For most parts of history, government financial executives have been taken as scorekeepers, and made responsible for collecting, processing and reporting the financial information that used by elected officials and senior managers who use them in making their decisions. The question is whether their role has now changed with the present importance of information technology. (From Scorekeeper to Business Partner: The Evolving Role of Government Financial Executives).

             Analysis.

             Now there is increasing evidence of the importance that information technology is getting in public administration and this is resulting in more and more insistence from the public that government financial executives have a greater say in all decision making activities of the government. The finance executives are now the individuals to lead the charge for getting an entrepreneurial type of government and have it judged based on its performance. For most of the finance executives now, the changes are leading to redesigning of entire processes related to finance, introducing best practices for financial management, improving and integrating financial management with other information management and in certain cases even shifting the responsibility of all financial operations to outsiders. The trend is now to change finance functions in a manner that control functions for financial expenditures are built into non-financial processes so that the non-financial manager also has to take up responsibility for the activities. (From Scorekeeper to Business Partner: The Evolving Role of Government Financial Executives).

             This provides a lot more freedom to the finance experts to use their expertise for the purpose of finance. The attempt here is not to demean the traditional duties of government financial executives, as it is always important to comply with accounting and financial reporting that is required, make correct cash reconciliation and process all financial transactions in time.