Reforms to budgeting and public sector management have given line ministries greater autonomy and accountability over public spending and over their governance. A strong finance function is necessary for line ministries to guide budget formulation, execution and review. Finance ministries are building closer partnerships with line ministries based on regular communication and support for professionalisation.
Quality Budget Institutions
Developments in OECD Countries
Abstract
The relationship between the CBA and line ministries is fundamental to fiscal control and sound financial management. It is a relationship that can be characterised by tension, with line ministries cast as “spenders” and CBAs playing the role of “guardians” of fiscal sustainability.
While there is truth to the caricature, the relationship is changing. Top-down expenditure ceilings, involve a change in accountabilities and a shift in how the CBA and line ministries work together. Finance ministries are focusing more on controlling aggregate expenditure while line ministries have more responsibility for how money is spent within allocated limits.
Reflecting these responsibilities, the CBA must engage with line ministries as partners in the budget process to jointly progress the government’s policy agenda. The budget and finance function (the finance function) should be the principal interlocutor that the CBA has with a line ministry. The CBA should nurture this relationship by maintaining regular communication and strengthening the capability of the finance function across government.
In 2010, a new Organic Budget Law introduced a number of reforms to the fiscal framework in Greece. This law transferred budgeting and financial management functions to line ministries, moving away from the past practice where expenditures were controlled by the Ministry of Finance at the payment stage.
Each ministry established an authorising officer responsible for spending decisions. The authorising officer is supported by a new “finance function” called the General Directorate of Financial Services (GDFS) which ensures that expenditures are sustainable (budgetary control), compliant with all applicable rules (legal control), and recorded and paid in a timely fashion (accounting function).
Each GDFS comprises at least four units:
The budget unit, in charge of budget preparation, appropriation monitoring and management, cash forecasts and fiscal reporting.
The accounting unit, in charge of processing payments after all necessary controls.
The oversight unit, supervising legal entities operating under the ministry's umbrella.
The procurement unit, in charge of purchase and procurement.
The creation of GDFS is widely viewed as one of the main successes of the reform programme. It has streamlined spending processes across ministries and improved communication between the line ministries and the Ministry of Finance. It is also considered to be a critical factor behind the successful shift to a more top-down approach to budgeting.
Source: Moretti et al. (2019[1]).
The CBA is the entity in central government that is responsible for preparing the budget and disbursing resources to line ministries to execute the budget. It is usually located in the ministry of finance and holds the main relationship with line ministries together with the divisions and agencies that perform treasury functions, such as cash management (Tryggvadóttir and Bambalaitė, 2023[2]).
The relationship between the CBA and line ministries is constantly evolving. Half-a-century ago, the CBA generally held direct control over line ministry budgets and would approve the payment of expenditure during budget execution. Over time, most OECD countries have delegated ex ante spending approvals and treasury functions to line ministries. In more recent times, the relationship has been shaped further changes to budget controls and public management reforms.
8.2.1. Budget reforms have changed responsibilities and accountability
Top-down budget reforms have changed the nature of budget negotiations. They have established firmer limits on spending and put more responsibility on line ministries to make policy trade-offs. In the process, line ministries have gained more autonomy over spending decisions but more accountability. These changes are complemented by new tools that introduce new processes for making informed spending decisions between the CBA and line ministry.
Finance ministries are focusing more on aggregate spending controls
Finance ministries are focusing more on controlling fiscal aggregates and emerging spending pressures, and delegating authority for detailed spending decisions to line ministries.
The CBA has strengthened its capacity to negotiate and enforce top-down expenditure ceilings. It also spends more time considering how to improve the incentives created by the fiscal framework (the rules and organisational arrangements that govern public spending). For example, the CBA can monitor the use of flexibilities for changing expenditure ceilings and appropriations in order to balance overall fiscal control with incentives to spend public resources efficiently.
Where top-down and medium-term budget reforms are most embedded, the work of spending control has become more forward-looking and policy-oriented. The CBA aims to identify problems before they impact materially on the public finances. Tasks such as the submission of detailed budget estimates have become less prominent.
These changes have influenced how the CBA and the line ministries interact. In the Netherlands, for example, a primary focus of budget controls is enforcing the rules of “compensation” which decide when and how the government can change expenditure ceilings that are set in the coalition agreement at the start of each parliamentary term.
Line ministries have more responsibility for budgets and performance
Line ministries have also been given more responsibility to ensure that spending is controlled and represents good value for money.
Budgets are generally being negotiated using fewer, larger budget lines. Line ministries have more flexibility to reallocate spending during budget execution. This allows them to allocate funds to where they will have the most impact and to reallocate resources to accommodate emerging spending pressures within the ministry’s expenditure ceiling. Requests for a budget increase or a claim on the reserve are accepted only as a last resort and can lead to closer scrutiny by the CBA in future.
As their role in spending has grown, line ministries have strengthened internal controls, performance management and policy evaluation in order to demonstrate to parliament that they are using public money well. These changes are guided by the standards set by the CBA and centre of government, but line ministries increasingly have a say on what goes into those standards and have some flexibility to adapt guidelines to their specific needs. In Ireland, for example, ministries can request to deviate from the standard assumptions for project appraisal that are distributed with the Public Spending Code. This allows more tailored costing, subject to approval from the Department for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform.
Alongside these fundamental changes in budget control and accountability, OECD countries have adopted a range of new tools into the budget process to support more informed spending decisions. Line ministries are working with the CBA to conduct regular spending reviews. A growing number of countries require line ministries to analyse the gender or environmental impacts of their budget proposals. These create new responsibilities for line ministries and add to their interactions with the CBA.
8.2.2. Public sector reforms have created new relationships
The relationship between CBA and line ministry is also being shaped by changes to public sector management. These changes are creating new actors in the budget process and new co-ordination structures that involve both the CBA and line ministries.
Specialised agencies have created new partnerships to manage
The creation of new specialised agencies has been a feature of public sector reforms in OECD countries since the 1980s. These are arm’s length organisations that have their own budgets and autonomy over staffing, but are funded mostly by public revenues.
Finance ministries have created specialised agencies to help deliver their responsibilities, including for highly technical aspects of expenditure management:
Debt management: Australia and Germany are among the many OECD countries that use a specialised agency for debt management. In some countries this agency is also responsible for cash management (OECD, 2025[3]).
Infrastructure planning and delivery: A growing list of countries, including Korea, Lithuania and New Zealand, has established an infrastructure commission to guide infrastructure planning or an infrastructure agency to directly support the preparation, procurement, implementation and evaluation of projects.
Financial management and reporting: In Denmark, Norway and Sweden the finance ministry has an agency to support the development and implementation of financial management regulations, including maintaining the government accounting systems.
These specialised agencies provide a centre of expertise which can support better spending decisions and improve reporting, but they also create new procedures and partners for line ministries in the budget process that are separate from the CBA.
Line ministries are also responsible for the governance arrangements and performance of their own agencies. Some portfolios, such as health, can have many agencies serving different functions. The CBA can manage this fragmentation by agreeing a budget ceiling for the ministry portfolio as a whole, and allowing the minister to decide on allocations between the ministry, its departments and its agencies.
Governments have more structures for co-ordinating cross-sectoral policies
Governments also continue to drive progress on high-level policy goals that require a coherent response across ministry portfolios. Services such as prisons, courts and policing are highly interdependent. Insufficient funding for courts, for example, can lead to rising numbers of prisoners on remand and overstretch the capacity of the prison system. Line ministries will work with the centre of government and the CBA to build a system-wide response (OECD, 2024[4]).
In most OECD countries the centre of government takes the lead formulating the government’s long-term vision and setting policy priorities for the government. The centre of government also plays a role facilitating agreement between ministries over important policy changes. It does this through different means, including by organising cabinet committees, conferences for accounting officers and technical working groups. Many of these bodies will require representation from the CBA.
Line ministries also play an important role developing a whole of government approach for policy issues that fall under their mandate. The ministry for environment, for example, will usually work with the CBA to establish a system of environmental impact assessments. The ministries responsible for health and for digital technology will play a leading role advising the centre of government and other ministries on how to prepare for future epidemics or the digital transformation, respectively.
New approaches to professionalisation and capacity development
Another area of change is in the way OECD countries build capacity in the public sector (OECD, 2023[5]). Policy design and implementation is becoming increasingly complex and governments are looking for ways to attract, develop and retain the specialist skills that they need. This includes skills that are needed by all ministries, such as digital, evaluation, finance, human resources, legal advice and procurement.
In some countries, the centre of government has established functional leads (or centres of excellence) for different professions within government. For the finance function, the lead is usually the CBA which must work with finance professionals in line ministries in order to:
Set standards for the finance profession.
Develop career paths and ensure learning and development for staff in the profession.
Create networks of finance officials to facilitate peer learning.
This draws on the diverse expertise and experience of finance professionals in government. It also ensures that standards and learning programmes are relevant to line ministries. This complements other efforts by the CBA to draw on line ministry expertise when developing standards and guidelines.
Though budget and public management reforms have evolved differently across OECD countries, most have created similar structures for co-ordinating spending decisions between the CBA and line ministry (Hadley, Kraan and Welham, 2018[6]). These structures include teams in the CBA that “mirror” line ministry portfolios and maintain a regular dialogue with the line ministry finance function. Budget reforms have required line ministries to strengthen their finance function. The finance function has been given responsibilities for preparing, executing and reviewing the line ministry budget.
8.3.1. Common structures for co-ordinating spending between the CBA and line ministries
Three organisational structures form the basis for budget co-ordination between the CBA and the line ministry in most OECD countries. Within the CBA there are units for budget co-ordination who guide the budget process and expenditure policy. The CBA will also have teams that mirror the line ministry portfolios in the budget. These mirror teams maintain regular communication with the line ministry’s finance function. This supports information exchanges between the two organisations and provides the bridge between spending control and policy. Figure 8.1 provides a simplified illustration of these relationships and their link to ministers who are ultimately responsible for spending policy and its execution.
Source: Tryggvadóttir and Bambalaitė (2023[2]).
Finance ministry budget co-ordination units
The CBA will have units for budget co-ordination that are responsible for the budget process and fiscal aggregates. These units help the CBA to maintain expenditure ceilings that are consistent with the government’s high-level fiscal objectives. They also provide an internal challenge for mirror units that will advocate for spending proposals under their portfolios. The importance of these units has generally grown with the introduction of successful top-down and medium-term budget reforms.
In the Netherlands, for example, the Directorate General is divided into the Inspectorate of State Finances (which hosts the mirror units) and the Budget Affairs Division (which is responsible for the budget process and aggregate spending policy). Preparing advice for ministers on spending is therefore a joint task, requiring specific knowledge of ministry activity to be brought within the broader picture of overall spending. However, it is mostly the responsibility of the Inspectorate to maintain control over budget ceilings.
In the United Kingdom, the General Expenditure Policy team in HM Treasury is responsible for ensuring the government’s spending policies are on track. The team co-ordinates spending policy through the budget and the spending review process which sets medium-term expenditure ceilings. It also oversees annual cash limits and in-year budget execution for the budget as a whole. This team controls access to the central budget reserve and needs to agree on all submissions to Cabinet with a public spending implication.
Finance ministry “mirror” teams
The CBA will usually have teams that generally “mirror” the portfolios that are allocated a budget. Mirror teams act as the eyes and ears of the minister of finance in each spending portfolio. Budget analysts in the mirror teams are expected to stay on top of developments in their portfolios and provide the main link between the CBA and the line ministry. They are typically lead contact in the CBA on budget negotiations, monitoring policy and spending, and responding to ad hoc issues under their portfolio.
The size and responsibility of mirror units varies. In the United Kingdom, HM Treasury has around 20 spending teams overseeing around 50 budget votes. Each spending team is headed by a spending principal who is the formal point of contact for the line ministry. The spending principal for a large portfolio may be supported by as many as 10 budget analysis.
In contrast, Slovenia’s Budget Department has around 30 staff in total. The size of the Budget Department means that there are no formalised mirror teams. Instead, each budget co-ordinator monitors one or more of the 40 budget entities that can propose a financial plan (a budget for a portfolio). They will also act as the “alternate” for other portfolios in case the main budget co-ordinator is unavailable.
With the advance of top-down and medium-term budgeting, the work of mirror units has become more forward-looking and policy-oriented. Budget analysts try to identify risks that might lead to a breach of the ministry’s spending ceilings or impact negatively on the public finances in another way.
Line ministry finance function
The finance function is usually associated with a finance department. The finance department may share responsibilities with other units, such as a strategy or planning division. It can also include units that are responsible for specific tasks or types of funding.
The finance function ensures that the accounting officer of the line ministry is able to fulfil her or his responsibilities for expenditure management. As core responsibilities, the finance function prepares the budget for the line ministry, supports its implementation and prepares the ministry’s financial reports. In 31 out of 36 OECD countries surveyed in 2023, the finance function was also the principal interlocutor for the ministry of finance in the line ministry (Figure 8.2). In this role, the finance function relays information between the CBA and the leadership in the line ministry, including the minister, accounting officer and policy leads.
In a few OECD countries, including the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the role of the finance function has changed in order to strengthen financial controls in line ministries (Kraan, 2017[7]). Some tasks of financial administration have been delegated to budget holders within the ministries or to agencies, including cash and commitment controls. The finance function establishes the systems for budget management and oversees their implementation. It also provides advice to the minister on budget related matters.
In both countries the head of the line ministry finance function is a senior figure within the executive team that oversees the performance of the line ministry and its agencies. They are also the primary adviser to the accounting officer and minister on budget-related matters. This makes the role similar to that of a chief finance officer in private sector corporations.
Number of OECD countries reporting each responsibility, 2023
Note: Data for Lithuania and Mexico are not available.
Source: OECD (2023), Senior Budget Officials Survey on Budget Frameworks, Question 28.
8.3.2. Interactions throughout the budget cycle
The CBA and the line ministry will have regular interactions throughout the budget process, including budget preparation, execution and review. The most frequent interactions are between the mirror teams in the CBA and the finance function of the line ministry, though other units in both the finance ministry and the line ministry will also be involved at different stages.
Budget formulation
The finance function should be responsible for the co-ordination of all budget-related matters in the line ministry. It has a fundamental role to play in identifying and co-ordinating the reallocation of resources in order to meet the ministry’s expenditure ceiling and to fund new policy initiatives.
The finance function in the line ministry will co-ordinate the budget proposal with the ministry of finance. Preparation involves updating budget baselines, appraising new policies and investments, prioritising spending needs and making the strategic case for the final proposal. It is an intensive process, requiring close collaboration with ministers, policy departments, arms’ length agencies, and the CBA throughout.
An effective finance function ensures that policies are thoroughly appraised in both economic and financial terms. Policy teams will usually lead the elaboration of policy proposals, but the finance function is usually best placed to co-ordinate priorities on budget proposals to ensure that each proposal is well-costed and can be accommodated in the expenditure ceiling for the ministry.
Budget execution
Once spending limits are set, the finance function ensures the line ministry has effective control over its budget. The finance function should have in place systems to guide budget execution in line with a monthly disbursement schedule agreed with the CBA, and in line with multi-year expenditure ceilings.
Line ministries will prepare a breakdown of their spending plans for the year. This supports efficient cash management. In the United Kingdom, for example, the line ministry submits each month a report with updates for actual expenditure in the year and a revised forecast to the end of the year and into future years (Hadley, Kraan and Welham, 2018[6]).
The line ministry will also set delegated spending limits for budget holders that are consistent with the budget and medium-term expenditure ceilings. It is usually the minister or accounting officer who holds the formal power for delegating spending limits within the ministry’s portfolio. They exercise this power under the guidance of the finance function, who will then be responsible for monitoring budget execution (Kraan, 2017[7]).
Any unanticipated policy developments with spending implications will be highlighted in a timely manner and remedial action adopted as necessary. The head of the finance function keeps in close contact with budget holders in the ministry to track progress on their programmes and assess the risks of over or underspending. Where there are emerging spending pressures, the finance function will work with the minister, accounting officer and policy divisions to identify savings that can be used to meet those pressures within the ministry’s expenditure ceilings, in consultation with the CBA.
Reallocations between budget lines will be processed by the finance function within the line ministry, up to the limits permitted. Where further changes are needed, these will be agreed with the CBA and may be included in a supplementary budget estimate that is submitted to parliament. The finance function may also approach the CBA for approval for other spending commitments, for example to enter into new guarantees or to agree a business case for a new capital project.
Budget reporting and review
Line ministries prepare annual performance reports and financial statements. These may be submitted to the ministry of finance for review or consolidation before being submitted to the SAI for auditing and to parliament for accountability. Line ministries are often directly accountable to parliament for their financial and non-financial performance and can be scrutinised by both sectoral and public accounts committees.
Line ministries are generally responsible for conducting evaluations of their programmes. In some countries evaluations will be guided by requirements set in law or by the ministry of finance. The finance function of the line ministry may monitor the implementation of these evaluations and notify the CBA of their conclusions.
The CBA and the line ministry may collaborate more actively on regular spending reviews. The CBA will discuss potential topics with the line ministry, often as part of the budget negotiations. A number of countries implement the spending review using joint working groups that involve officials from the CBA and the line ministry. Even where this is not the case, line ministries usually provide important inputs into the process.
The collaboration between the CBA and the finance function in line ministries is based on a reciprocal relationship. The CBA needs information from the line ministry finance function in order avoid unwanted surprises and poor policy decisions. The line ministry finance function relies on support from its mirror unit to advance budget proposals or tackle emerging problems. For these reasons the CBA in many OECD countries has taken steps to strengthen the partnership with the line ministry finance function, including by maintaining regular communications and professionalising the finance function.
8.4.1. Regular communication
Maintaining trust and building a closer partnership requires regular communication and information sharing. In nearly all countries, ICT supports the regular flow of information from the line ministry finance function to the CBA, including on actual spending and updated spending forecasts (Figure 8.3). This supplements regular meetings and informal information exchanges, usually between the mirror team and the finance function. A few countries have established formal meetings with the heads of the finance function, with some doing so as part of an established finance profession or community of practice.
Number of OECD countries, 2023
Note: Data for Lithuania and Mexico are not available. Other includes IT systems for regular exchange of information.
Source: OECD (2023), Senior Budget Officials Survey on Budget Frameworks, Question 30.
Communication through ICT systems
Regular reporting from the line ministry to the finance ministry is provided through ICT systems. Some countries such as Germany and Slovenia use systems that update spending totals in real time. In Ireland budget data is updated monthly. In the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, information is updated on a live exchange basis.
This flow of data provides a basis for the dialogue between the mirror unit and the finance function. In the Netherlands, the focus is on updates to the medium-term baselines. In the United Kingdom, budget oversight also relies on changes to spending forecasts provided by line ministries each month. To supplement the financial updates, mirror units also receive a copy of the line ministry’s financial management information pack which is written for the directors or managing directors within the line ministry (Hadley, Kraan and Welham, 2018[6]).
Facilitating the transfer of information needs well-performing ICT systems that provide the right information for decision making. A number of OECD countries including Italy, Korea and Spain, have deployed a central financial management information system across all line ministries. In other countries, financial management information systems are either partly or fully decentralised, which means there will be many different financial management systems across government, with each feeding standardised data into a central reporting system run by the finance ministry (OECD, 2024[8]).
Setting common standards for system interoperability is important for supporting effective reporting and communication. Without this, it is more difficult to share information across line ministries, or to combine information from different sources (e.g. linking performance information with financial data). The benefits of setting common ICT standards go beyond financial management reporting. For example, line ministries may adopt different platforms for teleworking and remote conferencing, which can also become a barrier to communication.
Regular meetings between the CBA and finance function
The CBAs have regular meetings between the mirror unit and the line ministry’s finance function. The mirror unit will usually hold a routine check-in with the finance function on a weekly or fortnightly basis. These meetings will cover expenditure management (e.g. emerging spending pressures) as well as the mechanics of the budget process (e.g. draft appropriations). The regular flow of information ensures that both organisations are well briefed and able to relay important information to others in their respective ministries.
The CBA will often host a regular joint meeting of senior finance officials from all line ministries. In Estonia, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, for example, these meetings take place monthly. The meetings may be chaired by the budget director (or an equivalent role) from the CBA. They usually convene the head of the finance function from each line ministry, rather than policy departments. The meetings provide an opportunity for the CBA to:
Update finance directors on overall budget planning, formulation, and emerging challenges. This provides the context for future actions.
Communicate messages that will be transmitted later by written circular, ensuring that there are no surprises for executive teams in the line ministry.
Gather feedback on the CBA’s plans for budgeting and spending control.
These meetings help to foster greater trust and collaboration between the CBA and the finance function. They also foster common expectations over the budget process, reforms and the interactions between the CBA and line ministry.
Stable relationships and staff rotation
The relationship between the CBA and the line ministry is between people. Officials, including in the mirror teams and the line ministry finance function need time to develop a working relationship and understand what each other need in their work to perform well.
A staff rotation policy can help the CBA to manage staff movements and to support career development. The arrangements for staff rotations differ across CBAs. Staff rotation policies can be within the organisation, between organisations or a combination of both (see Box 8.2).
When managing rotation policies, the CBA is balancing different professional needs. Longer posts allow budget analysts to develop more in-depth knowledge of a portfolio. It also supports a stable partner for the line ministry. However, more frequent rotation supports career mobility and can also provide fresh perspectives as the CBA exercises its challenge role over line ministry policy and spending.
Alongside this more active approach, many countries will see officials move between the CBA and the finance function of the line ministry. For more senior staff, the movement tends to be mostly from the finance ministry to the line ministry, but changes in both directions are more common for junior officials. These staff movements can help to build an informal network of finance professionals across government with a common understanding of good budget management (Kraan, 2021[9]).
Finland
In Finland, the Ministry of Finance is one of 12 government ministries. It employs around 400 people, mostly in specialist roles that require qualifications in economics, finance, law, or social sciences. The government has a policy to support labour mobility within the organisation through staff rotations as well as employment in other ministries and beyond central government. The objective is to ensure people are located whether their skills are needed, to support career development and improve co-ordination across government. A guide on personnel rotation was published in 2012. Under the policy, employees may move to a different post for a fixed period with no change in remuneration.
Netherlands
The Netherlands’ Ministry of Finance has an active and structured switch policy for budget officers within the Inspectorate of Finance, which houses the mirror units that oversee each sector. Officials in the Inspectorate are expected to rotate between sections or bureaus within the Inspectorate. Junior budget analysts are encouraged to move after two to three years, senior staff typically stay in a post for three to four years, while section heads will usually stay in their role for a further year. Switches between the Inspectorate and other parts of the Ministry of Finance are more ad hoc.
Slovenia
Slovenia does not have a formal switch policy for budget officers, either within the Budget Directorate or across the Ministry of Finance more generally. Staff in the Budget Directorate tend to remain in their positions for long periods, sometimes exceeding 10 years. The CBA places a higher value on deep institutional knowledge within specific sectors, which supports long-standing relationships between budget analysts and line ministries.
Source: Hadley et al. (2018[6]) and Ministry of Finance, Finland.
8.4.2. Developing and professionalising the finance function
Finance ministries can actively develop the finance function so that it can strengthen decision-making within the line ministry. There are two common strategies that have been used by the CBA do this in different countries: strengthening the position of the finance director and supporting professionalisation of the broader finance profession.
Strengthening the position of the finance director
The finance ministry, in collaboration with the centre of government, can take steps to raise the profile of the finance function in government.
A number of countries have reinforced the position of the finance director in line ministries by raising the salary of the position and redefining its responsibilities. An early example is Chief Finance Officers Act (1990) in the United States. Looking back at 20 years the Chief Financial Officers Council and the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency concluded:
The lasting impact of the CFO Act is that it transformed Federal financial management from a “backroom” function, out of sight and out of mind to most Federal executives, to a “boardroom” function, a key component of planning and decision-making at the executive level. (CFO Council and CIGIE, 2011[10])
The United Kingdom has been through a similar process, supported by government policy rather than primary legislation. The position of Principal Finance Officer was renamed Finance Director in 2003. HM Treasury (2023[11]) requires that “all departments should have professional finance directors reporting to the permanent secretary with a seat on the departmental board, at a level equivalent to other board members.
Supporting professionalisation
Finally, the CBA can support the professionalisation of the finance profession. This enhances the quality of advice and financial management. It also networks finance staff across government and contributes to their sense of community and shared responsibility.
The activities involved in professionalisation in financial management are wide-ranging. They can include changes to recruitment processes, reorganisation of training, closer collaboration with professional finance bodies and universities, introducing competencies for key finance positions, improving career management for financial management professionals and providing better support for in-service professional development (Beazley, 2019[12]).
A number of countries, including Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, have created a position in the CBA that is responsible for enhancing the work of the finance profession across government (Bouchal and McCrae, 2013[13]). For these countries, professionalisation focuses mostly on increasing the quality and depth of accounting capacity, backed by respected institutes and formal certifications (Beazley, 2019[12]). The head of the finance profession also cultivates the network of finance professionals across government (see Box 8.3).
In France and the Netherlands, professionalisation is delivered through strong training institutions under the control of the ministry of finance (Beazley, 2019[12]). In the Netherlands, the Government Academy of Finance, Economy and Management is a division of the Directorate of Budget Affairs of the Ministry of Finance. The Academy runs a variety of courses on public financial management, budget procedures, public administration, accounting, public economics and macroeconomics. It also runs a trainee programme for graduates. The FinLab focuses specifically on the quality of the central government's financial function.
New Zealand’s Government Finance Profession is a network of officials working in the finance function of government organisations that consolidated into the financial statements. Oversight of this group is provided by the Head of the Government Finance Profession, who is supported by a Government Finance Profession team located within the Treasury. The work of this team is organised around three workstreams:
People: Attracting, retaining, and developing finance professionals.
Common practices: Standardising, and sharing knowledge of core systems, processes, and policies.
Issues management: Initiatives where there is a clear benefit for a collective response or approach.
Under the People workstream, the government has developed a Finance Capability Framework that identifies core individual capabilities across finance professionals’ roles in government. The Finance Development Programme provides regular forums, training, and networking opportunities for Government Finance Professionals. The Government Finance Profession team also supports the Public Sector Finance Graduate programme, which is delivered by the Department of Internal Affairs.
Source: The New Zealand Treasury (2025[14]).
References
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[13] Bouchal, P. and J. McCrae (2013), Financial leadership for government, Institute for Government, https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/report/financial-leadership-government.
[10] CFO Council and CIGIE (2011), The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 - 20 Years Later, The Chief Financial Officers Council and The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, Washington DC.
[6] Hadley, S., D. Kraan and B. Welham (2018), “Recent developments in the work of the Budget Office”, OECD Journal on Budgeting, Vol. 2018/2, https://doi.org/10.1787/budget-v18-2-en.
[11] HM Treasury (2023), Managing Public Money, HM Treasury, London, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/managing-public-money (accessed on 24 February 2025).
[9] Kraan, D. (2021), “The finance function of line ministries in the Netherlands”, OECD Journal on Budgeting, Vol. 2021/3, https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-journal-on-budgeting-volume-2021-issue-3_7ef61932-en.html (accessed on 21 February 2025).
[7] Kraan, D. (2017), “Enhancing the finance function in line ministries”, OECD Journal on Budgeting, Vol. 2016/2, pp. 75-92, https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-journal-on-budgeting/volume-16/issue-2_budget-v16-2-en.html.
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