Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 25th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview V. Public Finance and Management Author(s) Dejan Ravšelj University of Ljubljana Ljubljana Slovenia Aristovnik Aleksander, Title The Evaluation of Performance-based Budgeting in Slovenia: The Case of R&D Policy File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract Many countries around the world are confronted with insufficient and limited budgetary resources. These countries are therefore constantly looking for ways to reform their public finances and their management so as to introduce a transparent method for efficiently managing and allocating budgetary resources. One such solution is to introduce performance-based budgeting, representing the practice of developing budgets based on the relationship between programme funding levels and results expected of that programme. As a key element of good governance, transparency is also very important in this matter since it reveals openness about policy intentions, formulation and implementation. Namely, a budget that is not transparent, accessible and accurate cannot be properly analysed. Further, its implementation cannot be thoroughly monitored or its outcomes evaluated. In Slovenia, the Public Finance Act legally defined performance-based budgeting in 1999. This was necessary to establish due to the inclusion of Slovenia in an international integration (International Monetary Fund), the management of a common economic policy (European Union) and due to the rise in economic competitiveness when developing the European and global links. Some of the provisions were first used in preparation of the state budget for 2001. However, a programme budget at the state level, which is divided by policies, was structurally established in the budget for 2011. The aim of this paper is twofold. In the first part, the paper tries to present what are generally major milestones important for the introduction and development of performance-based budgeting in Slovenia. Further, it tries to evaluate budget transparency as a prerequisite for its monitoring and evaluating. In the second part, the paper focuses on R&D policy and attempts to connect implementation of the budget with the results of the aforementioned policy. In this paper, qualitative and quantitative research methods will be applied. With qualitative research methods, national and foreign papers as well as government documents related to the topic of performance-based budgeting will be analysed. Using quantitative research methods, budget implementation and the R&D policy results will be analysed. The results of this paper will reveal the development stage of performance-based budgeting in Slovenia and its accomplishment in terms of R&D policy.
