This paper focuses on two elements of a new budgetary framework being developed for Ireland: spending reviews and performance budgeting. Both are concerned with the provision of information on the performance and impact of expenditure, so as to better inform decisions on where to focus government expenditure so as to achieve best value for money.
The comprehensive review of expenditure commenced by the government on its appointment in spring 2011 was substantially completed in September 2011 and the results will feed into Budget 2012. But spending reviews are likely to become a permanent feature of the budgetary landscape (indeed this paper recommends that they do so). Performance budgeting is concerned with making performance information available to decision makers as part of the annual budgetary process, so that budget decisions are informed by performance measurement. Again, it is an initiative that is intended to be a permanent feature of the budgetary process. This paper draws on experience, both national and international, to suggest how these components of a new budgetary framework might best make a substantive contribution to the management of public expenditure and the restoration of sound public finances.
Given that the results from the comprehensive review of expenditure and of performance budgeting are not yet public, this paper focuses on the process of spending reviews and performance budgeting, and how the process might develop in the future. The intention is to suggest how best these initiatives might become embedded in management practice in the public service.