Deputy Secretary-General Xiao Qingwen led Team Researching the Progress of Budget Performance Pilot Departments in Guangzhou

Deputy Secretary-General Xiaoqing Wen led team visiting Guangzhou for researching the progress of Budget Performance Management Pilot Departments on May 9-12. Prof Niu Meili from School of Government of Sun Yat-sen University also joined the research team.

Since China Development Research Foundation signed the agreement on Deepening Budget Performance Management Reform with Bureau of Finance of Guangzhou Municipality last year, both sides have started cooperation in various fields of training, communication, research, experimentation, etc. with the aim of accelerating the budget reform of Guangzhou. Two research projects named Research on the Design and Application of Performance Objectives Management System of Guangzhou and Research on Performance of Education Finance from Budget Performance Management Perspective were set up and the team was gathered in December 2016. This study visit serves to understand the reform progress and problems faced in Guangzhou.

The team held two seminars with Bureau of Finance of Guangzhou Municipality, Guangzhou Economic And Technology Development Zone Finance Bureau, Guangzhou Panyu Finance Bureau, Foshan Nanhai Finance Bureau, third-party rating agencies and assessment experts; undertook field research on three expenditure departments including Guangzhou Bureau of Education, Guangzhou Intellectual Property Office and Guangzhou Disabled Persons' Federation; visited Guangzhou Yuexiu Finance Bureau and Guangzhou Disabled Persons’ Sports Center to understand and analyze the current situation of fiscal performance management in Guangzhou.

The team found good progress had been made by budget performance management pilot departments in Guangzhou. As pilot departments, Guangzhou Intellectual Property Office and Guangzhou Disabled Persons' Federation started the exploration of departmental performance objectives and project based performance objectives to build an innovative reform model. For example, Guangzhou Disabled Persons' Federation would sort out 108 projects to extract the expenditure performance objectives in nine categories of departmental objectives and combine these objectives with departmental functions and development plans to form a performance objective system with strong connection between departmental performance objectives and project performance objectives.