Politicians’ use of performance information in the budget process

IMPACT

This article helps policy-makers and managers understand why politicians tend to make only limited instrumental use of performance information in the budget process. In order to encourage the use of performance information to improve budgetary decisions, performance measures should be more relevant for elected officials, politicians should be involved in developing performance measures and receive more extensive analytical support.

ABSTRACT

The goal of the article is to take stock of existing knowledge about politicians’ use of performance information in the budget process. Overall, politicians tend to make limited instrumental use of performance information in legislative budget processes but there is more evidence of symbolic and rhetorical use. Instrumental utilization can be promoted by making performance information more relevant for politicians and by developing institutional support structures that help to analyse performance data.

KEYWORDS:

• Budget process
• legislators
• performance budgeting
• performance information
• performance measurement
• politicians

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the guest editors of this PMM theme and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Estonian Research Council grant PRG1125.