Center of Excellence in Finance
Learning and Regional Cooperation in South East Europe
Event

Budget Submissions of Line Ministries

Jun 13, 2015
Ljubljana, Slovenia Register
Contacts:
  • Chief Officer, Strategy
    Robert Bauchmüller
    robert.bauchmuller@cef-see.org
  • Program Facilitator
    Luka Zupančič
    luka.zupancic@cef-see.org

The delivery of this activity is kindly supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, and the Slovak Republic – UNDP Partnership for Results in the International Development Cooperation.

How you will benefit

The objective of the workshop is to promote participants’ learning about ways to improve the quality of budget submissions. After attending this workshop, participants will be able to:

  • Explain budget submission processes at line ministries
  • Understand sectoral policy making and its fiscal implications
  • Describe the coordination challenges linked to budget submissions
  • Identify strong and weak features of the budget process of line ministries

What you will learn

The following topics will be discussed during the workshop:

  • Sectoral policy making and its fiscal implications
  • Budget submission processes in South East Europe
  • Quality of Sectoral Policy Cycle
  • Role of the center in policy coordination
  • Structural reforms in the light of EU accession
  • Budget negotiations

Who should attend

The workshop has been designed primarily for mid-to-senior level public officials working at line ministries (and other budget users) who actively deal with budget formulation, strategic planning and budget decision-making. Mid-to-senior level officials working at ministries of finance coordinating and analyzing the budget submissions of budget users are also kindly invited to attend the workshop.

Your contributions

The workshop will be highly participatory. Participants are encouraged to be active in discussions throughout the three days and to share their country experiences and challenges in preparing their budget submissions. The workshop will include a group exercise to give participants a hands-on opportunity to simulate budget negotiations, and to prepare an advice for the minister on ways to improve the budget submission process.

About this learning learning event

This course focuses on the budget process in line ministries. It aims at supporting finance officials of line ministries to carry out their tasks and at stimulating reflection on the merits of current procedures and how they could be improved. The latter aim is also relevant for officials of the Ministry of Finance who deal with line ministries, and serves the ultimate objective to improve the budget process of central government as a whole.

Finance officials of line ministries are a crucial link in the budget process. They form the interface between the policy cycles of the line ministries and the annual budget cycle. The policy cycles of the line ministries are typically organized around “programs” or policy areas with one or more central objectives. They are usually multi-annual. They include the stages of policy preparation, decision-making, policy execution, evaluation and revision. Policy preparation typically includes long-term and medium term planning. Finance officials of line ministries have to mediate between the Ministry of Finance and the sectoral directorates of the line ministries in order to make sure that sectoral plans are consistent with the financial limits, which are decided in the annual budget cycle.

In a modern budget process financial limits are decided in an early stage of the annual budget cycle and cover the next budget year as well as 2 to 4 “out-years” beyond the next budget year. Finance officials of line ministries have a crucial role in the estimation of the costs of new sectoral policy plans. They have to see to it that these cost estimates are realistic and that they can be accommodated within prevailing financial limits for the ministry as a whole. The course will start with a presentation about the fiscal costs of the various instruments of which the policy plans of sectoral directorates are composed. Attention will be paid to the organization of the internal budget process in line ministries and the procedures that ensure consistency between the sectoral policy plans and the annual budget.

Next, the course will offer presentations about the organization and tasks of the finance directorate of a line ministry in selected South East Europe countries, for example, in Turkey. These case studies will be discussed and used as point of departure for an evaluation of the weak and strong aspects of the organization and tasks of the finance directorates of line ministries in the countries of the participants.

Furthermore, the course will pay attention to sectoral plans that are aimed at so-called “structural reforms”. These plans are particularly important because they have a large impact on the national economy, including the private sector. For this reason the European Union has set up a special monitoring procedure for structural reforms, which require member countries to report these plans to the European Commission.

Finance officials of line ministries not only have to see to it that the fiscal consequences of sectoral policy plans fit within existing financial limits, but they also have a crucial role in the negotiation of these limits. The course will pay attention to the annual negotiation process between the line ministries and the Ministry of Finance about the ministerial ceilings in the form of a simulation game. The aim of this game is to highlight possible strategies of the line ministries to get its sectoral policy plans adopted and possible strategies of the Ministry of Finance to maintain budgetary discipline.

Contacts:
  • Chief Officer, Strategy
    Robert Bauchmüller
    robert.bauchmuller@cef-see.org
  • Program Facilitator
    Luka Zupančič
    luka.zupancic@cef-see.org
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