COVID-19 and the need for public sector bodies to rethink priorities will make budgeting and service delivery decisions even more difficult in the coming years.

This will affect the public sector at all levels – European, national and sub-national. Since 2011 this EIPA course has helped experienced finance professionals and service managers make better decisions for delivering services to citizens – and in 2021 we are again partnering with OECD’s Territorial Governance Department to do so.

This year we will be concentrating on how COVID-19 has affected the public financial management cycle – budgeting, budget execution, planning and delivery of services and how it impacts on key financial/operational risks.

We cover how to:

• Prepare public sector budgets and service plans in difficult times by making realistic choices about priorities and thus make best use of limited resources;
• Link budgets to service priorities;
• Use budgetary control and operational performance management as tools to manage public services, including setting/using KPIs and when/how to deal with budget overspends and unfavourable service delivery outcomes.

We also cover stakeholder impact budgets (such as gender-based budgeting), the role of multi-annual budgets and the challenges in performance budgeting.

Course methodology

To help you to do so we will give you:

• Initial input with presentations on key issues on budgeting, financial management and operational service management and service planning;
• Examples/case studies to show you what happens in practice at EU, national and sub-national level;
• Adequate time to discuss with our experts and other participants issues arising in your situation.

By the end of the workshop you will:

• Better understand the role of budgeting in the public sector and why it matters;
• Be able to deal more effectively with the current challenges for budgeting and service planning for finance staff and service managers;
• Achieve better co-operation between finance staff and service managers to improve public service planning and delivery;
• Be able to identify/manage the most commonly arising financial and operational risks in budget preparation and planning for service delivery;
• Be able to identify/manage the commonly arising financial and operational risks in the execution of the budget and in management of service delivery;
• Better understand how auditors can help public sector bodies to improve their management of finances/services.

If you are a finance professional or service manager in the public sector, come and share experiences with your peers and learn from our experts to deal with the difficult challenges you are facing.

“The days of the politics of “and” are over – Budgeting is about making choices about what services to deliver to citizens and in what way”
Michael Burnett

Read Michael Burnett’s blog ‘Understanding the public sector financial management cycle’