EBP-2

When is the EBP made available to the public?
 * a. At least three months in advance of the budget year, and in advance of the budget being approved by the legislature
 * b. At least two months, but less than three months, in advance of the budget year, and in advance of the budget being approved by the legislature
 * c. Less than two months in advance of the budget year, but at least in advance of the budget being approved by the legislature
 * d. The EBP is not released to the public, or is released after the budget has been approved by the legislature

Guidelines
Publicly available budget documents are defined as those documents that are published on the website of the public authority issuing the document within the time frame specified in the OBS methodology and that all citizens are able to obtain free of charge. (See the Open Budget Survey Guidelines on Public Availability of Budget Documents.) This is a change from previous rounds of the Open Budget Survey: now at minimum documents must be made available on the Internet and free of charge to be considered publicly available.

The OBS methodology requires that for an EBP to be considered publicly available, it must be made available to the public while the legislature is still considering it and before the legislature approves (enacts) it. If the EBP is not released to the public before the legislature approves (enacts) it, option “d” applies. Option “d” should also be chosen for documents that are produced for internal purposes only (that is, produced but never released to the public) or are not produced at all. Some governments may publish budget documents further in advance than the latest possible dates outlined above. In these instances, researchers should choose options “a” or “b,” depending on the date of publication identified for the EBP.

The OBS definition of an Executive’s Budget Proposal is a document(s) that (i) the executive submits to the legislature as a formal part of the budget approval process and (ii) the legislature either approves or on which it approves proposed amendments. The OBS will treat the Executive’s Budget Proposal as “Not Produced,” in the following cases:
 * The executive does not submit the draft budget to the legislature; or
 * The legislature receives the draft budget but does not approve it or does not approve recommendations on the draft budget;
 * The legislature rejects the draft budget submitted by the executive, but the executive implements it without legislative approval; or
 * There is no legislature, or the legislature has been dissolved.

1) The case of Sweden in OBS 2019
According to their constitution, Sweden should release the Executive’s Budget Proposal at the latest every year by September 20 (which would put it more than three months before the start of their budget year, which is the calendar year). If the election results in a change of government that latest date is set at November 15. Elections held September 9, 2018, resulted in a hung parliament. No new government had been agreed upon even at the end of 2018. The FY2019 EBP was therefore presented on November 15, 2018 by the Red-Green Coalition (the government of 2014-September 8, 2018). In this case we might think the answer to EBP-2 (“When is the EBP made available to the public?”) is answer "c", but the delay in timing was due solely to the election results and was within the rules of election years in Swedish law. Should the EBP from the previous fiscal year be used? Note: the EBP approved in November 2018 is as comprehensive as those for earlier fiscal years, so the only indicator likely to be impacted is EBP-2.

After discussing at our team meeting, we came to the conclusion that for the OBS 2019, we should assess the FY2019 EBP. This is because according to the OBS methodology, we assess the timeliness of documents based on when they were published relative to the OBS guidelines (and international good practice), not according to deadlines established in a country’s laws. While Swedish law allows the government to present and publish the EBP late during an election year, it does not influence our assessment of public availability. In this case, the EBP will of course be considered publicly available, but the score on the indicator that assesses timeliness (EBP-2) will slip from “a” to “c.”

2) The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina in OBS 2019
According to Article 10 of Bosnia’s “Law on Financing of the Institutions of BiH,” the Presidency must submit the EBP for the upcoming fiscal year (which is a calendar fiscal year) to the Parliamentary Assembly by 1 November of the current year. Furthermore, the Parliamentary Assembly is then obligated to adopt the EBP no later than 31 December of the current year.

Due to protracted political gridlock, these deadlines to submit the FY2019 EBP were missed, and Bosnia’s Council of Ministers promulgated a “Decision on Temporary Financing of BiH Institutions and International Obligations for the period January – March 2019.” This was done using authority granted in Article 11 of the Law on Financing, which allows interim funding for up to one quarter of the new FY budget based on the most recently enacted EB.

Faced with the lack of a published EBP for FY2019 as of 31 December 2018, the researcher deemed the EBP not publicly available. However, because no EB for FY2019 had yet been approved, and because continuing resolutions such as the “Decision on Temporary Financing…” are not considered EBs either, we instructed the researcher to consider the EBP (and EB) for FY2018.

2) The case of South Sudan in OBS 2021
South Sudan has a July to June fiscal year, and so should have passed a new budget for FY 2020/21 prior to the start of that fiscal year on July 1st. They did not. In fact, it was only in October 2020 that the Council of Ministers approved their ceilings for FY 2020/21. Our partner and UNICEF were both fairly optimistic that the MOF will likely produce a budget proposal before 31 December 2020. Question from David: if South Sudan were to produce an EBP for 2020/21 and publish prior to being enacted into law and prior to the upcoming research cut-off date, would we consider that document as publicly available? Answer choice “c” seems to leave the door open to publicly available EBP’s that occur after the fiscal year starts. I’ve told UNICEF that if the EBP is published prior to December 31, we could consider it publicly available next round – but I want to make sure we are comfortable with that.

Resolution: Since South Sudan did not publish any interim funding resolutions to fund the first part of the fiscal year; since there was nothing approved by the legislature that could be considered an EB; and since this does fall into our guidelines, even though it is a bit of a stretch, we did accept the EBP as publicly available in this case.