Public Sector Budgeting Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Public Sector Budgeting - Assignment Example It is majorly done by the executive and should not be made a secretive process. The first important step of this stage is to set a fiscal policy and it involves estimation of the resources available for spending. The treasury department will then issue a directive of spending to all the departments based on the policy framework (Khan & Hildreth, 2002). Negotiations will follow between the spending departments and the treasury with a bid to allocate the resources. The process then ends with the development of a consolidated draft budget that is approved by the cabinet or a higher political authority that will deliberate on the contentious issues before moving to the next budget stage. After drafting a comprehensive budget, the document will be laid before the legislature for approval. Government regulations bar the executive from making expenditures without obtaining sanction from the legislature. Parliament will closely scrutinize the draft budget and has the option of approving, rej ecting, amending or in some cases substituting the draft that is presented by the executive (Khan & Hildreth, 2002). The legislature will also have the mandate of approving the relevant laws on taxation before they take effect. It is important to notice that the period taken by the legislature in approving the budget varies from country to counter. Once approved, the budget process enters the implementation stage, which marks the commencement of a fiscal year. The implementation process is in the hands of the executive, which allocates the resources to the departments in line with the approved estimates. The legislature however may monitor the executive in the process to ensure that they don’t deflect t from the estimates. In the developing economies, the executive may have to cut on some approved expenditures to take care of emerging circumstances. Where the emergency requires substantial amounts, the legislature will have to approve the new estimates to protect the minority rights. The final stage is the accounting and financial reporting stage. At this stage an independent auditor is vested with the mandate of analyzing the government accounts and government reports with the objective of giving an opinion on whether the implementation has been done in a desirable manner. The report should be made in a timely manner and with recommendations that will be reflected in future budgets in order to improve future public accounting and budgeting. Reports should be made in a timely manner to ensure that the official who might be responsible for loss of public resources are convicted for their actions before their retirement or after they had left public service. The budget process is not an event and is an ongoing process that is interconnected. Legislature participation should not be limited to approval and review of the audit findings. Parliament should be empowered to ensure that they make the executive responsible for proper implementation of the budget. B The public sector and private sector budgeting have similarities and differences in some ways. Private sector budgeting is driven by the market and that of the public sector is constrained by resources from taxation. It therefore means that both the public and private sector budgets have some constraints. Secondly, both the private and public and private sector budgeting have objectives. For the private the aim is to make profits while public budgeting is service to the serve the