This training activity will be delivered as part of the Strategic Planning and Budgeting (SPB) project, funded by the European Union. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to strengthening of beneficiary countries’ capacity to design and implement medium-term macro-fiscal policy.
Workshop description
In the light of the experiences and challenges with introducing and implementing program oriented budgets, currently new trends are becoming visible with respect to the role of performance information. These include:
- Separation of the policy dialogue on program results from the budget process; under a program oriented budget process, performance information plays a key role in the policy process, but not necessarily in the budget process.
- The steering of arm’s length agencies by the line minister on the basis of a permanent performance dialogue with the agency’s manager;
- Removal of excessive performance information from the budget documentation;
- Evaluation of program effectiveness and efficiency by the line ministry; more emphasis on the accountability of the line minister for effectiveness and efficiency.
- Spending review procedures as a tool for the government and the ministry of finance to periodically assess the priority of programs in the light of new social and economic developments and new political demands.
The course will pay attention to each of these new developments and provide information about the recent reforms in the countries where they occurred.
How you will benefit
The objective of this workshop is to help participants better understand the challenges in implementing program oriented budgets.
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Reiterate key concepts of program and performance-based budgeting, including types of budget classifications and the role of performance information in policy evaluation and spending review and in the steering of agencies.
- Describe key implementation challenges and the factors that are necessary to make program oriented budgeting work in practice.
- Define the new trends in introducing and implementing program budgeting.
- Benefit from the interactive knowledge exchange among the workshop participants.
Who should attend
This workshop will provide an intense exchange of experience to professional staff and managers who participate in budget preparation process in line ministries.
Your contributions
The workshop will be highly participatory. Participants are encouraged to be active in discussions and exercises throughout the three days. Participants will work in groups to discuss country specifics in introducing and implementing program budgeting reforms.
Participants are required to bring with them the official budget of the Ministry of Education of their country for year 2014 as it was submitted to the Parliament.
Faculty
Mr. Dirk-Jan Kraan, Public Financial Management Advisor for South East Europe of the IMF
Dirk-Jan Kraan is a Dutch citizen. He holds MA degrees in Law (1970) and Economics (1976) from Erasmus University in Rotterdam and a PhD degree in Economics from the same university (1989). He worked in several positions in the Directorate General of the Budget of the Dutch Ministry of Finance from 1980 to 2002, lately as head of the Division of Policy Review of the Inspectorate of Finance (Expenditure Division). He joined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2002 as a senior economist in the Budgeting and Public Expenditures Division of the Directorate of Public Governance and Territorial Development. At the OECD he was among other things responsible for the Eastern European program of the Budgeting and Expenditure Division and for the OECD Value for Money Study on the organization of central government. He recently joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to work as a Regional Public Financial Management Advisor for South East Europe based at the CEF in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Ms. Joanne Kelly, Professor of Public Administration, Australia/New Zealand School of Government
Dr. Joanne Kelly is Director of the Australia New Zealand School of Government (NSW) and an Associate Professor in Government at the University of Sydney. She specializes in the techniques, politics and processes of government from a comparative perspective. Professor Kelly has authored reports, journal articles and book chapters on these topics: including the co-authored books Managing Public Expenditures in Australia (2001) and Reallocation: the role of budget institutions (2005), and she is currently working on a third book entitled The Politics of Budgetary Control: expenditure review and reallocation in comparative perspective.
Professor Kelly has worked in both government and academia, including four years as academic advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada. She has written reports for and provided advice to governments in Australia, Britain, Canada, Italy, New Zealand, and South Africa. Recent government reports include Appropriating for Results: reform in the Government of Canada (2006); Institutions for Effective Expenditure Review: Lessons for Italy from International Experience (2007); The Administration of Discretionary Grant Programs in the Commonwealth of Australia (2008); and Shaping a Strategic Centre (ANZSOG/MAB 2009), Planning & Budgeting in South Africa: a report for the President (2010). During 2011-12 she worked with the OECD´s Value for Money team to assess the systems of spending review & the policy co-ordination across the OECD member-states.
Ms. Corina den Broeder, Head of Unit, Strategic Analysis, Budget Inspectorate, Ministry of Finance, the Netherlands
Corina den Broeder is a Dutch Citizen. She is head of the Unit Strategic Analysis, at the Budget Inspectorate (of the Ministry of Finance in the Netherlands). This unit organizes spending reviews and links evaluations to the budget. All together she has worked for ten years within the Ministry of Finance and has a broad experience with policy analysis and political decision making on major areas of the Dutch public sector (at the ministries of education, social affairs &and health, at the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) and at the Dutch Central Bank. She holds an MA degree in Economics from the University in Rotterdam and is an Evaluation expert in OECD network on performance and evaluations.
Application procedure
Application Closing Date: May 16,2014
*For the SPB project the costs of 2 selected participants per beneficiary country are covered by the EU funding.
