The Politics of Public Money : Spenders, Guardians, Priority Setters, and Financial Watchdogs inside the Canadian Government

Table of Contents

• Contents 8
• Preface 12
• Introduction 18
• Part One: The Changing Politics of Public Money 30
• 1 Beyond Spenders and Guardians 32
• Spenders and Guardians 37
• From Old Village to New Town 40
• Beyond Spenders and Guardians 43
• Priority Setters 47
• Financial Watchdogs 49
• Priority Setters and Financial Watchdogs 53
• New Questions 54
• Part Two: The Public Money Players 56
• 2 The Guardians and the Changing Role of the Budget Office 58
• Guardians and Budget Functions 60
• Guardians and Budget Components 60
• Guardians and the Budgetary Process 64
• Different Guardians 71
• Guardians Diverging: ‘Let the Managers Manage … Come Hell or High Water’ 75
• Guardians and Central Reserves 78
• Guardians Apart 83
• 3 Why Spenders Keep Spending 86
• Getting Money 90
• Keeping Money 96
• Spending Money 98
• The Reciprocity of Expenditure Information and Expenditure Increases 102
• Priorities and Allocations, Not Performance and Allocations 104
• 4 The Priority Setters at the Centre 108
• The Centre 110
• The Most Important of All Relationships 112
• Priorities, Big and Small 116
• The Prime Minister’s Arms 121
• Priority Setters and Shift Points 130
• 5 The Financial Watchdog: A Bark with a Bite 133
• Building Credibility on Professionalism and Independence 136
• The Performance Audit: The Audit for All Reasons 143
• Mutual Expectations 145
• Watching Both Spenders and Guardians 147
• The Watchdog and Internal Departmental Auditors 151
• The Watchdog and Parliamentarians 152
• Indirect Influence, but Influence 153
• Part Three: The Public Money Processes 156
• 6 Fiscal Aggregates: Controlling Totals 158
• Credibility and Uncertainty 160
• The Prudent Economic and Fiscal Outlook 167
• The Prudent Fiscal Framework: Achieving Achievable Targets 170
• The Elastic Fiscal Dividend 174
• Prudence and Its Consequences 177
• Containing Aggregates by Making Allocations 182
• 7 Budget Allocations 184
• Allocations Types 186
• The Big Fixes 189
• The Big-Ticket Items 192
• The Must Dos 195
• Small Budget Items 196
• Tax Expenditures 197
• Reductions 200
• Reallocations 204
• Budget Allocations Are Incremental 209
• 8 Budget Implementation: Financial Management and Efficiency 212
• On Paper 213
• The First Line of Defence 217
• Victims of Conflicting Norms: The Chief Financial Officer 222
• The Second Line of Defence 226
• Victims of the Intractability of Cultural Change: The Comptroller General 229
• On Becoming Players 232
• Part Four: New Prospects for Public Money 236
• 9 Parliament and Public Money 238
• Parliament as Watchdog 240
• Shaping Government Spending: The Commons Finance Committee 242
• Approving Government Spending: The Business of Supply 248
• Holding Government Accountable for Spending: The Public Accounts Committee 257
• Realism and Reform 259
• 10 Budget Reforms 262
• Budgets and Reforms 263
• ‘Rational’ Reform: The Road to Program Budgeting (pre-1962–78) 266
• The Grand Design: Policy and Expenditure Management System (1979–83) 270
• Incremental and Continuous Change (1984–93) 276
• Program Review and Prudent Budgeting (1994–2003) 281
• ‘A Continuous Culture of Reallocation’ (2004–6) 287
• Strengthening the Watchdogs: The Federal Accountability Act (2006 and onward) 290
• Reflections on Reforms 297
• 11 Doing Better with Public Money? 300
• Theory and Practice 301
• Reactive, but with Some Resilience 310
• The Uneasy Balance of Competing Budgetary Objectives 313
• Establishing an Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet 317
• Restoring a Treasury Board Secretariat Role in Expenditure Review and Allocation 319
• Linking Priorities, Expenditure Programs, and Performance 321
• The Politics of Public Money 324
• Notes 326
• Index 374
• A 374
• B 374
• C 375
• D 377
• E 377
• F 378
• G 379
• H 379
• I 380
• J 380
• K 380
• L 380
• M 380
• N 381
• O 381
• P 381
• Q 383
• R 383
• S 383
• T 384
• U 385
• V 385
• W 385