Marc Robinson PFM Results Blog

Program budgeting has many critics. One of the most prominent is Allen Schick, who has advanced the proposition that budgeting by programs is unworkable because it is inconsistent with budgeting by organizational unit. Schick’s argument (2007: 113-6) is based on three propositions (more…)

Nowhere are the difficulties arising from conflicts between program and organizational structure more of a challenge than in developing countries. As discussed in a previous piece, the most serious technical challenge arises from the existence of organizational units which contribute to several programs. Where this is the case, it is necessary to allocate the expenditure of these organizational units between multiple programs in budget preparation and financial reporting. This is a challenge which is beyond the capacity of most developing countries. (more…)

What is the role, and appropriate scope, of “management” programs – that is, programs which group together ministry support services such as HR, IT and finance/accounting? There is wide agreement that management programs can be justified on the pragmatic ground that they avoid the need to allocate support service expenditure to output-based programs. (more…)

One of the thorniest problems for program budgeting is the relationship between programs and organizational structure. If ministries have major organizational units which straddle several programs, significant practical problems arise in linking organizational unit budgets and program budgets. It becomes necessary to allocate organizational unit expenditure between programs, both in budget preparation and in financial reporting. Such expenditure allocation is a challenging task in any country. In practical terms, however, it is beyond the capacity of many developing countries. For these reasons, strong pressures arise to force programs to conform to organizational structure, thereby by-passing the problem. (more…)

My last piece discussed the great progress which has been made in outcome measurement over recent decades. This has been hugely important in providing a better information base for performance management and budgeting. Perhaps the most important single methodological development in this area has been the increased use of surveys. (more…)

Performance budgeting and management are, according to many of their critics, guilty of an “emphasis on unmeasurable outcomes” *.  The critics claim that most government outcomes are either impossible or extremely difficult to measure. They see this as the Achilles’ heel of results-oriented management. This overlooks the great progress in outcome measurement has been made by governments around the world in recent decades. (more…)

Developing countries should, given their limited resources and capacity constraints, keep their performance budgeting systems simple.  It is a remarkable fact, however, that they frequently seek to implement systems considerably more complicated than most of the performance budgeting models one sees in developed countries. One of many areas where this is true is the design of program structures. (more…)

The balanced scorecard (BSC) has been marketed aggressively to governments as a framework for public sector performance measurement. But the BSC is not, and never was, an appropriate performance measurement framework for government. (more…)