Research on the Reform of Budget Performance Management in the Chinese Government: Systematic Ideas and Basic Essentials

Text ▏ Liu Wei Jia Kang

summary

The comprehensive implementation of budget performance management is an indispensable basic condition for China to establish a modern fiscal system and promote the modernization of national governance. How to promote the reform of budget performance management in accordance with the overall deployment of the Party Central Committee on the comprehensive implementation of budget performance management has become a major practical issue. Through the analysis of the effectiveness and existing problems of budget performance management reform in the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" and previous periods, the basic ideas and essentials of the correct design of budget performance management reform are discussed, and the four operational principles and six-element framework ideas of comprehensively deepening the reform of budget performance management are put forward by combining systematic demands with "problem-oriented". It is pointed out that accelerating the construction of legislation, improving the level of budget preparation and forecasting support and forming a closed loop of the whole process of performance management, optimizing the overall design of performance evaluation standards and indicator systems, promoting the overall coordination of expenditure performance management of various departments, accelerating talent training and digital technical support capacity building, and implementing the basic essentials such as the three-dimensional supervision mechanism docking reward and punishment responsibility system can actively and steadily improve and promote the construction of the mainland government budget performance management system.

Liu Wei is an associate researcher and master tutor of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences.

Jia Kang, Researcher and Doctoral Supervisor, Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences; Founding Dean of Huaxia New Supply Economics Research Institute.

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First, the question is raised and the relevant research literature reviews

The budget management of governments at all levels is the operating carrier and work form of the financial distribution system to play a role in serving the overall situation. The comprehensive implementation of budget performance management, as one of the safeguard measures for deepening the reform of the fiscal and taxation system and establishing a modern fiscal system, is an indispensable basic condition for promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. The Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China pointed out that finance is the "foundation and important pillar of national governance", clarified the important position of finance in macroeconomic governance, and gave strategic guidance to fiscal reform and comprehensive supporting reforms. In 2018, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council officially issued the Opinions on the Comprehensive Implementation of Budget Performance Management, which clarified the direction and path for the reform of budget performance management, and emphasized the principle of "spending money must be effective, ineffective must be accountable". The newly revised Budget Law in 2015 and the Regulations for the Implementation of the Budget Law promulgated in 2020 have initially laid a relevant legal foundation for the performance management of the mainland budget. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, relevant departments issued a series of relevant systems and management measures for performance targets and indicator systems, and initially built a scientific budget performance indicator and standard system. In 2021, the Opinions of the State Council on Further Deepening the Reform of the Budget Management System (Guo Fa [2021] No. 5) was promulgated, which further clarified the key breakthroughs in the reform of the budget management system and clarified the goal orientation and related tasks for the reform of budget performance management. The 2022 Government Work Report clearly proposes to "deepen the reform of budget performance management and enhance the binding force and transparency of the budget".

In the historical period when China is striding into the new stage of the modernization process of "getting stronger", leading by new development concepts, building a new development pattern and pursuing high-quality development, and achieving the strategic goal of "new two-step", finance must play a better functional role in macroeconomic governance, and the reform of budget performance management is bound to deepen it to better serve the overall situation of national development, and will involve a series of institutional innovations related to optimizing the allocation of public resources, improving the quality of public products and public services. Manage innovation and technological innovation issues. Based on this perspective, this paper focuses on the construction of a modern budget performance management system, and discusses the systematic ideas and basic essentials of grasping the combination of three-level innovation in the construction of supporting reform systems.

International experience in this area is noteworthy. Looking back, we can think that performance management is the concept of introducing the government from the private sector. The concept of government performance (Government Performance) has received more and more attention after the rise of the "new public management movement" in the 1970s, and the legislature or administrative organs of developed countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States have successively introduced bills on performance budgeting, so that the performance management of government budgets has gradually operated under the framework of laws and regulations. The research content of the budget performance system in foreign countries is reflected in the legal definition of performance connotation, the legislative requirements and system improvement of performance budget management, and the implementation of policies, and the academic community has also made a lot of research and discussion. Schmidle's evaluation of the implementation of the U.S. Government Performance and Results Act found that after accountability provides the necessary incentives for performance budgeting, the government has indeed developed an administrative model that emphasizes performance planning, performance evaluation, and performance reporting. Gerrish conducts a meta-analysis of the performance management system, affirming the positive impact of performance management. Matthews F． M demonstrates the continuity that exists between two ostensibly different approaches by comparing performance management approaches between the British Labour government (1997-2010) and the coalition government (2010-2015). Lu et al. studied the relationship between the performance budget law in the United States and the quality of implementation of the performance budget system, and believed that the former is a necessary support condition for the performance budget system to work well. Gherghina argues that government performance evaluations are synergistic with government audits, both of which aim to better fulfill the government's fiduciary responsibilities to public funds. OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) member countries attach great importance to the concept and orientation of budget performance, the organization has refined the government budget performance management concept of "budgeting for results", and the monographs written under the title of this book have had an important impact on China, and domestic scholars have also written articles to introduce the performance budget reform practices of OECD member countries.

In recent years, there have been rich research literature on budget performance management in China. Xiao Jie believes that the full implementation of budget performance management is an inevitable requirement for the implementation of the people-centered development concept, and it is also a powerful measure to promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capabilities. Ma Guoxian pointed out that performance management is not only administrative reform, but also a reform of government governance concepts and methods, the purpose of which is to achieve scientific public management. Liu Shangxi pointed out that performance management is the government's management system starting from the pursuit of performance, with performance objectives, performance budgets, performance allocations, and performance evaluation as the basic links. Bai Jingming believes that the essence of budget performance management is the optimization of financial resource allocation, and the optimization of financial resource allocation has two dimensions: vertically, to pursue the optimal input-output rate; Horizontally, it is necessary to improve the efficiency of the use of funds in all links and departments. Wang Zecai believes that budget performance, as a constraint decision-making mechanism, runs through the starting and ending points of government activities; Performance information empowers all parties to evaluate and accountability related departments. Liu Jianghong stressed that the value of government performance evaluation, the evaluation basis and evaluation technology are all rooted in institutional arrangements. Tong Wei proposed that a local budget performance supervision system covering the entire process of the budget cycle should be built with results as the guide, relevance, efficiency and effect as the core. Ma Haitao and others proposed to cultivate the concept and culture of performance management and integrate the concept of performance into the work of the government; Expand the breadth and depth of budget performance evaluation pilots, and build a budget performance evaluation index database; Strengthen departmental planning and performance appraisal, trial preparation of medium-term financial planning, and establish a link between performance and budget; Introduce accrual accounting and implement a departmental performance reporting system. Ma Caichen proposed that China's fiscal expenditure performance evaluation needs top-level design, and explores the construction of a logical model for fiscal expenditure performance evaluation with Chinese characteristics. Based on the institutional perspective, Liu Ye believes that the top-level design direction should reflect the people-oriented public value fundamental, and promote the sustainability of fiscal reform by standardizing fiscal decentralization. Li Hongxia and Zhou Quanlin pointed out that deepening the reform of the medium-term budget can shift the expenditure control of the existing budget management to performance-oriented, complete the major transformation of "managing the government's money bag", and propose to expand the connection between the four budgets, expand the scope of budget performance evaluation, attach importance to the application of performance results, strengthen the construction of the rule of law, and improve the ability and level of government governance. Chen Shaoqiang and Wan Qi proposed that in the context of the era of big data, we should strengthen the ability of budget performance information management, improve the budget performance management system system, and improve the budget performance management target indicators. Wang Huijin and Yan Haina expressed the collaborative governance concept of performance management, that is, "government performance can only be formed through the process of 'cooperative production'". Cao Tangzhe suggested learning from the model of the U.S. Federal Government Management and Budget Office (OMB) and taking the budget performance management department as the leader to establish a full implementation of the budget performance management mechanism. Yang Suchang put forward the basic framework of the public expenditure performance audit system, and believed that a "big performance audit" organization and work system should be formed with the people's congress as the leading, the auditing organ as the main body, the financial department and the unit using public funds as the basis, the social supervision as the supplement, the combination of internal and external, the interaction between the upper and lower levels, and the multi-party collaboration. Zheng Fanghui and others summarized the practical experience of the "Guangdong model" and proposed to build a new model of financial performance evaluation led by the people's congress, coordinated by government departments and implemented by a third party.

It can be seen that foreign relevant research attaches more importance to the construction and improvement of the system of performance budget laws and regulations, and emphasizes the positive role of system and method improvement in practice, which in turn brings out theoretical analysis, experience summary and operation mode. Many scholars realize that the contradiction between the supply of the government budget performance management system and the actual demand is more prominent, and it is necessary to deepen the reform of budget performance management, and there is also a consensus on the importance and urgency of the relevant top-level design. Based on the existing research understanding, the possible innovations in this paper are: First, from the research perspective, closely combined with the "problem-oriented" in the actual situation of China's economic and social transformation and innovative development, from the importance of macro performance, it leads to the overall vision and systematic, and the overall system construction framework ideas and suggestions for reform that have the characteristics of "the right medicine". Second, under the theme of institutional innovation, the relevant reform operating principles are put forward more methodically, and the basic essentials of reform and the implementation path are docked.

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Second, the main problems in China's budget performance management

The modern budget management system needs to be determined on the basis of comprehensive consideration of the actual political, economic and social development of a country, and dynamically adjusted and improved along with social and economic development. In order to make budget performance management in China adapt to the new development stage, implement the new development concept, and build a new development pattern, it is necessary to face up to the existing deficiencies and difficulties, in accordance with the requirements of "strengthening the overall planning of financial resources", from the perspective of the overall situation and modern governance, the implementation of medium- and long-term strategies and the improvement of budget performance are organically integrated, and the system theory thinking is combined with the "problem-oriented" solution to find the "right medicine", in order to build a modern budget performance management system in the reform. We believe that the existing problems in the performance management of the mainland budget are mainly reflected in the following six aspects.

(1) Budget performance evaluation and management, the pre-construction of the pre-existing infrastructure on the track of the rule of law is not yet in place

To establish a "modern fiscal system" and implement "modern state governance", it is necessary to combine the implementation of the general policy of "comprehensively governing the country according to law" and promote the effective implementation of budget performance management under the guidance and guarantee role of the rule of law track. Due to objective reasons such as the mainland's historical traditions, the construction of conditions related to the rule of law has been weak for a long time, and in the face of the dilapidation of the old and the new in various fields since the reform and opening up, it is inevitable to go through the test of the process of "trial and error" in innovation and relatively slowly from "unable to rely on" to "having laws to follow" and from "having laws to follow" to "having good laws to rely on" in the process of system construction. Although the relevant legal system, which is the precondition for the reform and management optimization of the government's budget performance orientation, has a preliminary framework, it is still obviously not fully in place, and it is still necessary to take the further establishment and improvement of relevant laws and regulations as an important premise, so that the demand for improving the level of budget performance management can be institutionalized and standardized at a higher level with more solid and specific legislative support. It must be faced squarely that the performance concept and performance culture foundation of the whole society on the mainland (especially involving performance constraints on government behavior) are still quite weak, and the legislative level on the performance management of government budgets is still relatively low. In recent years, from top to bottom on the promotion of budget performance management, mainly citing the performance concepts, principles and requirements of the "red head document" work plan at the level of the "Budget Law", although these have played an important guiding role, but in general, there is still a lack of macro performance management concepts and rules more adequate legal manifestations, there is no special budget performance regulations as the most direct and powerful support and guarantee for the construction of the budget performance management system, and the management system and related measures and methods are not sound, specific and detailed. This is particularly difficult when it comes to coordinating the relationship between finances and departments related to performance management.

(2) Budget performance evaluation and management, the forecasting ability of the pre-emptive technical basis on the professional track is still obviously weak

According to the requirements of the central government, budget performance management should start from "beforehand", run through the "matter", continue and end after the fact, so in the starting link before budget preparation and implementation, objectively need to have the budget period of fiscal revenue and expenditure will face the economic and social conditions, operating results, key scenarios, etc., to make the highest possible level of quantitative forecast results, which becomes the precondition for starting the whole process of performance management. However, due to various subjective and objective conditions, from the central to the local, the budget preparation link "in advance" of the relevant situation, economic parameters and future scenarios of the prediction ability, whether from the professional quality of the staff, or from the development and application of model methods and statistical database data support, it is still difficult to adapt to the requirements of performance management, in the construction of relevant professional teams, data support conditions, model development and optimization, accumulation of experience, etc., there are generally obvious shortcomings. Therefore, at present, if the "three-year rolling budget" is prepared, there is still no catch, and at the central level, it can only be required to make a relatively thick line according to the "three-year rolling plan"; At the local level, initial schemes focusing on the establishment of project databases, special funding ledgers, etc. are often being explored.

(III) The work specifications and evaluation standards for budget performance management need to be improved urgently

The budget performance management policy document stipulates that at present, the self-evaluation of budget departments and units is the main body, the focus is on financial re-evaluation, and the third-party evaluation is supplemented. In 2013, the Ministry of Finance formulated and issued the "Framework of Common Indicators for Budget Performance Evaluation", which gave common evaluation indicators for three levels: project expenditure, overall expenditure of the department, and financial budget. However, due to a series of subjective and objective conditions, specific to the evaluation index system in various industries and different fields, has not yet been introduced, and the relevant normative documents and operational norms have not yet formed a form of refinement and standardization identified by the management department and accepted by relevant stakeholders, which makes the legitimacy, rationality and comparability and credibility of the evaluation results still obviously restricted.

(4) The setting of budget performance targets and the quality of self-evaluation urgently need to be improved

Due to the above reasons, there are certain technical difficulties in objectively reflecting and guiding the implementation effect of budget performance targets, especially the performance evaluation of the government's performance position position, which cannot be limited to the performance evaluation of the concept of "cost-benefit analysis" from a micro perspective, but must focus on macro performance and comprehensive economic and social performance, which is difficult to quantify, it is not easy to form a consensus, and in actual work, it is manifested as the performance target management requirements are not uniform and standardized, the specific goal setting is not clear, and it is often considerable and evaluable; Therefore, in the target declaration and review link, a perfect working mechanism cannot be formed, the performance indicators in the declaration form are not scientific enough, and then the performance targets and departmental functions and government work tasks are not closely integrated enough, can not fully reflect the performance of the department's functions, can not fully reflect the requirements of career development, and it is difficult to scientifically measure the social benefits and long-term benefits of input and output. In the initial stage, the evaluation of performance targets in actual work is often in the form of formalities, the evaluation in advance and in the event is not comprehensive, the evaluation is partial to the acceptance and assessment of the project, and the evaluation standard is low, the key factors are missing, the evaluation method is single, and the performance self-evaluation lacks objectivity and accuracy, resulting in a low level and lack of credibility evaluation results.

(V) The dynamic monitoring scope of budget performance targets is still very limited

Affected by the traditional input budget, the focus of budget execution and its monitoring is only the formal compliance of the budget funds themselves, and the dynamic monitoring scope of the existing budget performance targets is basically limited to the progress of budget implementation, staying in the daily supervision at the level of corresponding policy requirements, failing to fully clarify the focus of budget performance targets should fall on the results of capital operation at the level of "national economy and social comprehensive performance", and then based on the various external environments that need to be included in the evaluation work vision based on the relationship, Factors such as changes in conditions that may have an impact on the achievement of performance objectives are also insufficiently concerned. Objectively speaking, reflecting the characteristics of the "start-up period", the monitoring of the whole process before, during and after the budget performance management cannot yet form a systematic state, and the scope of dynamic monitoring is of course difficult to adapt to the requirements of the "full coverage" framework. For example, on the basis of summarizing the pilot project of dynamic monitoring of the performance target of China's financial poverty alleviation projects, it is urgent to comprehensively expand the scope of dynamic monitoring of performance targets, and consider carrying out performance implementation tracking and monitoring from the pilot to gradually promoting all budget items included in the management of performance targets, so as to improve the evaluation quality of comprehensive performance, in order to better regulate and supervise the effective performance of the government.

(6) The "talent base" and "data foundation" of budget performance management are insufficiently supported

Intrinsically related to the above aspects and problems at the level is the lack of support for the two aspects of "talent" and "data" mentioned before the perspective of forecasting ability. In fact, this is also manifested in the "tracking in the event" and "after the assessment" link, there are four main aspects of "not in place": First, the construction of the institutional personnel team is not in place, that is, there is a general shortage of personnel in the financial and budget departments and social organizations involved in budget performance management, and the pool of compound talents involved in multiple professional fields is small; Second, the diversification and sustainability of training intensity and content are not in place, and it is not possible to design effective training courses for the current problems such as the different levels of knowledge of relevant staff and heavy basic work, and the infrastructure and teacher level of some training units are low; Third, the research and development of information systems is not in place, the construction of performance evaluation standard libraries and data databases is lagging behind, the joint construction and sharing of the government's "golden number project" network database has not yet been formed as desired, the support provided for budget performance management is weak, and the investment in the later maintenance and guarantee of information systems is insufficient; Fourth, the cultivation of third-party forces is not in place, there are few professional intermediaries who can independently undertake related work, the construction of the performance evaluation expert database is lagging behind, and the support for performance evaluation work is still very limited.

In short, compared with the requirements of "improving the budget system with scientific standards, standardization and transparency, and strong constraints" put forward by the Fourth Plenary Session of the Nineteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and the requirements of "deepening the reform of the budget management system and strengthening budget constraints and performance management" put forward by the Fifth Plenary Session of the Nineteenth Central Committee, we urgently need to face up to the large gap and attach importance to solving existing problems and deficiencies. In order to implement the requirements put forward by the Party Central Committee for the establishment of a modern fiscal and taxation system, it is urgent to put budget performance management within the panorama of economic and social development and the performance of government systems, plan relevant top-level designs with the times, and clarify the operational principles, framework ideas, basic essentials and implementation paths of reform.

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Third, the basic operating principles and institutional construction framework ideas of China's budget performance management reform

In order to meet the strategic requirements of promoting modernization in the new era, in the coming period, the mainland's budget performance management reform should adapt to the characteristics of the stage of development of budget performance management, and in the process of implementing the general requirements of the party Central Committee and the State Council on comprehensively deepening the reform of budget management and strengthening the management of government budget performance, we should closely integrate institutional innovation, technological innovation, and management innovation, and actively and pragmatically build a budget performance management system with Chinese characteristics step by step and step by step in a step-by-step manner with a scientific spirit of seeking truth from facts. Based on the aforementioned "problem-oriented" analysis, the following four basic principles are proposed, and the combination of the framework of institutional construction and its six logical points is promoted.

(1) The basic operating principles of China's budget performance management reform

1. Implement the principle of institutional innovation with systems-based thinking

The fundamental goal of budget performance management is to serve the overall situation of the construction of modern financial system and modern national governance, and the relevant reform and innovation should be used as a systematic project to resolve inefficient constraints and uncertainties in real life with the foresight and certainty of the system. In the process of building a budget performance management framework with reform, we should first deeply understand and correctly grasp the essential demands, inherent laws, and characteristics of development in the economic and social transition of budget management, take the overall layout of "five in one" and the "four comprehensive" strategic layout as the large frame of reference, "jump out of the finance to look at the finance" with the overall view of systematic thinking, take institutional innovation as the leading factor of "program and look at the public", and fully open up the potential space for management innovation and technological innovation. Vigorously improve the function of preventing and resolving risk factors such as inefficient mismatch with budget performance management, and pursuing the maximization of public interests.

2. The principle of long-term and short-term combination, from coarse to fine, from simple to difficult under overall planning

The construction of the budget performance management system system needs to have a long-term vision, and it is inevitable to start from the short term, combine the long and short term, and make a comprehensive consideration and comprehensive grasp of the gradual implementation from coarse to fine, from simple to difficult. It is necessary to have the comprehensive integrity of the top-level overall planning, and also to have the gradualness of gradually, first easy before difficult, and summarizing and accumulating experience. When planning the top-level design of the budget performance management framework as a whole, pay attention to the integration of key pressing issues with long-term mechanisms from point to point; Make the micro-capital benefit evaluation and the comprehensive performance evaluation to achieve the macro goals learn from each other; Integrate the highlights of the ongoing promotion with the overall balance; First build the framework, then describe the details, first grasp the easier project evaluation, and then do the more difficult current revenue and expenditure assessment, improve the short-term plan and the medium- and long-term mechanism and system construction fit.

3. Comprehensively promote the principle of combining demonstration with driving

While building and improving the mainland performance management system system, we should pay attention to adhering to the orientation of forming a "comprehensive" characteristic management framework and institutional mechanism, admitting that it is impossible to go hand in hand from top to bottom, left and right, and in general, there should be vertical and horizontal demonstration at the central level and some key departments and key areas first. In terms of the regulatory basis and support conditions for departmental budget performance appraisal, the forecasting ability required for prior performance appraisal, the construction of the indicator system for sub-field performance appraisal, and the overall appraisal on the basis of the "departmental comprehensive budget", it is necessary to make overall deployment, and we should also do a good job in summarizing and demonstrating the pilot experience, and comprehensively promote and form a joint force with the demonstration drive.

4. Adjust the principle of combining vested interests with synergies

The reform of budget performance management will inevitably touch the "barrier of interest solidification" formed by the original "base method" and "bargaining", and the pure "Pareto improvement" (only the main body benefits and no subject is damaged) has been basically impossible, which will be particularly evident in the interdepartmental capital allocation pattern. It is necessary to clarify the necessity and inevitability of "overcoming vested interest obstacles", and at the same time pay full attention to the possible pareto improvement space (such as information sharing, the "win-win" effect brought about by sunshine multi-sectoral review), and actively form collaborative innovation. In the construction of a comprehensive mechanism for budget performance management, efforts should be made to form a management system with clear rights and responsibilities of each responsible entity, perfect risk prevention and control mechanism, scientific and efficient decision-making, accurate and timely supervision, rewards and punishments, and improve the recognition of all departments of comprehensive budget performance management.

(2) The Chinese government's system construction framework for budget performance management

The basic operating principles of the above-mentioned budget performance management reform are pragmatic, and it is urgent to make a rational and clear grasp of the framework of the entire system construction. We believe that in accordance with the strategic deployment of the Party Central Committee on the establishment of a modern fiscal system, starting from the fundamental demands of serving the overall situation and modernization, the basic idea should start from the basic system of government performance evaluation, and initially build an "all-round, whole-process, full-coverage" government budget performance management system framework from 2025 to 2030, and form a performance goal realization-oriented, performance evaluation as a means, and results as a guarantee by strengthening the "incentive-constraint" function. Achieve the effect of significantly improving the governance level and policy implementation in the performance of government duties.

The framework for the construction of China's budget performance management system will surely be accompanied by the promotion of comprehensive supporting reforms in social and economic development, the tax-sharing grading system formed after the "tax-sharing system" reform in 1994, and the improvement of the sub-provincial system, and the construction of the local tax system and the public sector debt system, etc., and attach various necessary technological innovation factors; Take the form of progressive management innovation as an intuitive form, dynamically adjust and improve. Budget performance management is rooted in and endogenous in the budget management system, and should conform to the national medium- and long-term strategic objectives under the framework of the budget system composed of China's "four budgets" that have begun to take shape and effectiveness, plan and design feasible performance targets and indicator systems, so as to improve the ability to analyze and predict the trend of economic and social changes with certain uncertainties in the future, adapt to the multi-dimensional demands of rule of law, standardization, specialization and refinement, and build a budget performance management system system suitable for China's national conditions. The relevant framework system logic, as shown in Figure 1.

1. Take the key reforms of the construction of a modern fiscal system as the guide

Establishing a modern fiscal system in a comprehensive supporting reform to serve the overall situation of the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity is a clear requirement that the Party Central Committee has emphasized many times since the Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee. Budget performance management needs to be under the leadership of supporting reforms and institutional innovation to achieve the vision of full implementation and effective operation. The strengthening and optimization of budget performance management follows the reform logic of improving the socialist market economy and building a modern fiscal system, and also lies in this reform cause that has entered the "deep water area" and must overcome difficulties.

2. Guided by improving the government's ability to modernize governance

Since the Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee condensed modern national governance into the core concept of governing the country, how the government can improve the ability of modern governance has naturally become the internal logical relationship of the financial distribution of the government's performance of its duties and the financial guarantee for the government's performance of its duties. The "14th Five-Year Plan" clearly requires "a sound macroeconomic governance system with optimized goals, reasonable division of labor, and efficient coordination", which forms a clear direction for the design of the budget performance management reform system, which inevitably emphasizes that the pre-performance management pays full attention to the macro guidance and overall coordination of the national development plan for the allocation of public budgets and financial resources, the performance monitoring during the event pays attention to early warning risks and prevention, and corrects deviations, and the post-event evaluation emphasizes scientificity, integrity and the continuation of the past. The modern performance budget management concept of "result-oriented" decentralization and accountability also substantively contains the ability orientation of management and self-management, organization and self-organization, regulation and self-regulation in one furnace to mobilize all potential and vitality to improve comprehensive performance.

3. Supported by the establishment and improvement of a legislative mechanism for budget performance management

In the coming period, in accordance with the relevant requirements of the mainland's "Budget Law" and the "Higher-level Law" of the "Regulations for the Implementation of the Budget Law" on budget performance, it is imperative to accelerate the promotion of refined legislation, improve the mechanism of legislative project establishment, drafting, demonstration, coordination, review, and evaluation of the implementation of legislation after legislation. Consideration should be given to taking the legislation of the Government Budget Performance Law as the guide, improving and improving the relevant rules, normative documents and supervision and management systems of the central and local governments as the basis, gradually building a unified and complete system of laws and regulations on budget performance management, and gradually improving the legislative public participation system, smoothing the channels for public participation in government performance supervision, and vigorously improving the ability and level of administration according to law, forming a solid and lasting support for government budget performance management in the context of "comprehensively governing the country according to law".

4. Take the formation of a scientific and reasonable standard and index system as the yardstick

Improving the operable and quantifiable indicator standard system is an indispensable measurement function for budget performance management. On the one hand, we should closely focus on the implementation of the important deployment of the Party Central Committee on fiscal reform, take scientific performance management goals and standards as the starting point, and establish and improve the budget performance management standard system from the combination of relevant essentials, reflecting the principles and standards that can dynamically revise and effectively support the budget preparation and implementation management process. On the other hand, we will further optimize the overall performance target system, policies and project performance target systems of various departments and budget units, and study and formulate an indicator system that can achieve quantitative evaluation. The establishment and improvement of the core performance indicator system has been a top priority, after the performance standards and performance target settings are determined, it is necessary to ensure that the systematization, rationalization, quantifiability of the primary and secondary performance indicator settings and their adaptability to differentiated management are further improved, and the overall level of scientific refinement is further improved.

5. Take the joint efforts of multiple parties to promote the informatization construction of "digital finance" as a technical focus

In the coming period, we should rely on the "digital finance" infrastructure of the national financial system formed by big data and cloud computing networked with the government's "golden number project", focus on optimizing the whole process of budget performance management, and upgrade the budget performance management information system to make performance management more in line with the governance capabilities requirements of "financial core business integration". On the one hand, relying on the construction of the government informatization platform and the "digital finance" system, we will innovate performance evaluation means and tools, optimize the pre-event-in-post evaluation mechanism, start from accelerating the improvement of major policies and project budget performance evaluation, and accelerate the overall performance evaluation and upgrading of government departments at the central and provincial levels. On the other hand, strengthen the main responsibility of performance evaluation and build a diversified evaluation subject pattern in the "integrated" large system. While clarifying the status and responsibilities of financial departments, budget departments and units, we also actively use the third-party evaluation force and strengthen the guidance and standardization of them, so as to enhance the independence and objectivity of performance evaluation on the basis of "digitalization".

6. Establish a mechanism for linking evaluation results with budgetary arrangements as the guarantee of effectiveness

"Spending money must be effective, ineffective must be accountable", is the vitality of budget performance management, performance appraisal results, must be logically used as an important and basic basis for budget arrangements and rewards and punishments of relevant entities. To this end, we should first introduce a linkage mechanism between the evaluation results and budget arrangements and adjustments. On the one hand, it is linked to budgeting, and the results of the "prior" evaluation of performance are reflected in the optimization of budgeting; On the other hand, it is linked to the budget execution management and final accounts, that is, the performance evaluation results are embedded in the daily budget management, so that the performance tracking and evaluation results of the "in the event" are organically combined with the necessary adjustments of the budget arrangement, and the performance evaluation results of the "after the fact" are linked to the "end" of the whole process in the final account link, so that the performance evaluation results and the dynamic progress of budget management promote each other and are organically integrated.

It should be emphasized that the linkage between the evaluation results and the improvement of management and policies is to establish a linkage relationship between the results of budget performance evaluation and the improvement of management, and to promote the improvement of the awareness of performance responsibility of the competent budget departments (budget units) and the improvement of budget management. It is necessary to take the budget performance appraisal as an important basis for testing the implementation effect of relevant policies and improving the quantitative characteristics of fiscal policies, and put forward opinions and suggestions on adjusting and improving the content of policies according to the results of performance evaluation, enhance the pertinence and effectiveness of policies, optimize the allocation of fiscal funds, improve the efficiency of the use of fiscal funds, and provide reference for the introduction of similar policies in the future.

In order to pursue the effectiveness of the above mechanisms, it is necessary to incorporate the performance evaluation results into the government administrative accountability system, establish and improve the admonition, reward and punishment mechanism, and for major projects and people's livelihood policies, consideration should be given to the establishment of a lifelong accountability system for the responsible persons of major projects according to the concept of "unification of rights and responsibilities". Accountability methods with strong rationality and operability should be designed and introduced, the objects and contents of accountability should be clarified, and a complete and sound incentive clause should be established to distinguish between rewards and penalties, and give full play to the positive role of budget performance management in enhancing the people's sense of gain and enhancing the credibility of the government.

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Fourth, deepen the relevant basic essentials and implementation paths of the reform of budget performance management

Based on the above analysis and understanding, in the process of promoting the reform of budget performance management in the mainland, the following six essentials can be put forward, which are worth paying attention to and forming a pragmatic promotion path.

(1) Establish the concept of macro performance management, do a good job in legislative construction, and lead budget performance management to improve quality and efficiency

In view of the above-mentioned problems of inadequate infrastructure for the rule of law, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of legislation, improve the legislative level of budget performance management, and form an authoritative basis on the track of rule of law, we can actively consider enriching the relevant content of performance management in the Budget Law, and strive to complete the legislative work of the Budget Performance Management Law during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, so as to facilitate macro performance management throughout all aspects of the allocation of financial resources and the whole process of capital utilization on the path of rule of law, that is, throughout the whole process of public affairs decision-making and public product provision It covers the entire life cycle of public products and outputs, and improves the efficiency of public resource allocation. It is necessary to take into account the gradual nature of the Chinese government's budget performance management reform in its overall deployment, from coarse to detailed, first easy and then difficult. The dynamic optimization of legislative work should be reflected in the multiple rounds of revision of higher-level laws such as the Budget Law and the Budget Performance Management Law, and secondly, it should be reflected in the timely promulgation of relevant regulations and guiding documents (which also have legal effect in China) and the standardization and dynamic optimization of work rules that should be derived.

(2) Vigorously improve the forecast support level of budget preparation, and refine the closed-loop system of the whole process of performance management work covering the "four budgets"

According to the budget performance concept that runs through the whole process of budget preparation, implementation and supervision, it is necessary to fully consider the performance management needs before, during and after the event, and on the premise of vigorously improving the professional forecast level to support the budget preparation level, accelerate the refinement of the performance management workflow covering the "four budgets", build a closed-loop system, form a whole chain of management, strengthen and optimize performance management from performance forecast evaluation → target management→ operation monitoring→ result evaluation→ application of reward accountability clauses. The first is to further improve the performance pre-evaluation mechanism based on forecasting. Research and issue the "Measures for the Administration of Prior Performance Evaluation" and build a working platform for pre-performance evaluation; Evaluate the expected value of fiscal costs and comprehensive benefits based on scientific methods such as predictive analysis and quantitative methods. The second is to strengthen the management of performance targets based on forecasts, and establish a separate chapter system for this management link to form a clear specification. The third is to strengthen performance operation monitoring, improve the tracking and supervision of budget implementation progress and performance performance, and dynamic appraisal mechanism, so that good operation monitoring runs through budget execution, and connects the budget preparation of the front end and the final result of the back end. The fourth is to comprehensively carry out performance evaluation of the four relatively independent parts of the "full-caliber budget", and gradually achieve full coverage at the central and local levels by actively broadening the scope of performance evaluation, that is, all departments, regions and units comprehensively carry out budget performance evaluation work for the four budgets, standardize evaluation procedures, improve evaluation methods, unify evaluation standards, improve evaluation quality, and strengthen the application of results. The fifth is to improve the performance management appraisal and reward, accountability reward and punishment system. In principle, the appraisal of performance management must be implemented in quantitative results, timely summarize experience to promote the revision and improvement of appraisal methods, improve the quality and effectiveness of performance appraisal, dock the implementation of the reward and punishment system, and pursue practical results.

(3) Further optimize the overall design of budget performance evaluation standards and indicator systems

Considering the gradual process of budget performance management reform in the mainland, we should continue to focus on the "protracted war" thinking, and make unremitting efforts to improve the design of the indicator system based on the combination of macro performance and micro benefits, and macro performance as the leading indicator system, and then establish performance evaluation standards. First, from coarse to fine, establish and improve the core indicator system of budget performance management in various industries and fields, scientifically formulate performance quantification standards, optimize the workflow of setting and adjusting performance targets for first-level projects, and promote the scientific level of performance target setting of second-level projects. We should fully consider different situations and comprehensive influencing factors, combine unified norms with differentiated treatment, establish performance objectives and performance indicators in different fields, industries and levels, and dynamically improve the technical content and methods of the budget performance evaluation index system. Second, on the basis of extensively absorbing foreign and domestic central and local multi-level experience, combining the technical content and methods of central level guidance and local level innovation pilots, first easy and then difficult, actively absorb the desirable points of zero-based budgeting, accrual budget accounting, and results-oriented public questionnaire evaluation models, and gradually improve the evaluation index system from the aspects of indicator content and weight setting. Allow local and departmental comprehensive consideration of budgeting and performance evaluation needs, step by step, from coarse to detailed; The focus can be on the expenditure side and then the income side, the project budget after the general expenditure ("people eat horses to feed") budget, the first "after the fact", "in the process" and then "before", and gradually form a complete and effective budget performance evaluation index system in China. All departments, levels and localities must establish a performance index database, and in the process of implementing the dynamic adjustment mechanism, the project database index system can be established first, and then extended to the regular income and expenditure. Third, pay attention to arranging hedging plans for future uncertainties, and improve the analysis and prediction of future uncertainties and risk changes, so as to strengthen the rationality of performance goals and their adaptive adjustment ability in the standard compliance mechanism.

(IV) Actively promote the comprehensive coordination of expenditure performance management of various departments to make substantial progress

With departmental management decision-making and project establishment decision-making into the overall rule of law track, it is necessary to actively improve legal procedures and supporting systems such as scientific demonstration, risk assessment, and collective decision-making, and implement expenditure performance management that is comprehensively coordinated between and within departments. Strengthen the relevant supporting conditions and actively focus on promoting the overall expenditure performance management, first, carry out multi-departmental sunshine hearing pilots. Change the pattern of bulls (departments) competing for financial support against one head (financial department), and the pattern of organizational coordination for the bulls to communicate information together to reach an acceptable plan for the overall trade-off of funds, in which the financial department takes the lead in performance appraisal. The second is to start the overall expenditure performance management demonstration within the department and gradually achieve full coverage of each department; Under the framework of "departmental comprehensive budget" and on the basis of summarizing experience, gradually expand the scope of optimization and management of the overall expenditure performance of the department, use the performance target and indicator system to quantify the performance of the department, and guide the department to improve the comprehensive performance level of expenditure by strengthening management. Third, according to the different characteristics of the department, the overall expenditure performance target and differentiated indicator system of the department can be "tailored" and formulated. For example, party and mass institutions, government offices, government comprehensive departments, government professional departments, government directly subordinate institutions and institutions, etc., due to the different nature and characteristics of business and work, in addition to common indicators, they should be combined with business and work characteristics, and each focus should be focused on optimizing the design of technical indicators. The fourth is to implement full-cost, full-benefit budget performance management. The factor costs of products and services resulting from estimated fiscally anticipated inputs are determined, and the relevant reasonable performance targets and expected comprehensive benefits are determined in conjunction with policy target clusters. The cost side (input side) can display the "full cost" of capital allocation and operation in a panoramic manner, providing reference for the amount of expenditure funds involved in the research and formulation department, the adjustment of charging prices, relevant government subsidies, and the optimization of government investment and financing mechanisms; The revenue side (output side) needs to synthesize the direct output (output) and the "outcome" of measuring the "externality" factor into the "comprehensive economic and social benefits" of the operation of the panoramic map, so as to achieve the test cognition of the actual results of the overall coordinated expenditure performance management, and then obtain the reward and accountability basis corresponding to the actual results of the current expenditure arrangement, and optimize and guide the budget expenditure arrangement in the next period.

(5) Strengthen the forecasting ability and evaluation capacity building of talent training and digital technology support

In view of the fact that the backbone personnel of budget performance management are significantly insufficient and the professional level needs to be improved urgently, first, formulate a plan, steadily promote the training of budget performance management talents, and form a stable and professional talent team. To solve the problem of teacher sources in this regard, we can combine the government's "purchase of services" and "please come in" approach. Second, in view of the fact that the whole process of budget performance management is obviously insufficient in the "advance" forecasting ability, it is urgent to combine talent training, focus on improving forecasting capacity building, integrating modern information technology achievements, actively developing quantitative forecasting model methods, and improving and continuously enriching the database. And constantly accumulate experience, the methods used and supporting conditions, dynamic optimization and strengthening. The development, maintenance and upgrading of the quantitative model can also use the "government purchase service" method to speed up the process and improve the standard. Third, in view of the constraints on the performance evaluation ability of key issues in financial budget management, the "14th Five-Year Plan" period can consider selecting a number of practical hot spots and difficult important special projects under the framework of "comprehensive promotion" performance management, organizing high-level teams to form performance evaluation cases and demonstrations, and promoting experience to help form a new situation overall. For example, for the performance of local government debt management and hidden debt risk prevention, the fund management performance of social security (compulsory education, basic medical care, guaranteed housing, etc.), which is closely related to the "improvement of people's livelihood" of "two new and one heavy" construction projects, and the management performance of the central "direct funds", etc., it is possible to give priority to improving the evaluation capacity and promote the demonstration experience in a timely manner.

(6) Strive to improve and implement three-dimensional supervision mechanisms and reporting systems, and connect reward and punishment responsibility systems

The internal logic of the budget performance appraisal management system is to implement rewards and punishments in combination with the quantitative appraisal results, reflecting the incentives and constraints of the responsibility system. In the future, in order to effectively implement the responsibility system in the form of appraisal and supervision, rewards and punishments, the first is to improve the three-dimensional supervision system of budget performance. In the current audit and discipline inspection and supervision system, we will further clarify the focus of the responsibilities of relevant entities, optimize their superposition and coordination relationship, and build a three-dimensional supervision system for budget performance. The second is to build a dynamic supervision system for business integration performance. Coordinate the promotion of "Internet + performance + management", and clarify the boundary between the financial department with regulatory responsibilities and the main department of performance management. Gradually realize the comprehensive implementation of dynamic supervision of the business of financial entities, promote the optimal allocation of public resources, and improve the efficiency of capital output. The third is to actively cultivate third-party institutions and form a strong supplementary and support force. It is necessary to improve and perfect the selection mechanism and entrustment mechanism of third-party institutions. Strengthen the construction of industry self-discipline mechanisms and professional quality improvement mechanisms. The fourth is to implement the government's comprehensive financial reporting system. Improve the quality and efficiency of the preparation of accrual government consolidated financial reports. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, efforts should be made to combine the optimization of government accounting, government department financial reports, departmental budgets, and departmental final accounts, and strengthen the sense of responsibility of users of financial funds for the realization of performance goals and the performance orientation in their work. Fifth, combined with rewards and punishments, optimize and improve the budget performance information disclosure mechanism. First, strengthen the supervision of the people's congress on the performance evaluation results of major policies and project budgets, and improve the mechanism and content of disclosure to the public; Second, the scale and number of projects of performance evaluation information for key projects should be gradually expanded in stages and steps; Third, strengthen the management of the "final accounts" of the unit's declaration of budget performance objectives and contents, and announce and implement the appropriate reward and punishment measures. Finally, in accordance with the characteristics of various industries, different fields and different levels of requirements, establish and improve the management norms of performance evaluation reports, and strive to promote the gradual and comprehensive disclosure of budget performance management reports in accordance with the "online account book" of the government information system, and then implement the reward and punishment accountability mechanism in a sunny manner.

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5. Conclusion

In the general direction of implementing the strategic deployment and work guidance spirit of the Party Central Committee on the 14th Five-Year Plan and the long-term goals of 2035, China's government budget performance management reform must be closely combined with the reform and innovation of building a modern fiscal system and its efforts to serve the new stage of high-quality development, so as to meet the overall needs of the modernization of national governance. Based on the analysis of the current situation, it can be seen that while the mainland budget performance management has made a series of progress that should be affirmed, there are still problems and deficiencies in the construction of the rule of law, the construction of specialization, the work standards and evaluation standards, the setting of goals and their dynamic monitoring, the talent base and the data base; In the next stage, we should correctly design the basic operating principles and system construction framework ideas of budget performance management reform, clarify the overall command, orientation, support, yardstick, key points and guarantee conditions of reform, combine systematic demands with "problem orientation", and implement comprehensive budget performance management reform, the basic essentials of which include accelerating legislative construction, improving the forecast support level of budget preparation and forming a closed loop of the whole process of the four budgets, optimizing the overall design of performance evaluation standards and indicator systems. Promote the overall coordination of expenditure performance management of various departments, accelerate the training of talents and digital technology support capacity building, implement three-dimensional supervision mechanisms, reporting systems, and docking reward and punishment responsibility systems, etc., so as to make due contributions to the modernization of the country.

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Published in Jiangxi Social Sciences, No. 6, 2022

Original editor: Zhou Xiaoyan

WeChat Editor: Wan Yang

Jia Kang Introduction

He is a member of the 11th and 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a special expert of the talent pool of the Current National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on political participation and deliberation, the founding president of the Huaxia New Supply Economics Research Institute, and a researcher and doctoral supervisor of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences. He has long served as the director of the Institute of Fiscal Science of the Ministry of Finance. He is a special expert, consultant or advisory member of local governments in Beijing, Shanghai, Fujian, Anhui, Gansu, Guangxi, Tibet and other local governments, and a distinguished professor of Peking University, Chinese Min University, National School of Administration, Central Socialist College, Nankai University, Wuhan University, Xiamen University, Anhui University and many other universities. In 1988, he was selected for the Heinz Foundation project and went to the University of Pittsburgh for one year as a visiting scholar. In 1995, he enjoyed the special government allowance of the State Council. In 1997, he was rated as the high-level academic leader of the National Million Talents Project. He has been invited by leading comrades of the party and the state to discuss economic work many times. He was one of the special speakers of the 18th collective study "Fiscal and Taxation System Reform" of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee on January 8, 2010. Winner of the Sun Yefang Economics Prize, the Huangda-Mundell Economics Prize, and the China Soft Science Award. He is a member of the National Expert Committee of the 11th Five-Year Plan, the 12th Five-Year Plan and the 13th Five-Year Plan, and a member of the Expert Committee of the PPP Expert Database of the National Development and Reform Commission. In 2013, he edited "New Supply: China's Innovation in Economic Theory", initiated the establishment of the "Huaxia New Supply Economics Research Institute" and the "New Supply Economics 50 Forum" (as the first dean and the first secretary-general, and the chief economist during the second council), and from 2015 to 2016, he co-authored with Su Jingchun "New Supply Economics", "Supply Side Reform: A Concise Reader of New Supply" and "China's Barrier: How to Overcome the "Middle-Income Trap" (awarded by the China Book Critics Association and CCTV). 2016 China Good Books", published in 2016, "Ten Lectures on Supply-side Reform" was rated as a national excellent textbook by the Central Organization Department, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, and the National Library. From 2017 to 2020, he also wrote and published many monographs such as "Theoretical Model and Practical Path of Supply-side Structural Reform", "Future Finance and Taxation on the Main Line of Supply-side Reform", and "General Theory of Fiscal Science". In 2021, the book "New Development Pattern of Double Circulation" cooperated with Liu Wei was awarded the "2021 China Good Book". According to the large statistical analysis of more than 7 million articles in 6268 academic journals of philosophy and social sciences in mainland China from 2006 to 2015 published by China Social Science Assessment, Mr. Jia Kang's publication volume (398 articles), total citation frequency (4231 times) and total download frequency (204115 times) all ranked first, and the comprehensive index was 3429, ranking first, and he was a representative scholar among the core authors of economics.