Balancing Control and Flexibility in Public Budgeting

"The execution and management of budgets and public resources are among the most important but least understood aspects of public administration. This new assessment of public budgeting constitutes a path breaking framework to illuminate the trade-offs and consequences of various forms of budget flexibility for public accountability and efficiency. At a time of persistent austerity sweeping over fiscal systems throughout the world, such a framework is vital to help nations adjust to new rules and limits on budgetary resources imposed by publics, markets and multinational institutions." (Professor Paul L. Posner, Director of the Centers on the Public Service, George Mason University, USA; Past President, American Society for Public Administration; author of The Politics of Unfunded Mandates) "This book breaks new ground in the theory and practice of flexible resourcing in the public sector. It offers a novel application of responsive regulatory approaches to the inner workings of government, and will undoubtedly influence the development of public management frameworks. Di Francesco and Alford take a fresh look at the costly ways entrenched budget rules exact control, and show how, if applied very differently, the same rules can deliver regulators with greater precision and service providers with expanded potentiality." (Professor Gary Banks, Dean of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government; Chair of the Regulatory Policy Committee of the OECD; formerly Chairman of the Australian Productivity Commission)

This work explores how reshaping budget rules and how they are applied presents a preferred means of public sector budgeting, rather than simply implementing fewer rules.This work explores how reshaping budget rules and how they are applied presents a preferred means of public sector budgeting, rather than simply implementing fewer rules. Through enhanced approaches to resource flexibility, government entities can ensure that public money is used appropriately while achieving the desired results. The authors identify public budgeting practices that inhibit responses to complex problems and examine how rule modification can lead to expanded budget flexibility. Through a nuanced understanding of the factors underlying conventional budget control, the authors use budget reforms in Australia to show the limits of rule modification and propose "rule variability" as a better means of recalibrating central control and situational flexibility. Here, policy makers and public management academics will find a source that surveys emerging ways of reconciling control and flexibility in the public sector.iv>