Budgeting in Australia

Abstract

This review of budgeting in Australia concentrates on the national government only. The article first discusses Australia’s recent economic and fiscal performance and then focuses on the budget formulation process. After a discussion of the role of the Parliament, the article reviews various aspects of budget implementation and management. The article concludes with a special section on Australia’s efforts to eliminate “red tape” within government. This review was undertaken in September 2007; following the election of a new government in Australia in November 2007, some new policies are highlighted, encompassing budget formulation, processes, accounting and management.

Government budgeting and the quest for value-for-money outcomes in Australia

“…These have included the Senior Ministers' Retreat, then the Senior Ministers' Review, then the Strategic Budget Committee, followed by the Strategic Policy and Budget Committee. These usually off-site meetings of the prime minister, deputy prime minister, treasurer and minister for finance predetermine the key strategic parameters for the upcoming budget deliberations-and have often been followed by the prime minister issuing his/her charter letters to the ministry (see Blöndal 2008;Hawke and Wanna 2010). procurement, budgetary rules and processes. PM&C has a smaller advisory capacity on fiscal and economic policy, but has the prime minister's ear and coordinates the formulation process.…”

“…Australia's confidential bidding process for new and/or revised policies provides an internal forum for potentially evaluating the likely returns on public investments (Wanna et al 2000;Blöndal 2008). All new policies requiring additional funding are submitted to the central budget agencies for evaluation and follow preset timelines and routines.…”

“…Over the past 30 years, budgets have become less compliance based and more managerial in orientation as Australia moved from line-item funding with firm central input controls to one-line budgeting on a results basis (using an outputs and outcomes framework for the Commonwealth's own-use spending, approximating 20 per cent of total expenses). There were many accompanying budgetary reforms associated with this transition to a results-based budgetary process (see Wanna et al 2000Wanna et al , 2010Blöndal 2008;Di Francesco and Alford 2016); some have been retained and built on (e.g. the link to corporate plans, consistent 'line of sight' reporting, resource agreements, one-line budgets for operating costs, budgetary offsets and efficiency dividends), but many others were tried and soon discarded (e.g.…”

Technologies, Democracy and Digital Citizenship: Examining Australian Policy Intersections and the Implications for School Leadership

“…Finally, as all legitimate policies are accompanied by budgets, [34], the 2012 National Education Agreement and one of the bilateral Smarter Schools National Partnership for Improving Teacher Quality [35] were examined to determine the degree of alignment between the funding allocations provided by the Australian Government, and the agreed national policies for curriculum, teaching and learning with technologies, and quality teaching and school leadership. The following discussion outlines the findings from this policy analysis.…”

Долгосрочные Бюджетные Программы Как Инструмент Бюджетной Политики

“…Причем среди всего набора реализуемых бюджетных программ четко разграничены программы, которые подлежат сокращению в случае реализации негативных шоков, и «защищенные» программы, расходы на которые в этой ситуации не претерпят изменений. Аналогичный принцип используется в Австрии [1]: в бюджете центрального правительства выделяются определенные виды расходов, потолок по которым может подлежать корректировке в зависимости от экономической конъюнкты, однако доля таких расходов не может превышать 25% совокупного объема расходов бюджета.…”