Budgeting and Budgetary Control in the Public Sector Research Proposal Paper

 

Budgeting and Budgetary Control in the Public Sector

 

RATIONALE

Public budget preparation is one of the tedious tasks that any countries should look upon. The preparation process for the annual budget involves a great deal of energy, time, and expense. Hence, it is important that a country must be able to follow accurately all the methods of preparing an annual budget. Budgeting is defined as a form of financial planning and such budget is utilised to impose the strategy of a country. Consequently, a budget is composed of different functional budgets that could help a country for such development such as agriculture, technology, tourism, and other budgets. The combination of each functional budget made up the capital budget, master budget and even the cash flow budget which consists of income and balance sheets (Smith, & Mcgeary, 1997).

Aside from determining the financial needs, other purpose of budgeting is to assess the social spending in any country (Schmidt, 1992). Other essential reasons for having a budget plan is to effectively allocate resources, coordination, rendering tasks, dimensioning of the activities of the country, efficient communication and a foundation for incentive systems.

In budgeting, the focus is not only to prepare the budget, but more importantly to have a follow-up operation for budgeting and to act according to known data. In addition, budgets are also known as a financial expression of a country’s plan for a period of time (Falk, 1994).  It tells where and how the organisation will spend money and where the money will come from to pay these expenses. Budgets also set limits.  Imagine how chaotic an industry or country would be if everyone was allowed to spend as much as they wished on whatever they wanted.  Besides setting limits, budgets also enables the assurance that the most important needs of a country are met first and less important needs are deferred until there are sufficient funds in which to pay for them.  (Andrews & Hill, 2003)

Even though budget preparation is not the sole thing that needs consideration in budgeting, the basis of it is still needed in order to have at least close estimation. Actually, there are different models of assessing the basis of financial budget of a certain country. And these are through increments, redistribution, zero-based budget, Planning, Programming, and Budgeting Systems Models (PPBS) and etc. In this paper, we’ll be discussing the advantages and disadvantages of using increments in public budget preparation.

 

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The primary objective of this study is to examine and determine the current practices in budget control among public sectors in Ghana. To address this objective, the researcher explores the nature of budgetary practices by evaluating number of public organisations in Ghana.

Apparently, a survey to be conducted to public sectors in Ghana aimed to determine their perception towards the current budgeting practices in their respective company/organisation. Furthermore, an interview will be also conducted to know what are their problems and concerns regarding the budget and budgeting practices in the public sector. Finally, this research comes up with pertinent findings, and provides insightful recommendations on budgeting in relation to the development of public sectors in Ghana.

 

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Generally, the purpose of this study is to conduct a study concerning the budgeting practices in Ghana and identify the perception of the budgeting experts and assess their macro-perspective towards the current status of Ghana. This study will answer the following queries:

1.                    What are the budgeting experts’ perceptions in Ghana regarding the impact of the current budgeting practices in their respective public organisations?

2.                   What are the variables that significantly affect the budgeting practices in Ghana’s public sectors?

3.                   In relation to the current budgeting practices, to what extent in which some public organisations would benefit and some face challenges from the ageing population?

4.                   What are the strategies imposed by public organisations in Ghana to counter corruptions that significantly affect budgeting practices?

 

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND TECHNIQUES FOR DATA COLLECTION

Research requires an organised data gathering in order to pinpoint the research philosophies and theories that will be included in the research, the methodology of the research and the instruments of data interpretation. In this study, the Research Process “Onion” will be utilised so that the findings of the study can be thoroughly established. The inner part of the onion describes the methodology portion whereas the outer part discusses the strategies that can be utilised in interpreting the results of the findings.

The descriptive research method uses observation and surveys. In this method, it is possible that the study would be cheap and quick. It could also suggest unanticipated hypotheses. Nonetheless, it would be very hard to rule out alternative explanations and especially infer causations. Thus, this study will use the descriptive approach. This descriptive type of research will utilise observations in the study.  To illustrate the descriptive type of research, Creswell (1994) will guide the researcher when he stated: Descriptive method of research is to gather information about the present existing condition.  The purpose of employing this method is to describe the nature of a situation, as it exists at the time of the study and to explore the cause/s of particular phenomena. The researcher opted to use this kind of research considering the desire of the researcher to obtain first hand data from the respondents so as to formulate rational and sound conclusions and recommendations for the study.

The primary source of data will come from interviews and anonymous questionnaires from public organisations in Ghana.  The primary data frequently gives the detailed definitions of terms and statistical units used in the study. These are usually broken down into finer classifications. The secondary sources of data will come from published articles from social science journals, theses and related studies on budgeting and accounting in public sector. Acquiring secondary data are more convenient to use because they are already condensed and organised. Moreover, analysis and interpretation are done more easily.

 

 

REFERENCES:

Andrews, M., &Hill, H. (2003). "The Impact of Traditional Budgeting Systems on the Effectiveness of Performance-Based Budgeting: A Different Viewpoint on Recent Findings." International Journal of Public Administration 26, no. 2: 135+. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001905208.

Creswell, JW (1994) Research design. Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage.

Falk, S. (1994). "When Budgeting, Focus on Value: Nine Strategies for Value Basing." Public Management, 20+. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000213280.

Schmidt, J.A. (1992). "Is It Time to Replace Traditional Budgeting?." Journal of Accountancy 174, no. 4: 103+. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000149508.

Smith, PM., & Mcgeary, M.. (1997). "Don't Look Back: Science Funding for the Future." Issues in Science and Technology, 33+. http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000453016.

Comments

[asiribo adejoke b]

i need budget and budgetary control in an organizational sector
ribo