What is publicly available information? IBP defines it as information that is available through well defined procedures, or information that is available only by request. In cases where requests through proper procedure is made but denied, the information is deemed unavailable.
The Questionnaire measures transparency of government budget and spending in countries with a set of 122 multiple choice questions to be completed by one researcher from a civil or academic organization. 91 questions address specific issues that form the Open Budget Index.
The structure of these questions is based on the 7 documents to be produced in the process of forming a budget:
The Budget Process: Document
Executive Formulates the Budget: Pre-budget Statement
Legislative Consideration: Executive's budget proposal/citizens Budget
Executive Implements the Budget: In-year reports/mid-year reports
Year-End Reporting and Monitoring: Year-end report/Auditor's report
Government officials do not participate in questionnaire, although they are interviewed in some cases by researchers.
A peer review system is done with two reviewers and conflicts in information are resolved by the IBP. The IBP and its 59 partner organizations also go through a process of clarifying the results. In India, the exchange between IBP and CBGA is done online.
In the last(also the first ever) Open Budget Questionnaire, only 6 out of the 59 countries scored well(above 80%) overall. India scored 51%.
The list of top 6 countries were a suprise to me: France, SLovenia, South Africa, New Zealand, United States and UK. In the case of budget transparency, a country's stage of development is not always an indicator, developing countries often make data available in order to obtain favorable treatment. A General Data Dissemination System developed by the IMF is used.
If the goal of the questionaire is to evaluate availability of infomation, the purpose of presenting India's status should be about the accessibility of this information both in format and in content. The format will be in paper documents, most likely in black and white. The content, because the questionaire goes into much detail will have to be edited for the audience.
Supplementary information is probably also useful. A basic knowledge of the Budget process, relevant terms should be discussed in the document.
India's scores:
Overall 51
Executive Budget Proposal 55
Pre Budget Statement 0 - not produced
In Year reports 81
Mid year 50
Year end 38
Auditor 83
In the reporting of these scores, it should also be noted that there is no report of the economic classification of the budget nor is there reporting of future expanditures for multi year budgeting on long term projects. No interest rates are reported on debts and no inflation rates are applied to expenditures. Sometimes figures on expenditures are misrepresented or misleading when projects are combined or continues for more than one year. Defense expenditure is heavily debated becuase of the completely hidden spending on classified projects - this may be a common situation among even the most transparent budgets.
Not all these problems can be represented graphically, but some, such as time scale, inflation, and consistency in scoring can be effectively communicated.
Questions:
The standard how what where whys:
How are documents provided? the report is done on paper and available on the CBGA website as well as on the IBP website along with other countries surveyed.
How extensive are they?
How are people currently using it? examples?
Is there a record of requests? who are they? individuals? organizations?
Other standards:
What are relevant terms?
What is the base of information that it assumes in readers?
Needs of CBGA:
Will comparison between countries be beneficial?
Graphics:
IBP does the report incolor, can we automate color into bw pattern for these documents?
How can different simple methods of graphing be used effectively. Is there a way to automate and predetermine matches between datasets and methods of representation?
Existing tools?
No comments:
Post a Comment