In recent years, public sector accountability has evolved beyond compliance-based and financially oriented models, incorporating Popular Reporting, Social Reporting, and Sustainability Reporting to enhance transparency, accessibility, and democratic legitimacy (Bovens, 2007; Yusuf et al., 2013; Biancone et al., 2025). There is currently a gap in the comparison of models and approaches adopted.
Popular Financial Reporting (PFR) or Bilancio POP is a simplified, citizen-oriented reporting tool designed to communicate consolidated financial and non-financial information in a clear and accessible format (Biancone et al., 2025a; Grossi et al., 2021). It emphasizes comprehensibility, inclusion, integrated vision, and the use of emerging technologies to identify citizens’ informational needs integrated by focus on long-term public value created (Biancone et al., 2024). By contrast, Social Reporting focuses on social impact, mission achievement, and stakeholder engagement (Dumay, Guthrie & Farneti, 2010), while Sustainability Reporting adopts an integrated perspective, often structured around the Six Capitals framework, to capture long-term public value creation (Cheng et al., 2014; Secinaro et al., 2022).
Furthermore, these models support participatory budgeting and participatory reporting in the planning, programming and control process. E-participation tools are recognized as mechanisms supporting democratic decision-making and representative democracy based on last evidence of social reporting. Citizen participation is a core element of modern public accountability (Bovens, 2007) and digital platforms can enhance transparency and engagement, although their effectiveness depends on socio-demographic factors and accessible financial and non-financial information (Macintosh, 2004; Meijer & Bolívar, 2016).