainly delivered to internal stakeholders, whereas voluntary disclosure is scant. Moreover, most local governments do not use alternative tools to communicate their results. This raises questions as to if and how Italian local governments give account for their performance to their stakeholders.