Budget and Financial Oversight Workshop

November 8-10, 2006

London, United Kingdom

The workshop considered parliament’s role in the budget process and allowed participants to share experiences and practice from their own countries.

The program focused on understanding the budget and parliamentary involvement in:

1. The contents of the budget;

2. Presentation of the budget;

3. Approval of the budget;

4. Consideration of the budget;

5. The role of upper houses, second chambers, and federal systems; and

6. Post-approval review.

Each session compromised a set of questions and each parliamentary participant presented the answers to these questions in light of their own countries experience and practice.  The resource people complemented these examples with other examples from countries outside of those represented in the Study Group. 

Participants appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the Uganda Parliamentary Budget Office, a unique example in the Commonwealth, and several proposed investigating the setting up of a similar structure in their own countries.  Other noted examples of good practice were the Charter of Budget Honesty in Australia, and the practice of media publishing a Civil Society ‘wish list’ in Trinidad and Tobago that is taken into account by government and parliament when creating and debating the budget.

Agenda(PDF 69 kb)    l   Photo (PDF 606kb)

Participants

Parcipants included parliamentarians from Australia, Sri Lanka, India, Malawi, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, and Madagascar, along with resource people from WBI, the CPA Secretariat, the Parliament of New Zealand, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and Uganda’s Parliamentary Budget Office. Madagascar is not a member of the Commonwealth, and the participants from Madagascar brought a valuable perspective from outside the Commonwealth and from francophone Africa.

To view the full participant list, please click here (PDF 60 kb).