From Performance Budgeting to Performance Budget Management: Theory and Practice

Abstract

This article examines the decades-long practices of performance budgeting in different countries and their associated challenges from a multilayered institutional framework. Based on theory and lessons learned, the article recommends an array of strategies to address institutional and organizational barriers. It also proposes to reconceptualize performance budgeting as a performance budget management system and suggests how multiyear budget planning, financial risk assessment, policy planning, the departmental budget cycle, the program budget cycle, stakeholder engagement, regular spending reviews, and performance audits should be integrated more closely to address the long-term fiscal challenges faced by many governments and to respond to the public pressure on agencies to do more with less.

Performance Budgeting in Context: An Analysis of Italian Central Administrations

“…However, the existing body of research highlights decades of skepticism and many failures in its long history of evolution, despite some exceptions (Ho 2018). Bleyen et al (2017) mention some of the problems encountered in implementing performance budgeting.…”

“…Indeed, reforms to integrate performance information into budgetary decision making and resource allocation date back to the early twentieth century, when the National Municipal League, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the New York Bureau of Municipal Research in the United States advocated the use of municipal statistics and cost-accounting information to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government spending and program operations (Williams 2003(Williams , 2004Halachmi 2005). However, it was not until the late 1940s that the concept of performance budgeting was more formally defined in the United States (Ho 2018). Similar efforts were quite widely launched in OECD countries from the second half of the nineties, with the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand as leaders in piloting many key reform ideas, while, especially over the last decade, there has been an increase in the use of performance budgeting at the national as well as at subnational and local level (Bleyen et al 2017).…”

A Fistful of Data: Unpacking the Performance Predicament

“…Performance in the public sector may then be best understood as a systematic and collectivized venture in determining “which types of performance you measure—and which you do not” (Andersen, Boesen, and Pedersen , p. 852). For example, Ho's () contribution to public budgeting included here utilizes a comprehensive and multidimensional approach to performance budgeting (a performance budget management system) that employs: multiyear budget planning, financial risk assessment, policy planning, the departmental budget cycle, the program budget cycle, stakeholder engagement, regular spending reviews, and performance audits. The approach advocates the integrated use of both subjective and objective criteria to address the long‐term fiscal challenges faced by many governments and to respond to the public pressure on agencies to do more with less.…”

“…While we have reflected more deeply about performance management, this issue also highlights developments in budgeting and financial management research. We have already mentioned Ho's () work on performance budgeting, which transitions our focus from performance to financial issues. Kasdin () explores the effect of budget rules on program outcomes.…”

Despesas De Exercícios Anteriores: Uma Análise Da Relação Com a Execução Do Orçamento Público E a Eficiência Na Gestão De Recursos

“…Para Freides (1992) o orçamento pode ser responsável pelo impedimento de deliberações políticas pela falta de recursos, ao passo que a gestão precisa ser eficiente para aplicar os recursos disponibilizados com o melhor resultado. (Fernández-Gutiérrez & Walle, 2018;Ho, 2018).…”