The results of Budget Watch OE 2022 highlight the importance of improving budget transparency and rigor.
The initiative was developed with IPP in partnership with ISEG.
The Institute of Public Policy - Lisbon, released this Friday, May 27, the final results of another edition of the project Budget WatchThe aim of this initiative is to analyze the 2022 State Budget Proposal (SB) from the perspective of rigor, transparency and budgetary responsibility, and it is an exclusively technical, independent and objective analysis. This IPP initiative is being carried out in partnership with ISEG and the Expresso newspaper.
The project's main activity lies in the analysis of the SB Report by a Scientific Advisory Board (made up of academics from various national and international universities) from the perspective of 10 principles of budgetary responsibility: transparency and rigor; political responsibility; budget balances consistent with a sustainable level of debt; control of public consumption, health and social security spending; trade-offs between policy objectives; financial flows between the public administration and the public business sector; public investment and PPPs; solidarity between levels of administration; and incorporation of improvements in the budgetary process. The Council's analysis is complemented by an internal report (the Budget Watch Report), and its executive summary and recommendations are made publicly available.
This analysis results in the IPP/ISEG Budget Index (an index from 0 to 100 of the rigor and transparency of the Budget). Despite a slight improvement on the overall figure achieved this year, the IPP/ISEG Budget Index still classifies the SB Report for 2022 as insufficient (with a score of 47.4%) in terms of its budgetary rigor and transparency, which is certainly not unrelated to the impact of the current geopolitical context and the pandemic, which highlight the importance of transparency and scrutiny of public accounts.
