How to Decide on the Budget: Set Menu or à la Carte?

Posted by Renaud Duplay

The recent debate over the United States federal budget, which led to a partial government shutdown, was at times hard to follow. Behind the debate over health care reform, lay also a more procedural struggle over the way to prepare the budget on Capitol Hill. Indeed, part of the butting of heads has resulted from a disagreement over what to negotiate on, in the first place. The US Constitution is relatively light on how the budget should be passed, so many legal options were considered in recent weeks, including: passing a continuing resolution to fund federal services and agencies; passing a continuing resolution linked with a defunding of the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare; funding individual federal agencies on a vote by vote basis; funding individual programs of federal agencies given expected adverse impacts of the shutdown, such as on cancer research trials. These options were, to make it even more complicated, linked to various stances on the federal government debt ceiling: separate decision-making, a linked agreed increase, or what resulted, a temporary suspension. In all this a new federal budget for the new budget year was not on the table. This is now on Congress’ to do list for the next three months.  

All of this is possible because the US federal budget works a little bit like ordering à la carte in a restaurant: you can skip the main course if you don’t feel like it and still end up enjoying the meal (or, more often, not really). Indeed, implementing a deal over the US federal budget requires selecting from a different menu of votes depending on the content of the deal. In addition, authority to spend can be given in various ways: either by appropriations bills – for federal agencies’ operating costs for instance – or by specific legislation that grants authority to spend on entitlement programs until this very legislation is modified or repealed. Those programs are called “mandatory” which by the way sets the tone for any future discussion on them.

A PFM View of the New French “Loi Organique”

Posted by Benoit Chevauchez[1]

France is now equipped with a fiscal rule. The organic budget law adopted last December[2] was the French government’s response to the obligations set out in the European Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG) signed in March 2012. The Treaty resulted from a process initiated in December 2011 by the European Council, in the wake of the euro crisis. The basic idea of the Treaty is that “Euro zone countries” should adopt national fiscal rules in order to integrate in their own legislation the Maastricht principles of fiscal discipline that are set out in the European treaties.

Before the new treaty was ratified, the French national budget law did not address issues of fiscal sustainability. The French Constitution of 1958 was silent in this regard, even if an amendment adopted in 2008 had introduced the concept of “budget balance over the medium term”, but only as a theoretical principle without any operational impact. Similarly, the 2001 LOLF (loi organique relative aux lois de finances), and its predecessor the 1959 Organic Ordinance, wholly ignored sustainability issues.

In practice, France has had a rather modest record in terms of fiscal sustainability: its EU stability programs have seldom been respected, its macroeconomic assumptions have been frequently optimistic, and its debt level has steadily increased up to 90 percent of GDP. Thus, for France, the adoption of the new organic law (OL) is an important initiative, that might also mark a turning point in its fiscal tradition.

The Philippines Leads Its Peers in Performance Budgeting

Posted by Sandeep Saxena

The Government of the Philippines’ (GoP) budget proposals for the year 2014, presented to the Congress in July, contain important performance information for every government program. For the first time, government departments and agencies have spelt out their vision, mission, target outputs that they will produce from the resources sought, and the expected performance standards in service delivery. For instance, one of the Bureau of Fire Protection’s targets is to respond within five to seven minutes to 87 percent of the more than 5,000 distress calls the Bureau expects to receive in the year. The National Police promises a minimum of 629,258 crime investigations and a 25 percent increase in the number of foot and mobile patrols. The Department of Education aims to deliver a pass rate of 84 percent in the National Achievement Test that will be taken by 12.56 million secondary school students; and the Department of Social Welfare undertakes to serve meals to more than 2.5 million schoolchildren.

This move by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) is being hailed in the country as “the single most important budgeting innovation in years”. According to media reports, the legislators are “pleasantly amused” at the detailing of information on what an agency must deliver with the use of public resources. They expect the budget scrutiny to be lengthier and the discussion on the floor of the Congress to be more meaningful. With this reform, the government has taken an important step forward in its commitment to promoting and developing a people-centric and results-based public administration.

Keeping Reform in the DRC on Track

Posted by Oscar Melhado Orellana

In this third article on the blog in which IMF area department staff express their views on PFM reforms in “their” country, Fiscal Affairs Department technical assistance advisor, Jean Pierre Nguenang, speaks with IMF Resident Representative for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Oscar Melhado Orellana, about the importance of PFM technical assistance in keeping the IMF program on track.

What contribution are reforms of PFM, revenue administration and tax policy expected to make to improved economic and fiscal performance in the DRC?

The DRC is one of the poorest countries in the world in terms of nominal GDP, despite being considered one of the richest countries in terms of natural resources. It has more than 30 percent of the world’s diamond reserves and 70 percent of the world’s coltan. The DRC is also one of the lowest-ranked countries in the international Corruption Perception Index. The government is still struggling to bring order to the eastern part of the country where recurrent attacks on citizens are perpetrated by armed groups opposed to the regime.

A New PFM Reform Strategy for Cyprus

Posted by George Panteli[1]

The government of Cyprus recently launched a radical reform plan for modernizing the country’s public financial management (PFM) system. The reforms are crucial to the implementation of the economic and financial recovery program on which we are now engaged with the help of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It will enable Cyprus to bring its budget process into line with best practice in the EU region, and enforce the fiscal rules and financial discipline that are necessary to comply with our Treaty obligations. At the same time, it will create an opportunity for line ministries to enjoy a new-found flexibility in managing their staff and other resources and to focus efforts on improving the quality of education, health and other public services that in many cases lag behind out counterparts in Europe. The strategy encompasses both traditional aspects of the budget system and emerging topics such as project evaluation processes, the management of fiscal risks including public-private partnerships (PPPs) and the future development of a sovereign wealth fund.  

The reform plan is challenging and a realistic timeline is required since the plan will take several years to implement. What are the plan’s main components?  

Post-Crisis PFM Reforms in Mali

Posted by Christian Josz[1]

This is the second article on the blog in a series about the views of IMF area department staff on PFM reforms in “their” country. In this article Fiscal Affairs Department technical assistance advisor, Benoit Taiclet, speaks with  IMF mission chief for Mali, Christian Josz, about the importance of PFM technical assistance in keeping the IMF program on track. 

What are the challenges of working in Mali at the present time?  How resilient has the country been in the face of the recent political and economic crisis?

Mali ranks among the poorest countries in the world, and has been under a succession of IMF programs for more than two decades. External funding has always played a significant role in the country’s development with grants reaching more than three percent of GDP. More recently, in 2011 the economy traversed a very difficult period when the country was hit by a drought and terrorist attacks. Following the 2012 military coup, fueled by military defeats, persistent corruption and failing institutions, donors suspended or dramatically reduced their support.  By the end of 2012, despite the fiscal austerity measures taken by the government, including the cutting of almost all capital spending, substantial arrears had accumulated, and the country’s debt rose markedly.

Faced with such concerns, the Fund seized the opportunity of last year’s slight recovery to re-settle in the country, with the reinstatement of our Resident Representative’s office in late 2012. We stepped up our involvement in early 2013 when the military situation was resolved with the fielding of an international coalition against rebel separatists and terrorists.

In the first quarter of 2013, the recommitment of IMF support through a rapid credit facility helped trigger the return of a number of donors whose pledges for funding reached US$ 4 billion in May. Now we hope the economy will rebound, as the authorities move to overcome the challenges ahead, and the production of gold and agricultural products increases. But political and security risks still cast a cloud over the nascent recovery.

Time to Overhaul PFM in the UK?

Posted by Tom Josephs

Should the public sector aim to follow the approach to financial control used in the private sector?  In 2011 the UK government took a step in this direction by publishing the first Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) which consolidate the financial accounts of over 1,500 organizations across the public sector on a similar basis to commercial accounting.  Two recent papers[1] suggest that the UK government should build on this initiative—following the introduction of accrual-based accounting and budgeting ten years earlier—by developing better financial control structures which mirror those used in the private sector. The ideas put forward provide a useful contribution to this debate.

WGA is based on the system of accounts used internationally by the private sector, adapted where appropriate for the public sector, and uses a similar presentation to private sector accounts. It is the first time a consolidated set of accounts has been published for the UK public sector. Because it follows commercial accounting practices it should open up the public sector finances to wider external scrutiny by accounting professionals. While WGA’s contribution to increased transparency has been widely recognized it has yet to find a role in policy-making.  Partly this reflects the fact that it is a relatively new innovation. It is unfamiliar to policy-makers and there is no historical series and few international comparators against which to benchmark the current position.  There are significant differences between the key measures of the public sector deficit and net liability position found in WGA compared to the equivalent National Accounts measures produced by the UK’s national statistical agency which are currently used in fiscal policy-making.

PFM Law Reforms: Balancing Legislative and Executive Powers

Posted by Kubai Khasiani and Florence Kuteesa

A growing number of Parliaments in Commonwealth African countries are casting off their Westminster inheritance and demanding a greater role of parliaments in budget decision-making. The last decade has seen restive backbenchers in some of  these countries bring forward Private Member’s Bills which look to enhancing the legislature’s powers over the public purse at the expense of the executive. This approach has sometimes been fiercely contested or not fully supported, and the product of this struggle between the branches of government leaves many unresolved issues and, in some cases, an outcome that is fiscally challenging to the country.

For almost half a century after achieving their independence, former British colonies in Africa implemented a budget preparation system that enshrined a weak legislature and a strong executive in the decision-making process. Ian Lienert examined the British influence on budget systems in Tanzania, as an example, and noted that the  parliament was engaged only very late in the budget preparation process, had limited powers to alter the government budget after it was presented, and was often not consulted about changes made by the government during the budget execution phase. As a result, parliaments seldom had a significant impact on the size or distribution of government revenue or expenditure.

Can an “Independent” Public Body be Truly Independent?

Posted by Richard Allen

Independent central banks in many countries are under threat from governments that want to bring them under a tighter rein. Independent fiscal councils have been abolished by governments that see their independence as an unacceptable threat. Independent auditors are having their autonomy and remits curtailed by governments that are concerned about opening themselves up to scrutiny. Does this signal that governments, while paying lip service to the ideas of transparency and accountability, only accept these ideas on their own terms, and suitably diluted for public consumption? What are the failures of the executive branch—inadequate public accountability, for example—that independent public entities are deemed to fill? How well have the entities concerned filled these perceived gaps?

These are legitimate and complex questions but are the subject of several research studies, including an ongoing study of fiscal councils by FAD. In this article we focus on a narrower question: what do we mean when we say that a public sector entity is “independent” and how can we measure its degree of independence? It seems fair to say that, for entities operating in the public sector such as central banks, audit institutions, accounting standards boards, and fiscal councils, there can be no absolute standard or guarantee of independence. “Independence” is a relative term, and one that depends for its legitimacy on the quality of political institutions and public perceptions, as well as legal and financial considerations. It is possible nevertheless to set out the conditions that make it more likely that an institution such as a fiscal council or an accounting standards board is able to operate independently of the government.

Twenty-one Countries Meet in Albania to Discuss Program Budgeting Reforms

Posted by Gelardina Prodani, Ministry of Finance, Albania and Konstantin Krityan, Ministry of Finance Armenia

As Chair and Deputy Chair of the Public Expenditure Management Peer Assisted Learning (PEMPAL)[1] Budget Community of Practice (BCOP), we would like to inform you about an exciting meeting that was held recently in Tirana, Albania on program budgeting.

From February 25^th to 28^th 2013, the Ministry of Finance of Albania hosted 81 participants from 21 PEMPAL member countries from across Europe and Central Asia (ECA). As suggested by our BCOP members from last year’s plenary meeting,[2] the agenda focused on technical aspects of program budgeting and performance measurement. The three main sessions of the meeting covered international approaches and country cases in (i) design of programs and performance measures, (ii) budget documentation, and (iii) performance monitoring and evaluation.

Представители двадцати одной страны встретились в Албании, чтобы обсудить переход на программное бюджетирование

Авторы: Джеральдина Продани, Министерство финансов, Албания, и Константин Критян, Министерство финансов, Армения

В качестве председателя и заместителя председателя Практикующего сообщества по бюджету (В СоР) Сети по взаимному обучению и обмену опытом в управлении государственными финансами (PEMPAL)[1] мы хотели бы проинформировать вас о встрече, которая недавно состоялась в Тиране, (Албания), по теме программного бюджетирования.

С 25 по 28 февраля 2013 года Министерство финансов Албании приняло в общей сложности 81 участника из 21 страны-члена PEMPAL из Европы и Центральной Азии (ЕЦА).  Как и было предложено членами нашего Практикующего сообщества по бюджету (BCOP) на пленарном заседании в прошлом году,[2] повестка дня фокусировалась на технических аспектах бюджетного финансирования программ и на оценке эффективности работы.  Три основных сессии заседания были посвящены международным подходам и практическим примерам стран в следующих областях: (i) дизайн программ и критерии эффективности работы, (ii) бюджетная документация, и (iii) мониторинг и оценка эффективности программ.

What To Do When Disaster Strikes: Business Continuity Plans in Latin America

Posted by Almudena Fernandez[1]

The governments’ treasury system is a core part of the public financial infrastructure and that of the broader economy. If government cash payments went off line, due to say a fire in the Ministry of Finance, it would cause a disruptive ripple effect across broad swathes of the economy. For example, think about the impact of the loss of public sector wages, non-payment of seniors’ pensions, or cash shortages for key government suppliers.

Therefore, it is important that governments have contingency plans in place should the worst happen, so as to keep the cash flowing and the government operating.

Most Latin American treasuries have done an impressive job of improving their institutions over recent years. For example, the majority of the countries of the region have unified the structure of government bank accounts enabling consolidation and a better utilization of government cash resources through a Treasury Single Account. Now, they are turning their focus to strengthening their Business Continuity Plans (BCP).

Upcoming Event: International Workshop on Government Performance Management, July 1-12, 2013, New Delhi

Posted by Bill Dorotinsky, The World Bank

The Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE), Hyderabad, and the Performance Management Division (PMD), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, are collaborating to organize the ‘International Workshop on Government Performance Management’ from July 1-12, 2013. The enclosed brochure gives the details of this workshop.

This workshop is a unique training program that will cover a wide range of issues that concern the design and implementation of effective performance management in government. As part of its administrative reforms, India has implemented one of the most far reaching systems called the ‘Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System (PMES)’ for government departments.

This training program will compare and contrast this experience with similar experiences in developed and developing countries. It will discuss the entire eco-system that is required for designing and implementing an effective performance management system in Government. We believe that a training program of this caliber and quality has never been organized on this subject anywhere in the world.  As you can see from the enclosed brochure, we have carefully chosen the topics and invited some of the leading theoreticians and practitioners to share their experience with workshop participants.

Austria – From an Incremental Improver to a Comprehensive Reformer

Posted by Johann Seiwald[1]

From the mid 1990s on, Austria has steadily improved its framework for fiscal policy and budgeting. With Austria’s accession to the European Union and the corresponding need to meet the Maastricht debt and deficit requirements, in 1996 a top-down approach replaced a “demand-driven” budgeting model in which fiscal discipline was not enforced and line ministries had little incentives for structural changes. Since 2000, the use of lump-sum budgets and performance budgeting has been piloted in more than 20 government agencies, including prisons, a printing office and the police academy. The implementation of a new cost accounting system for all federal ministries, as well as projects aimed at improving performance management, and introducing product definitions for public services and performance indicators in several line ministries, has steadily enriched the financial management framework.

Turkey’s Successful Modernization of Treasury Operations

 Posted by Yasemin Hurcan[1]

In ten years that followed the 2001 economic crisis in the country, Turkey managed to halve its debt to GDP ratio. As a result, Turkey was selected as a benchmark country for debt reduction in the World Bank’s 2012 report “Golden Growth: Restoring the Lustre of the European Economic Model”. A recently published book[2] entitled “Treasury Operations in Turkey and Contemporary Sovereign Treasury Management” discusses how the Turkish Treasury managed to decrease its debt by, amongst other things, restructuring the Treasury’s operations and management. The publication is available as an e-book.

CARTAC Discusses PFM Reform Strategies and State Enterprises

Posted by Eileen Brown and Matthew Smith

Senior finance officials from several CARTAC countries participated in a lively CARTAC workshop in Trinidad from February 25-27 with international experts Richard Allen and David Shand. The workshop discussed how to best structure finance ministries to meet demands to sustain economic growth; how to design their PFM reform strategies and get the most from technical assistance; and how to manage the fiscal risks of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The countries represented were Antigua, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Haiti, Jamaica, Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and Suriname. There were 22 participants as well as the two presenters and two facilitators.

“This workshop really worked for me,” said Devon Rowe, Jamaica’s Financial Secretary (FS) “because it verified some options I was considering and it opened me up to new ideas based on what worked for my Caribbean colleagues.  Mostly it persuaded me that we all benefit when we share experiences. There are mistakes that we will not have to repeat because Dominica, St. Lucia, Antigua and BVI have shared their missteps as well as their successes with us.”

“Dominica always learns something and I am gratified we were able to share so much of what we learned with others” said FS Rosamund Edwards.

“I could write a book of do’s and do not’s in reform,” said Deputy FS John Edwards.  “I like the structure of this workshop – experts tell us about new thinking and world experience, and then respond constructively when we tell them what obtains in the region.”  Antigua and Barbuda had enjoyed a wealth of technical assistance funding and worked hard to properly sequence it.

Can Arab Countries Improve Fiscal Transparency?

Posted by Manal Fouad

When people took to the streets in several Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries in early 2011, it was not only about social justice, but also to demand accountability from their governments. This means more information about how public resources are allocated, spent, and audited. Unfortunately, according to a recent publication by the International Budget Partnership, the MENA region records by far the lowest scores on transparency in the Open Budget Index, and most countries are still classified among those with scantest information about their budgets (only Jordan had a relatively good score of 57 in 2012, while Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen are all in the bottom range of 0-20). Even more troublesome, Egypt has seen a significant worsening in its rating from 49 in 2010 to only 13 in 2012.

Yet, many of the demands from the youth who led the Arab revolutions were for increased fiscal transparency. These demands range from disclosure of very simple figures to more complicated issues. Such disclosures would answer many questions that are vibrantly present in the public debate. How much does the debt contracted by previous regimes cost in the budget? Are these levels of debt more or less than the government’s spending on health and education? Are the high levels of public subsidy provided on commodities such as food and fuel appropriate? Do these subsidies reach their intended beneficiaries? How much is the military apparatus spending on its wages, pensions and equipment? How much do loss-making public enterprises cost the budget? Is the government paying its salaries and bills to public and private suppliers on time? And more fundamentally: what is the government’s medium-term vision and objectives for the country? Does the budget reflect the country’s and society’s priorities? Is the budget constructed on the basis of realistic assumptions on the availability of resources and costs of programs, and does it include contingencies for unexpected economic conditions or uncertain events? Is public debt sustainable?

New FAD Technical Note and Manual: Cash Management and the Relationship Between Treasury and Central Bank

Posted by Renaud Duplay

Cash management is one of the main issues when reforming PFM systems in developing countries. Bad cash management is costly because it hampers budget execution, causes arrears and increases funding costs. For this reason the Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) has already released two Technical Notes and Manuals (TNMs) on this subject and is now releasing further guidance material. A new TNM, prepared by Mario Pessoa and Mike Williams, expands the review of cash management issues by specifically addressing the relationship between the treasury and the central bank.  

The note was prepared at the request of the Latin American Treasurers' Forum (FOTEGAL) and addresses both institutional and technical issues and is particularly relevant to developing countries. Based on international experience, the TNM describes the modern framework of a formalized relationship between both institutions standing on two key principles:

Recent Performance-Based Budgeting Reforms in The Netherlands – Another Lap Around the Windmill!

Posted by Maarten de Jong[i]

An unknown person once noted that a cynical person is an idealist who, at some point, made the mistake of turning his ideals into his expectations. Looking at the increasing amount of critical studies on the impact of performance-based and program budgeting reforms, one could become a bit cynical towards this popular and ambitious type of budget reform. Not unlike the experience in other countries, the implementation of performance-based and program budgeting in the Netherlands over a decade ago has only partly lived up to its expectations.

There has not been much evidence that major reallocation of spending has taken place as a result of these reforms. In addition, the informational value of budgets and the administrative burden for line ministries have been continuous sources of debate.  Nevertheless, the concept of linking funding to results has proven its usefulness in agency management and does help the Ministry of Finance differentiate between a powerful claim and a powerful claimant in the budget process. Neither is anyone inclined to give up the benefits of increased transparency and enhanced managerial flexibility that resulted from introducing a program budget. Instead of becoming cynical or glorifying the "good old days" of input budgeting, the Netherlands Ministry of Finance accepted the fact that it may have had some unrealistic expectations and that some of the criticism on performance budgeting as implemented actually made sense and demanded a solution. This resulted in a major overhaul of the budget presentation and program structure in recent years called “Verantwoord Begroten” (translated as Accountable Budgeting).

Chinese Social Media Support Fiscal Transparency

Posted by Qi Zhang and James L Chan[i]

In the past four years, the Chinese government has made unprecedented efforts to implement public access to government financial information. This new policy of fiscal transparency is part of a larger project of public disclosure of government information. The policy basically revoked the long-standing state secret status of government financial information contained in annual government budgets and year-end financial reports.

Under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and with the encouragement of the National People’s Congress (NPC, the Chinese parliament), the State Council (the cabinet) took a major step in 2007 to lift the veil of secrecy over a wide range of government information. The release of financial information is the center-piece of this new policy initiative. Under the leadership of outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao, the pace of implementation has accelerated in the past two to three years through a series of administrative directives. It is noteworthy that in addition to releasing official government finance statistics, the spotlight is on the so-called san gong jingfei (literally ‘three public expenditures’), expenditures for official cars, receptions and travel.

These hotbeds of waste and abuse, as well as outright fraud, have been the targets for public outcries against official corruption. They are also the usual subjects of investigations by the National Audit Office, whose reports over the past dozen years have kicked up annual ‘audit storms’. Since virtually all of this information is usually communicated in the Chinese language only, these ‘dirty linens’ are effectively shielded from the outside world. Similarly, the new fiscal transparency policy has also drawn little international attention.

New Guidance for Sub-National PEFA Assessments

Posted by Greg Horman

The PEFA Program earlier this week released new guidelines for applying the PEFA framework to sub-national governments.

Of the nearly 300 PEFA assessments carried out to-date, more than 70 have been at the sub-national level. Sub-national governments are highly diverse across the world in terms of administrative tradition, functions and responsibilities, the degree of discretion in running their operations independently of the central government, and the role of inter-governmental fiscal transfers. The populations, budgets, and economies of some sub-national entities are far larger than those of other entire countries. So PFM outcomes at the sub-national level matter.

Simplifying Budget Documents – Time for an International Standard?

Posted by Camille Karamaga

Improving the quality of budget documentation lies at the heart of many reforms aimed at enhancing understanding of the content of the budget estimates as well as fostering transparency and accountability. Some budget laws prescribe a minimum set of documents to accompany the budget estimates. These may include, for example, reports on: (i) the medium-term macroeconomic forecast; (ii) fiscal policies and public expenditure trends; (ii) medium-term forecasts of government revenues, expenditures, debt, and the fiscal balance; (iii) medium-term resource ceilings; (iv) government guarantees, contingent liabilities and other fiscal risks; (v) spending on expenditure programs and projects by sector; and (vi) projections of donor aid flows. In countries with a Westminster tradition, the budget speech includes much of this information, but additional documents may be presented to the parliament.

Improving the content and quantity of fiscal information is not the same, however, as improving its quality or transparency. More does not always mean better or clearer. Indeed, it often means the reverse. Governments tend to respond to demands for information from the parliament, financial markets, NGOs and ordinary citizens by producing more and more data, often in unprocessed form. This may get them off the hook of public “accountability”, but places them squarely on another hook, accusations of information overload and obfuscation.

The design of a strategic planning framework, medium-term budget frameworks and program budgets has led to a proliferation of detailed information, performance indicators, and monitoring and evaluation reports. Mountains of annual budget books are produced with separate estimates volumes being prepared by each line ministry. The excessive detail contained in the budget estimates weakens their usefulness as raw material for discussion by parliamentary committees. Nor are they meaningful to the general public. In short, much of the  information produced by the government easily becomes a “data cemetery” which contributes little to the decision-making process or enlightened public debate.