Parliamentary budget offices: international experience

Parliamentary Budget Offices (PBOs) play an important role in providing independent and impartial fiscal analysis to support parliamentary decision-making and to improve the efficiency and transparency of public financial management.

The availability of such an analysis contributes to more realistic policy planning, while control at the stage of budget execution leads to greater discipline and correction of deviations from budget targets.

At the same time, the publication of analyzes and open public debate create a regime of transparency and strengthen the government's accountability, thus contributing to the achievement of medium-term goals. These functions are extremely important, especially in countries facing fiscal problems and a lack of transparency in the fiscal and budgetary spheres.

The place of the PBO in the structure of public authorities, its composition and functions vary considerably from country to country. There are three main approaches to the place of the PBO among other bodies:

1. The BOC as an independent body;
2. PBO as a part of the parliamentary apparatus;
3. The Accounting Chamber is included in the Supreme Audit Institution (similar to the Accounting Chamber in Ukraine).

The functions of the PBO also vary from country to country, but in most cases they include budget analysis, economic forecasting, policy costing, and monitoring of fiscal sustainability.

Therefore, experts of USAID RADA: Next Generation Program analyzed the CBOs in Canada, the United States, Italy, Greece, Georgia, Austria, and Australia to outline different models and choose the most appropriate one for the Ukrainian context.