Description

“Undertaking Effective Spending Reviews” was the second PFM seminar delivered under the IMF FAD’s EU-financed program on “Strengthening Economic Governance and Public Financial Management”.

Depending on country circumstances, Spending Reviews may have one or more of the following objectives: Fiscal Consolidation – i.e. to reduce the growth or the level of public expenditure; Allocative Efficiency – to shift expenditure from lower priority to higher priority sectors; and Value for Money – to increase output per unit input within a given sector. Recognizing that such objectives can take several years to deliver results, the spending review targets the medium-term and tends to go in depth into a limited number of areas being targeted in any given year.

The seminar provided an opportunity to undertake a practical spending review group exercise, which helped participants apply the techniques they have learnt and to present their proposals to their colleagues and the faculty for peer review.

The seminar also included case studies of spending reviews in The Netherlands, Croatia, and Slovenia, as well as the EU’s perspective on promoting spending reviews in their member and prospective member countries.

How participants benefited

The seminar’s primary objective was to better understand the importance of spending reviews to the effectiveness of budgets. In particular the seminar shed light on the role of spending reviews in fiscal consolidation; promoted participants’ sharing of experience with spending reviews methodologies, the challenges they faced and their expected outputs; and began to develop the skills needed to undertake spending reviews.

After attending this seminar, participants are able to:

• Understand the role of spending reviews, and how they can be used to deliver savings or performance improvements over the medium term.
• Describe the essentials of the spending review process, and the form of outputs generated from spending reviews.
• Identify starting points and data sources for initiating and justifying spending reviews.
• Contribute to establishing spending reviews in their own countries.

Target audience

The Seminar was designed primarily for senior level public officials working at ministries of finance (notably Budget Departments), other central agencies responsible for policy prioritization, and line ministries who actively participate in medium-term and annual policy formulation and budgeting. Staff involved in accounting, reporting, and auditing, or who work in research institutions involved in the analysis of public policy, were also encouraged to apply.

Contributions from participants

The Seminar included hands-on group work on developing spending review proposals, and participants also learned from the first hand experience of undertaking spending reviews in Croatia and Slovenia. Participants were encouraged to be active in discussions throughout the seminar.

Faculty

David Coady, Division Chief, Expenditure Policy Division, FAD, IMF

David Coady is Division Chief of the Expenditure Policy Division at the Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) of the IMF. Prior to that, he was Lead Social Spending Expert in FAD, Deputy Division Chief of the Expenditure Policy Division (FAD), Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, and a lecturer in economics in the University of London. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from the London School of Economics in 1992. His research interests include development and public economics, and he has worked extensively on policy issues related to the efficiency and distributional implications of public policies including indirect taxes, public sector pricing, social spending, and the evaluation of safety net programs. He has recently co-edited books on The Economics of Public Health Care Reform in Advanced and Emerging Economies and on Energy Subsidy Reform: Lessons and Implications. His research has been published in leading economic journals, including the Economic Journal, Economica, Review of Income and Wealth, International Tax and Public Finance, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, World Development, and World Bank Research Observer.

Amanda Sayegh, Technical Assistance Advisor, M1 Division, FAD, IMF

Amanda Sayegh is a public financial management technical adviser in the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF. Prior to joining the fund, Ms. Sayegh was the Minister-Counsellor (Economic) at the Embassy of Australia in Washington DC. Amanda spent more than decade with the Australian Department of the Treasury as an economist and budget analyst where she worked on various issues including fiscal frameworks, budget preparation and balance sheet management. She was also the principal economic and budget advisor and deputy chief of staff to the Australian Treasurer (from 2007 to 2011), with responsibilities for managing the budget and expenditure review processes and advising on fiscal and macroeconomic policy settings.

Duncan Last, PFM Advisor for South East Europe, FAD, IMF

Duncan Last is the IMF PFM Advisor for South East Europe, having previously been based in IMF headquarters for the last 8 years. Prior to that he had been working in the field for 20 years covering various topics in public financial management, including: PFM advisor in the IMF’s AFRITAC East Regional Technical Assistance Center; budget and treasury advisor in Slovenia also covering various countries in the region, during which time he helped establish the Center of Excellence in Finance; budget and IFMIS advisor in Mali and Papua New Guinea, debt management advisor in Papua New Guinea, and debt management software designer at the Commonwealth Secretariat in UK.

Claude Wendling, Cluster Coordinator "Revenue Administration and Public Financial Management", European Commission – Structural Reform Support Service

Claude Wendling joined the French Ministry of Finance in 1998, where he worked until 2011 in various positions in the field of budget (Head of Unit for EU Budget, Head of Unit for Preparation of Annual Budget, Director for overall Budget and MTFS preparation and implementation, Deputy Head of Cabinet to the Minister for Budget). In this capacity, he was closely involved in the design and implementation of the first French spending reviews ("revues generals des politiques publiques – RGPP"), which started in 2007. He joined the European Commission in 2011 and currently works for the Structural Reform Support Service (SRSS), coordinating technical assistance to EU Member States in the field of PFM and Revenue Administration.

Jasper Timmermans, Senior Strategic Advisor at the Ministry of Finance, Netherlands

Jasper Timmermans is an economist employed at the Dutch Ministry of Finance. He started his career in 2010 working on policy measurement issues at the ministry Social Affairs and Employment. In 2013 he switched to the Strategic Analysis Unit at the Inspectorate of the Budget of the Ministry of Finance. He spends most of his time conducting spending reviews. He has finished two (on agricultural policy and public pensions), and is working on his third (on social housing).

Marjon Schols, Senior Strategic Advisor at the Ministry of Finance, Netherlands

Marjon Schols is a senior strategic advisor at the Strategic Analysis Unit of Inspectorate of the Budget, at the Ministry of Finance. She advises on policy reviews, is involved in the process of topic selection of spending reviews and is secretary/author of the spending review on traffic enforcement. Prior to this, she has worked as an advisor on research and strategic issues at the Research and Studies Department of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and as a researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Social Research. In 2015 she obtained her PhD with het research on effects of Internet use. Her expertise lies in the conduction of different types of research and evaluation research.

Ivana Jakir Bajo, Assistant Minister and Chief State Treasurer, Ministry of Finance, Croatia

Ivana Jakir-Bajo is currently The Chief State Treasurer in the Croatian Ministry of Finance. She joined the Ministry of Finance in 1998 occupying various senior positions in the field of budgeting. As the Director for State Budget Execution, she was closely involved in the design and implementation of the first Croatian spending reviews in 2014/2015 which analysed the expenditures for employees paid from the state budget; the expenditures for subsidies; the healthcare system; the business operations of agencies, institutes, funds and other legal persons with public authorities; and tax expenditures. Ivana received a master’s in Organization and Management from the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Business and Economics and has additionally studied government budgeting issues at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and at the Centre of Excellence in Finance in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She has authored/co-authored numerous papers and books on government budgeting and accounting, and has lectured at various seminars, training events and conferences in Croatia as well as abroad. Her main research and professional interests are budgeting, public expenditure management, government accounting, and treasury systems.

Katja Lautar, Senior Strategic Advisor, Department for Public Finance Analysis and Economic Policy Coordination, Budget Directorate, Ministry of Finance, Slovenia

Katja Lautar has extensively published on competitiveness, measuring efficiency, quality of public finance, national reform programmes, economic governance, and changes to the budget preparation process (e.g. to ensure that the MTBF and fiscal strategy are in line with fiscal rules, and that performance budgeting is in line with strategic and development planning). At an earlier position at the regional development agency, she was involved in promoting the absorption of EU funds. Later on she was adviser to the Prime Minister, as well as to the state secretary and deputy director general for development policies at the former Government Office for Development and European Affairs. Next to her full-time job, she has lectured on accounting and entrepreneurship, and consulted different regional authorities and companies. Currently she is working in Ministry of Finance at the Budget Directorate’s Department for Public Finance Analysis and Economic Policy Coordination. In particular, she is involved in preparing medium and long term projections of general government expenditures, assessing the fiscal impacts of structural reforms, and preparing fiscal consolidation measures in line with the Stability and Growth Pact. She played a crucial role in Slovenia’s recent spending review efforts.

Partners

This FAD/CEF activity is financed with the support of the European Union under the program Strengthening Economic Governance and Public Financial Management, which supports fiscal reforms in six countries of South Eastern Europe – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia.
Complementary financial support is provided by the Ministry of Finance of the Netherlands, and the CEF.