Page 38 - Parliament Budget Office Annual Report 2022-2023

To give effect to the governance and accountability requirements prescribed in section 15 of the amended Money Bills Act and fulfil mandate, the Office embarked on an organisational design and development (ODD) process through a contracted external government technical agency. The ODD project outputs, Governance and Reporting Framework (GRF) and Business Operational Management Framework (BOMF) must still undergo high-level internal stakeholder engagement processes.
The PBO, located in Programme 3: Transfers under the Joint Support Services sub-programme, is legislatively required to provide technical support to the Finance and Appropriations Committees of Parliament. Additional, the Office required to provide support to other parliamentary committees and members of parliament subject capacity and the request terms of reference.
Fifty-five cumulative annual performance outputs against twenty-eight core annual performance targets were produced during the 2022/23 financial year (FY). The performance outputs were produced in the main to support the public finance work of the finance, appropriations and other committees of Parliament. These outputs further include work the Office undertook during various stakeholder engagements and capacity building sessions for members of parliament.
In essence, the fifty-five performance outputs comprising of demand and supply-driven outputs, produced by analysts within the policy, economic and finance clusters. The outputs are categorized under the following five performance indicators as follows;
1. Budget analysis reports
a) Main budget and related instruments (Budget Review)
b) Adjustment Budget and related instruments
c) Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS)
2. Economic, policy, and fiscal briefs produced for keeping Members abreast of current affairs
a) Fiscal briefs
b) Policy analysis briefs
c) Quarterly Economic Brief (QEB)
3. Special reports: demand-driven requests from Committees
4. In-year revenue forecast analysis
5. Papers/presentations delivered to national and international forums and/or stakeholders
Overall, the role of the Parliamentary Budget Office was anchored on providing research and analyses that supported Parliament’s process of assessing the potential societal, economic and developmental impact of the budget. The Office’s research and analyses outputs aims to provide relevant and necessary knowledge and insights that support and empower MPs in their public finance oversight role; to strengthen the scrutiny and oversight capacity of Parliament over the Executive on complex public finance oversight matters.
The economic, fiscal and policy briefs produced served as information inputs in the overall public finance oversight decision-making process of parliamentary committees during the reporting period: they assisted members with their oversight responsibilities.
Furthermore, the research and analyses assisted MPs in their consideration of tabled reports and their understanding of potential financial implications for the budget. The topical research and analysis further kept MPs abreast of relevant developments in the public finance and broader economic landscape.
An integrated matrix workforce configuration was adopted to maximise the Office service delivery throughput to mitigate against limited workforce. The service delivery capacity was further strengthened by the its experienced workforce, timely access to credible & reliable information & data as well as valuable benchmarking best practices obtained from key domestic and international stakeholders.
Overall, a hundred percent performance rate was attained during the 2022/23 FY, a similar performance rate was achieved by the Office during the 2021/22 FY. The annual performance information aggregated per quarter is highlighted in the Figure 1. The quarterly performance picture indicates that the highest proportion of performance outputs were produced during the third and fourth quarters with the lowest production concentrated in the second quarter. Twelve outputs were produced in the first quarter which represented the third highest producing quarter. Aggregate cumulative quarterly performance targets were met.
Parliamentary Budget Office | Parliament of the Republic of South Africa
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