Global budget
In the case of public budgets, a global budget or global budget is a method of providing funds in which only a lump sum is approved. The administrative organization can dispose of this amount largely independently. Internally, it has to distribute the amount to individual units as part of a distribution of funds .
Global budgeting principles
Global budgeting in its pure form forms the structural framework for decentralizing budgetary responsibility within the administration. It creates the opportunity
- To offset expense types or expenses against each other, ie for example with less material expenses, the personnel expenses can be increased accordingly (mutual coverage ).
- To offset expenses and income or income against each other, ie for example additional expenses (personnel positions) can be financed with additional income (false cover eligibility).
This gives the administrative managers new scope for managing resources. At the same time, however, you have to ensure that the net sum of the expenses is not exceeded.
International terms
The term global budget comes from Austria, in Germany the term global budget is used again. In French , the term enveloppe budgetaire is often used in combination with a mandat de prestations (performance mandate ).
In the English-speaking world, different terms are used for global budgeting. The more British-oriented countries often speak of one-line budgeting . This addresses the fact that with the net expenditure only one line is legally fixed in the budget. The more American-oriented countries often speak of lump-sum budgeting . This puts the lump sum (“lump-sum”) compensation for certain services in the foreground.
The term global budgeting is also mistakenly used as a literal translation from German into English. This term makes no sense in English ("worldwide housekeeping").
Connection with performance targets
The global budget gives management executives (public managers) more room for maneuver in the use of their resources.
Compared to politics, this gain in freedoms is usually compensated by a more specific specification of the performance and / or impact goals. The new channel for influencing the administration is no longer the budget, but the performance and impact goals.
If financial resources are tied to the services to be provided (specification of the services), one speaks of a product budget or, in Switzerland, of a product (group) budget ( performance budget ).
Without the connection to performance specifications, the global budget weakens the influence of politics. Protagonists of New Public Management , on the other hand, emphasize that politics gains influence over administration if it exhausts its possibilities of performance control.
The provision of funds through global budgets is widespread among universities .
literature
- Donatella Pulitano: New Public Management. Terminologie - terminologie - terminologia , Bern: Paul Haupt (2000)
- Kuno Schedler , Isabella Proeller: New Public Management , Bern: Paul Haupt (2000)
- Stefan Rieder, Thomas Widmer: Cantons in Transition , Bern: Paul Haupt (2007)