The Place of Spending Reviews Among Performance Analysis Tools

Abstract

Since 2019 Russia has been using a new management tool for improving the efficiency of state expenditures — spending reviews (SR) prepared by the Ministry of Finance to identify opportunities for more economical spending of state budget resources. Although this tool is quite popular among OECD countries, the article highlights a problem common to both OECD countries and Russia: lack of a clear distinction between the goals and objectives of SRs and previously existing ways of analyzing the efficiency of budget expenditures, such as the performance audits performed by the supreme audit institutions created by parliament as well as executive branch analyses of the efficiency of projects and programs carried out as part of performance-oriented budgeting. The main purpose of the article is to situate spending reviews among the other tools for managing budget expenditures and to address other problems that can affect the usefulness of spending reviews. The article analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of various options for delineating the functions and tasks of reviews and of audit or performance analyses carried out by the Accounts Chamber and the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia. Ways to select targets for review and to determine the content of various types of review are then proposed. The article also recommends legislative changes needed to increase the integration of SRs into the overall budget process so that their findings may be taken into account when modifying state programs and making budgetary allocations for the coming year. The article concludes that the reviews should be openly published and provide mechanisms for verifying the implementation of the decisions taken based on their results.