Parliamentary Budget Office Research Articles

Independent Fiscal Institutions in Comparative Constitutional Perspective

Independent Fiscal Institutions (IFIs), also known as independent budget offices, fiscal policy councils or independent fiscal watchdogs, have become a feature of the regulatory landscape since the global financial crisis. This paper analyses their proliferation and seeks to situate them in their constitutional and institutional environment. The paper begins with an assessment of the two competing rationales for their existence: first, the rationale of overcoming deficit bias in advanced western democracies (through institutions of de-politicisation), and second, the rationale of overcoming information asymmetry on two planes – elector/government fiscal information asymmetry and legislature/executive information asymmetry (strategies of re-politicisation). The paper then analyses the legal and technical design features of two IFIs: the UK Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and the Australian Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO). We hypothesise that whatever their origin, IFIs will seek to add functions, that these will include both inward-facing functions (e.g. official economic forecasting) and outward-facing functions (e.g. election policy costings), and that this expansion is likely to be facilitated by inter-party competition. We conclude that the IFI is best understood as a distinctive attempt to devise a fiscal self-binding mechanism in the interests of securing intergenerational constitutional justice.

The Dilemmas of Confidential Information in Parliamentary Budget Offices: 2018 Canadian Case

The Dilemmas of Confidential Information in Parliamentary Budget Offices: 2018 Canadian Case

Independence within the Parliamentary Budget Office of Greece

Independence within the Parliamentary Budget Office of Greece

Can the Public Service Antagonize Parliamentary Budget Offices?

Can the Public Service Antagonize Parliamentary Budget Offices?

Total Fiscal Costings of Election Promises: Case of Canada's Parliamentary Budget Office

Whereas Independent Fiscal Institutions (IFIs) such as Parliamentary Budget Offices (PBOs) do have a mandate to appraise the cost of election promises made by political parties, this is often conducted on a policy-by-policy basis, and does not represent an exercise in the ‘total costings’ of an entire election platform. This discussion papers considers the case of Canada’s PBO, which is being tasked with conducting a total costing for the entirety of the body election promises, and looks at the challenges this poses for the IFI, both from (1) technical and (2) political perspectives.

The Case for a Parliamentary Budget Office in Papua New Guinea

The Case for a Parliamentary Budget Office in Papua New Guinea

Victoria's New Parliamentary Budget Office: Fiscal Context and Technical Prospects

Victoria's New Parliamentary Budget Office: Fiscal Context and Technical Prospects

Revenue Forecasting Approach Towards Public Sector Wage Bill Management Dilemma in Kenya

The Kenyan government has been working towards achieving fiscal sustainability in wage bill expenditure since independence. Fiscal sustainability is key to achieving economic growth and progress as most resources would be channeled to development expenditure. The international recognized level of wage bill to revenue ratio is between 30%-40%. However, this key ratio is not being achieved in Kenya as the Salaries and Remuneration Commission and Parliamentary Budget Office of Kenya reports indicates that in the fiscal year 2012/13, it was 47%. The reports further indicate that the ratio has been within the range 47%-49% since the fiscal year 2009/2010 to 2012/13. Notable is that revenue forecasts essentially exist to help in budget formulation. Why then would the public wage bill management be a huge task to the government since independence? This study sought to establish whether revenue forecast has an effect on wage bill management in Kenya. Causal research design was used to establish the cause and effect relationship between the independent and dependent variable. Purposive sampling was employed in choosing 13 fiscal year budget data from the fiscal year 2000/01 to 2012/13.Simple linear regression model was employed in establishing the degree and magnitude of the relationship between the variables. A t-test and F-ratio were applied to test hypothesis and overall significance of the regression model at 5% significance level. Findings of this study indicates that revenue forecast within the 13 fiscal year period under study has significant effect on wage bill management in the context of wage bill to revenue ratio. This is an implication that revenue forecasts can help in managing the wage bill.

The Canadian 2017 Budget Implementation Act and the Impact on the Parliamentary Budget Office

The Canadian 2017 Budget Implementation Act provides certain remedial measures vis-a-vis the independence of the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), such as granting it the status of an independent Officer of Parliament. However, it detracts significantly from the goal of according functional independence by stipulating new conditions such the imposition of a Speaker-approved work plan and the limitation of costings requests to proposing Members. This discussion paper weighs the merits of proposed changes in the Budget Implementation Act, finding that its net effect is to accord greater nominal ‘independence’ while retracting functional independence.

Ex-Ante or Ex-Post? Oversight and Parliamentary Budget Offices

Oversight can be conducted in an Ex-ante or Ex-post manner. This discussion paper considers whether the contribution of Parliamentary Budget Offices (PBOs) can be Ex-ante, Ex-post, or both. It further delineates how the process can be carried out in either manner and to what ends, while recognizing that differences in the legislative oversight environment will have consequences on the mandate that a PBO can exercise.

Periodicity in Parliamentary Budget Offices: The Case of New South Wales

Independent Fiscal Institutions (IFIs) such as Parliamentary Budget Offices (PBO), both at the national and subnational levels, are generally created as permanent (continuously functioning) entities to serve the budget process. However, an innovation in the periodicity of IFIs is found in the state of New South Wales (Australia), where the PBO is created every election cycle, disbanded, and then recreated in the following cycle. This discussion paper considers the consequences of periodicity in the function of IFIs by examining the advantages and disadvantages of the PBO model as formulated in New South Wales.

Robust Reverse-Accountability in the Budget Process: Lessons from the Independent Review of the Australian Parliamentary Budget Office

Whereas Legislative Budget Offices (LBOs) provide an important mechanism for accountability and transparency in the budget process, a further step in developing a robust fiscal accountability ecosystem lies in the creation of reverse-accountability of institutions such as the LBO itself. In Australia, this is done through periodic independent reviews of the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), and this discussion paper draws lessons from the successful completion of such review conducted in early 2017, with a view to understanding its implications for robust reverse-accountability in budgeting.

The unaccountable Federal Accountability Act: Goodbye to responsible government?

The article argues that the Federal Accountability Act or, as of November, 2006, C-2, is an unaccountable piece of legislation in the sense that it is not explicable or intelligible. Second, to take the risk of imposing so many unrelated measures on federal institutions at one time is not a responsible action. There is an unevaluated risk of destabilizing the institutions of government and the public service. Certainly some provisions of the bill, such as the creation of a parliamentary budget office as an executive agency, and the creation of a federal director of public prosecutions, might well merit study as selfstanding measures. But most other provisions, on examination, threaten to destabilize or end responsible government in Canada. The paper argues that several measures clearly fall into this latter category. Among these are measures to provide for heavy regulation and summary punishment of both parliamentarians and senior public servants, as well as for the “naming and blaming and shaming” of senior public servants at the cost of introducing a policy-administration dichotomy, plus the excessive grants of powers to agents or officers of Parliament and the creation of new “parliamentary” bureaucracies that in fact perform executive functions. The manner of passing the bill in the House was also of doubtful fairness, given that the New Democratic Party joined in a partnership with the government to rush the bill through the Legislative Committee of the House of Commons.

The Misattribution of Fiscal Analysis: Case of the Australian Parliamentary Budget Office and the Liberal Party

The Misattribution of Fiscal Analysis: Case of the Australian Parliamentary Budget Office and the Liberal Party

Preventing Water Scarcity: The Role of Parliaments and of Parliamentary Budget Offices

Preventing Water Scarcity: The Role of Parliaments and of Parliamentary Budget Offices

The Parliamentary Budget Office of Zimbabwe: Role and Scope

The Parliamentary Budget Office of Zimbabwe: Role and Scope

The Use of the Survey Instrument in a Legislative Budget Office Context

This discussion paper considers the use of Survey Instruments to assess the performance and “effectiveness” of Legislative Budget Offices (LBO). While offering certain benefits, this paper notes that there are important limitations to survey instrument use in measuring LBOs effectiveness, emanating from political, cost, and methodological considerations. The paper makes reference to the survey instrument used by the Parliamentary Budget Office in Australia to evidence these considerations.

Ireland's Parliamentary Budget Office: Role and Scope in the Oireachtas

Ireland's Parliamentary Budget Office: Role and Scope in the Oireachtas

The Presidentialisation Thesis and Parliamentary Budget Offices

This article examines the presidentialisation thesis through the lens of the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO). It considers the origins of the PBO in the American presidential system, where it has served to challenge the fiscal power of the president, and finds that PBOs perform an analogous function in parliamentary settings. The article then explores the PBO’s logic in parliamentary systems that exhibit evidence of presidentialisation, specifically examining the case of Canada. It finds that such budget offices mitigate the budgetary power of presidents, as well as prime ministers who are becoming more like presidents. They thereby offer a counterweight to the assertive fiscal tendencies of executives in presidentialising parliamentary systems.

Border‐crossing: The PBO, PCO and the boundary of the public service

AbstractThe Clerk of the Privy Council's (PCO) role in the 2012 confrontation with the Parliamentary Budget Officer is re‐examined as a case study in the imperatives of public service leadership in a system of responsible government. PCO's 2014 defence of the Clerk's conduct is contradicted both by the Clerk's text and by its own logical consequences. Both in form and substance, the Clerk crossed the boundary that should exist between public service and political values, and thus provided additional evidence of the need to re‐establish the necessary boundary between elected and unelected officials in a parliamentary democracy.