Analysis is the process by which issues are separated into their component parts and each part and the interaction among the parts are systematically investigated. Later the components of an issue are put back together in a logical way to support a conclusion and recommendation. Finance uses the analytic process to develop recommendations on budget proposals, legislation, and other initiatives and issues that may financially impact the State. Preparing solid recommendations is the foundation for our advisory role to the Governor's Office and our role in representing the Administration.
- Fiscal — Finance's primary role is to provide analyses of fiscal issues or problems. To that end, we review budget change proposals, legislation, initiatives, regulations, and reports to analyze fiscal impacts. Fiscal analyses answer such questions as: How much will (or should) this proposal or program cost (or save) the State? How much revenue will it generate?
- Policy — While not our main role, Finance staff may also perform policy analysis such as when reviewing legislative proposals. Policy analysis is intended to help decision-makers make choices about governmental programs and governmental regulation of individuals and organizations. Policy analysis focuses on such questions as: What is the likely impact of this policy on the public in general, and on specific groups or organizations? Policy analysis can be done from the perspective of known priorities and policies, or without such political preconditions.
- Policy combined with fiscal — Most often Finance’s analyses include a combination of fiscal and policy issues. For example, Finance analysts review a Budget Change Proposal to assess the reasonableness of the estimated fiscal impacts but also assess the proposed policy objective in relation to the Administration’s priorities. The resulting recommendation thus may indicate that the proposed funding augmentation (or reduction) should be modified depending on whether the policy objective is deemed to be of high or low priority by the Administration. The recommendation may also suggest an option that provides a lower (or higher) level of attainment of the policy objective, including arguments supporting that level.
A government budget is a government document presenting the government's proposed revenues and spending for a financial year. The government budget balance, also alternatively referred to as general government balance, public budget balance, or public fiscal balance, is the overall difference between government revenues and spending. A positive balance is called a government budget surplus, and a negative balance is a government budget deficit. A budget is prepared for each level of government (from national to local) and takes into account public social security obligations.
The government budget balance is further differentiated by closely related terms such as primary balance and structural balance (also known as cyclically-adjusted balance) of the general government. The primary budget balance equals the government budget balance before interest payments. The structural budget balances attempts to adjust for the impacts of the real GDP changes in the national economy.
Budget analysts help public and private institutions organize their finances. They prepare budget reports and monitor institutional spending.
Budget analysts typically do the following:
‒ Work with program and project managers to develop the organization's budget
‒ Review managers' budget proposals for completeness, accuracy, and compliance with laws and other regulations
‒ Combine all the program and department budgets together into a consolidated organizational budget and review all funding requests for merit
‒ Explain their recommendations for funding requests to others in the organization, legislators, and the public
‒ Help the chief operations officer, agency head, or other top managers analyze proposed plans and find alternatives if the projected results are unsatisfactory
‒ Monitor organizational spending to ensure that it is within budget
‒ Inform program managers of the status and availability of funds
‒ Estimate future financial needs
Budget analysts advise various institutions—including governments, universities, and businesses on how to organize their finances. They prepare annual and special reports and evaluate budget proposals. They analyze data to determine the costs and benefits of various programs and recommend funding levels based on their findings. Although elected officials (in government) or top executives (in a private company) usually make the final decision on an organization's budget, they rely on the work of budget analysts to prepare the information for that decision.
Sometimes, budget analysts use cost-benefit analyses to review financial requests, assess program tradeoffs, and explore alternative funding methods. Budget analysts also may examine past budgets and research economic and financial developments that affect the organization's income and expenditures. Budget analysts may recommend program spending cuts or redistributing extra funds.
The 'Budget System Reform in Uzbekistan projects works to support the Government in reforming Uzbekistan’s public finance system, through ensuring the greater effectiveness, accountability and transparency of the budget preparation system.The ‘Budget System Reform in Uzbekistan’ project intends to improve budget policy, facilitate discussions on drafting and adopting legislative acts to promote reforms in results-based budgeting and medium-term budget planning, improve legal and regulatory frameworks to ensure efficient and transparent state procurement, and strengthen human resource capacity.
The initiative works to support the development of a legal framework to enhance public finance management reform, to promote the introduction of Results-Based Budgeting and Strategic Planning and the level of ministries and budget recipients, and to facilitate the improvement of the public procurement system while assisting in the development of appropriate legislative framework. The project also works to enhance fiscal decentralisation by improving intergovernmental fiscal relations and capacity building and by developing incentives at the local level, to introduce the concept of gender budgeting, and to strengthen the Training Centre under the Ministry of Finance and enhance its human resource capacity.
Dwelling on some particularities of the Budget code of Uzbekistan it is clear that it was adopted on the basis of two act namely, the Law “On the Budget System” as well as the Law On Treasury execution of the State Budget”. As for the Budget Code itself, it consists of two parts which are elucidated with the names of general and special parts.
General Part determines the budget system’s operation principles appropriate in international practice, consolidates the authorities of all budgetary process participants, defines the structure of the State Budget, revenues and expenditures of budgets at all levels as well as those of State Targeted Funds.
Special Part of the Budget Code regulates the budget process itself, namely the procedures for budget formulation, review and approval by the Oliy Majlis, its execution accounting and reporting, and controlling of budget execution as well as responsibility for infringement of budget legislation.
Some peculiarities of Uzbekistan Budget Code should be highlighted, for instance, new definitions used in budget legislation have been specified, principles of the budget system have been included, definitions, content and main principles of new budget classification developed in compliance with international guidelines have been specified, authorities of all budgetary process participants have been consolidated and specified, general norms and procedures for the formation and use of State Targeted Funds have been defined in line with the budgetary process, consolidated budget goals and content have been specified as well.
Furthermore, it should be included that a basis for mid-term budget planning was established and program budgeting tools have been introduced to ensure the result orientation of budget allocations, the concept of emergency budget has been defined and conditions for its formation have been identified etc, procedures for drafting and registration of expenditure estimates have been simplified, consolidation and harmonization of the norms and procedures for budget execution envisaged in the Law “On the Budget System” and the Law “On the Treasury Execution of the State Budget”, all types of budget transfers including mutual settlements have been specified, procedures for making modifications have been simplified and the amounts proposed modifications have been specified etc.
Turning to the data back of budget execution, it is maintained as Treasury-based budget execution. Treasury is a specially authorized financial institution performing, together with its territorial divisions, treasury-based execution of budgets of the budget system.
Treasury personal accounts are opened:
‒ By the levels of budgets of the budget system;
‒ By the state budget revenues and public trust funds;
‒ To budget organizations and the recipients of budget funds etc.
Treasury based execution of the revenue side of the budget system provides:
‒ Entering the incomings in TSA and other bank accounts of the Ministry of Finance;
‒ Distribution of incomings among the budgets within the budget system;
‒ Return of unnecessarily or incorrectly paid amounts of incomings or their credit to clear the liabilities;
‒ Accounting and reporting etc.
By way of conclusion, it should be regarded that analysis in Budget system is very pivotal as it is the unique way to control as well as to investigate the drawbacks within it. Furthermore, it is clear that Budget system of Uzbekistan as well as the Code of this sphere is in the process of development though not fully free from some demerits yet.
