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South Africa’s MTEF Effective expenditure for development. Malawi Poverty Monitoring System Workshop 24-26 July 2002. What is the MTEF?. MTEF sets out 3-year rolling spending and revenue plans for national and provincial government 2002 Budget is the 5th MTEF budget tabled in Parliament.
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South Africa’s MTEF Effective expenditure for development Malawi Poverty Monitoring System Workshop 24-26 July 2002
What is the MTEF? • MTEF sets out 3-year rolling spending and revenue plans for national and provincial government • 2002 Budget is the 5th MTEF budget tabled in Parliament
Advantages of a MTEF • Greater certainty for depts to plan and budget for services in line with policy priorities • Affordable spending in the medium term • Strengthened political decision-making and accountability • Greater transparency of budget and service delivery information for the public • Improved management of public finances
Key budget format reforms... • Extension of medium term information in the • 7-yr trend information enables comparative analysis • Service delivery information - specifying outputs and output measures and indicators • Emphasises ‘value for money’ • Move towards quantity, quality, timelines and cost measures and indicators in subsequent Budgets • Tracking and making progress in service delivery is key message
Budgeting for service delivery • Helps departments plan, budget and manage programmes better • Improves accountability and control • Informs policy- and decision making • Provides information to the public about what goods and services government ‘buys’
2001 Budget…. • First step: Depts asked to develop output or quantity indicators • For certain policy depts, quality and timeliness indicators proved more appropriate • Considerable difficulties experience in defining meaningful and manageable indicators • Learning by doing • NB to ensure policy and budget teams work together
Key problems identified • Benefits of measuring performance not fully understood • Limited collaboration between financial and operational staff • Inconsistent interpretation of terminology • Departments made use measures that are readily available
2002 Budget... • Key message: consolidate and improve service delivery indicators • Depts to develop service delivery targets or milestones for each measure or indicator that has been identified • Quality, timeliness, and cost measures & indicators the focus in future years • Change of mindset towards performance monitoring is required • Is an iterative process that takes time
Measuring service delivery... • Focus on: • Getting the terminology right • clarifies how service delivery and performance measurement tools are used • Assisting departments to • specify appropriate measurable objectives and outputs, • develop robust output measures and indicators and • set realistic targets
Getting the terminology right • Outcomes • The end result that Government wants to achieve and refers particularly to the general state of wellbeing in the community. ‘safe and secure environment, healthy citizens, etc’ • Indicators • Assess the impact of programme outputs on the desired outcomes that Government wants to achieve. ‘rate of repeat offenders being jailed’
Specifying outputs • Outputs • Answers the question ‘ what it is we deliver?’ • Output is a final good or service that is delivered to external clients • Important factors that apply when describing outputs, are: • External focus (avoid activities and management outputs) • Fall within the control and accountability of department • Comprehensive
Service delivery measures & indicators should be... • Simple, clearly expressed and specific • Reliable • Easily measurable • Manageable • Ensure accountability
Why measure performance? • Some of the more common reasons are: • Enhances the quality of services • Contributes to better budgeting • Assists in the application of management accountability • A more important reason has emerged: • Ascertain the extent to which programme outputs are improving the social and economic wellbeing of a community.
Cycle of reporting • Requirement of ‘forward-looking’ strategic plans for 2002-2004 • Service delivery outputs, measures and targets • Budget format draws summary of service delivery information presented in strategic plan • ‘Past reviewing’ Annual report reviews service delivery progress and achievements against targets set out in strategic plan
Budgeting for service delivery • Tracking output measures and indicators in terms of service delivery targets informs departmental managers, policy and decision-makers and the public about the progress that Government makes towards meeting its objectives