Effective public sector budgeting is key to effective public service delivery and the budget is the way a public sector body expresses its priorities. And public sector bodies are more than ever faced with limited resources and competing priorities because of high levels of demand for public services, often driven by economic uncertainty. So effective budgeting processes and control of budget execution and service delivery performance are essential to ensure the best use of resources to achieve their objectives.

This workshop focuses on the key financial and operational risks across the whole public financial management cycle at all levels of public administration, including EU, national and sub-national level and at organisational, departmental and unit level i.e. budgeting, the execution of budgets and the delivery of services and including the role of auditors in ensuring that public sector bodies manage risks by exercising effective control over finances and services. 

It will address key issues such as how to effectively apply performance budgeting, stakeholder impact budgets (such as gender-based budgeting), how to make realistic choices about prioritising public sector expenditure to make best use of limited resources, how to link budgets to service priorities, how to prepare public sector budgets in difficult times and how to use them as a tool for managing public services, including setting and using KPIs and when and how to react to emerging unfavourable outcomes. The workshop aims to help you face the key challenges in your own environment, what to do at different stages of the process and how to do it, using the practical experience of experts who have faced these challenges in different EU Member States and at different levels of government.

By the end of the workshop you will have gained a better understanding of:

• The role of budgeting in public financial management;
• The current context/challenges for budgeting for finance staff/budget users at organisational, departmental and activity level;
• How to identify and manage the most commonly arising financial and operational risks in the budget preparation process;
• How to identify and manage the key risks to the sustainability of the finances of a public sector body across the entire public financial management cycle;
• How to identify and manage the most common financial/operational risks in the execution of budgets/delivery of services;
• How auditors can contribute to the exercise of effective control over finances and services and how they can assist bodies to improve their management of finances and services.

How will it help you?
The workshop is based on presentations, practical exercises and case studies from different EU Member States, with an emphasis on a high level of interactivity. It will offer an excellent platform to discuss specific issues which you are currently facing and exchange experiences/challenges in budgeting, financial management/operational service management at all levels of government.

Who will most benefit?
This workshop will be of particular relevance to officials and experts from European institutions and agencies, ministries, national executive agencies, regional governments, municipalities and other public sector bodies such as educational institutions, i.e.:

• Finance professionals, who are responsible for preparing budgets, financial management reports and final accounts;
• Service managers, who need to understand budgets, financial management reports and operational management reports so that they can use them to plan and manage their services;
• Auditors, who are responsible for ensuring that public sector bodies exercise effective control over finances and services and assisting bodies to improve their management of finances and services.

“The days of the politics of “and” are over - Budgeting is now about making choices based on the needs of stakeholders about what services to deliver and how much”
Michael Burnett

“Everyone who cares about high-quality, inclusive and responsive public services needs to care about budgeting”
Ronnie Downes

Project leader

Michael Burnett BA FCA

MCIPS MCIPD

profile activities

For more information about the event, please contact:

Belinda Vetter

b.vettereipa.eu