In-Year Reports

In-Year Reports are issued during the year as the budget is being executed. They are intended to show the executive’s progress in implementing the budget. They typically show actual expenditure by administrative unit (ministries, departments, or agencies), to ensure that they are held accountable for their expenditure. In some countries, the administrative units issue the reports individually, while in other countries the information is consolidated into one report, which is typically issued by the Treasury.

Assessing the public availability of the IYR
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 IYRs to be considered publicly available, IYRs must be made available to the public no later than three months after the reporting period ends. If at least seven of the last 12 monthly IYRs, or at least three of the last four quarterly IYRs are not released to the public at least three months after the reporting period ends, 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 IYRs. See Question IYRs-2 for more information.

Questions on the PBS in the OBS

 * Questions on the IYRs in the OBS