A transparent budget reduces the scope of leakages in public expenditure by empowering the elected representatives and citizens to scrutinize government actions by subjecting the factual basis on which allocations are made. This openness ensures that the government is vigilant that the data supporting their decisions is timely, accurate and verifiable. Improved transparency in the budget process can disclose the basis on which priorities are formulated and clarify the roles and responsibilities of individuals in the executive who take these decisions. Hence, a more open budgetary process both confers legitimacy on the budget process and the validity of executive decision holding the latter accountable for the budget policies made.

 Effective Legal Framework:

The objective of the legal framework is to ensure that the right checks and balances are in place and the roles and responsibilities of the legislature and executive branch of the government are clearly defined. The legal system also ensures that institutions such as the Auditor General, PAC, etc are kept independent and their powers well defined to establish accountability.

Comprehensive Budget Presentation:

The budget document should capture all the information of the financial transactions of the government, including the revenues collected, debts repaid in the financial year and the ones to be repaid, old and new liabilities to be incurred, etc. This will present the true financial status of the government thus enabling the policy makers to identify the areas that need attention.

The current estimation and accounting do not cover total transactions of the government, due to off budget items and single entry system. Further, the moneys parked with the executive agencies/ government bodies are escaping the monitoring and oversight of the Auditor General and Parliament/Legislature.
Presently, the budget is prepared for one year in most of the countries. Due to fear of funds lapsing many departments resort to rush of expenditure in the month of March giving raise to unnecessary and unproductive expenditures. Such a last minute rush happens due to many factors – poor cash management, lack of incentive to economize / save due to practice of basing future allocations on previous year’s actual expenditure and so on. Also one year is too short a span for many projects to be implemented. There is also a view that independent of the frequency (one year or more) of budget presentation, the actual exercise should involve a multi-year perspective. That is, there must be a medium term expenditure framework, which itself should be based on fairly long term goals/strategy.

Accurate and Timely Information and Projections

Accurate information regarding the requirements of the individual line departments is needed for the preparation of a quality budget to achieve the desired results. It is a prudent practice to assess utilization of funds allocated to the Department in the preceding year with the projection for the budget year.
           
Media and Dissemination Issues

The fundamental objective of the applied budget work is to bring closer the budget and budgetary process to the common population for improved transparency and accountability of Governance. The intention is not just to make an analysis but to enable a larger audience participate and contribute to the debate. Therefore, it is imperative to identify the target audience and prepare the report in a reader-friendly manner that will cater to the requirements of all. The media is an important component in the applied budget work since it has the capacity to reach large groups of target audience and hence, the budget groups involved in the applied budget work has to ensure that the media receives accurate information at the right time. The choice of the mode of media – whether print or audio-visual medium – has to be identified depending upon the target audience. In areas where literacy is low, the focus shall be on the use of radio to get across the analyses. Often the strategy calls for a combination of different types of media.

Stakeholders
Applied budget work, therefore has a vital role in the budget process helping in demystifying the complex budget statements in comprehensive, user-friendly analysis document to be used by a larger and wider group beyond the strategists, for appreciating and involving in better budget process. The stake holders of the applied budget work are: