PAISA Planning, Allocations

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PAISAPlanning, Allocations Expenditures,
Institutions Studies in Accountability

• Yamini Aiyar
• December 2008

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Hypothesis Information Matters
State
State
State
State
State
State
State
State
State
State
State
State
State
Citizens monitor place demands make informed
choices
State tracks resources, Implementation, monitors
outcomes, better plans
Information to Outcomes
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Citizen
Provider
Provider
Provider
Provider
Provider
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Information on public expenditures matters

• Helps identify inefficiencies underutilization
  fund flows - transfers bunched up in to the last
  quarter cumbersome procedures
• Helps identify leakages procurement
• Better planning Links to the realities on the
  ground
• Creates transparency in procedures
• Tool for citizens to monitor service providers
  and demand better services
• Citizens right to know

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But.. Getting to expenditures requires some
serious detective work
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Where would you go looking for Expenditure Data?

• Budget documents
• Central Government
• Do not report expenditures
• Only report on revised estimates
• Available with line ministries BUT no centralized
  data bases
• State Government
• Expenditure data is reported BUT not easily
  available
• Available data too complex, not accessible

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Where would you go looking for Expenditure Data?

• Audit Documents
• Financial and Revenue Account documents available
  on-line BUT with a two-year lapse
• Available data very complex
• At the center gt 50,000 crores that go to state
  societies not reflected
• Data too complex, not accessible

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Adding Panchayats to the mix

• Budget Documents
• No dedicated demand for grant budget head at
  the center
• State government demand for grant budget head
  also reflect RDPR budgets and expenditures
• No uniform accounting system
• Budget heads do not make a distinction between
  urban and rural

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Adding Panchayats to the mix

• Audit Documents
• Not done regularly
• No audit checks
• Weak capacity
• Not available publicly
• Too complex to understand easily

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Adding Centrally Sponsored Schemes to mix

• Centrally sponsored schemes dominate social
  sector expenditures

Accessing expenditure data on CSS extremely
difficult
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Institutional Design a large of CSS

Central Releases
State Releases
State Society
Outside AG purview spillovers
District Society
Block Development Office
Service Provider
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Information bottlenecks

• Central Government
• Release treated as expenditure- no incentive to
  follow up on actuals
• Annual Physical and Financial Progress reports
  include spillovers no incentive to follow up as
  releases have no bearing on expenditures
• CSS plan size increases even when information on
  actual expenditure not available
• Data disaggregated by state NOT district
• State Government
• Data on states share not easily available
• Physical, financial monitoring done by
  implementation society

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Information Bottlenecks

• State Implementation Society
• Monthly physical and financial reports BUT
• Does not account for spillovers
• Fund transfers not uniform
• Fund transfers bear no connection to expenditures
  hence no incentives to track
• Audits undertaken by private auditors BUT
• No uniform methodology
• Time lags
• No audit checks
• Reports not made public

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Information Bottlenecks

• District Implementation Society
• Annual Work Plan (AWP) does not reflect annual
  expenditures
• Monthly progress does not account for
  spillovers and do not highlight variations in
  release
• Significant delays in reporting as utilization
  certificates not received on time
• Audits undertaken by private auditors BUT
• Significant delays
• No uniform auditing pattern some audit reports
  provide balance sheets of assets and liabilities
  income and expenditure Others disaggregate by
  budget heads but NOT by AWP
• Reports not made public

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Information Bottlenecks

• Cannot disaggregate from district to the service
  provider level
• No publically available data on what happens
  after the district. What happens at the service
  delivery unit?
• This requires primary physical-financial
  verification

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How does one get to the bottom of this?

• You need to investigate
• Center, state and district yearly allocations,
  releases and expenditure data to identify
  spillovers
• State and district AWPs, release calendar,
  expenditure registers, audit reports
• Service provider level vouchers, utilization
  certificates, audit registers

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• So whats PAISA All About?
• Collecting Information Building Capacity

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The PAISA Plan

• Objectives
• To enhance accountability in public expenditure
  management for basic service delivery in India
  by
• Collecting and widely disseminating data related
  to planning processes, resource allocations,
  expenditures and institutional arrangements for
  service delivery
• Build capacities for primary stakeholders to
  effectively participate in planning and resource
  tracking
• First phase focus on Elementary Education

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Why SSA?

• Heres what the guidelines say
• 1.7.6 Community Based Monitoring with Full
  Transparency - The Programme will have a
  community based monitoring system. The
  Educational Management Information System (EMIS)
  will correlate school level data with
  community-based information from micro planning
  and surveys. Besides this, every school will
  beencouraged to share all information with the
  community, including grants received. A notice
  board would be put up in every school for this
  purpose.
• 1.7.7 Habitation as a Unit of Planning - The SSA
  works on a community based approach to planning
  with habitation as a unit of planning. Habitation
  plans will be the basis for formulating district
  plans.
• 1.7.8 Accountability to Community - SSA envisages
  cooperation between teachers, parents and PRIs,
  as well as accountability and transparency to
  the community.

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PAISA Activities

• Understanding Plans and Allocations
• Desk-based research
• To assess institutional roles and
  responsibilities
• Annual work plans
• Allocations and releases
• Resource flow toolkits
• Assess information needs amongst citizens(FGDs
  with VECs)
• Pictoral tools articulate resource flows
• Capacity Building
• Training workshops on resource flows
• Short courses on links between AWP, resources and
  budgets

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PAISA Activities

• Understanding Expenditures and Institutions
• Expenditure tracking study
• Examine outlays, release and expenditure since
  2001 compared with AWPs
• Primary data collection District level surveys.
  3 states 3 districts 2 blocks 8 GPs/ schools
• More thinking yet to be done

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PAISA Activities

• Understanding Expenditures and Institutions
• Toolkits
• 10 key questions to understand fund flows what
  came? How much was spent? On what ? Whats left?
• Information needs FGDs (VEC, Block officials,
  District Officials NGOs)
• Capacity Building
• Training workshops on resource flows
• Short courses on resource tracking using toolkits
  developed

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Thoughts for dissemination

• Using IT
• SMS channels? Monthly SMS on main findings in
  financial progress reports directly to VEC
  members, School head master, GP
• Map maker? Budget information per school,
  expenditure information updated every month?

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