PPA 603

Public Budget Cycle

The Budget Cycle:

The budget is more than just a single document-it is a year-long cycle whose different phases offer civil society varying access points to influence how public resources are raised and spent and, ultimately, the budget's desired outcomes.

This "budget cycle" can be broken down into four major events or stages:

• Formulation-when the executive branch puts together the budget plan

• Approval-when the legislature debates, alters (if it has the power to do so), and approves the budget plan

• Execution (implementation, monitoring, and control)-when the government implements the policies in the budget

• Oversight (auditing and legislative assessment)-when the national audit institution and the legislature account for and assess the...