VALUE FOR MONEY BUDGET AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT REFORM IN THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, TAIWAN AND AUSTRALIA VALUE FOR MONEY BUDGET AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT REFORM IN THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, TAIWAN AND AUSTRALIA EDITED BY ANDREW PODGER, TSAI-TSU SU, JOHN WANNA, HON S CHAN AND MEILI NIU Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: anupress@anu.edu.au This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia ISBN(s): 9781760461799 (print) 9781760461805 (eBook) This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialNoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) The full licence terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ legalcode Cover design and layout by ANU Press This edition © 2018 ANU Press Contents List of figures vii List of tables ix Abbreviations xi Contributors xv How political institutions, history and experience affect government budgeting processes and ways of achieving ‘value for money’ Andrew Podger, Tsai-tsu Su, John Wanna, Meili Niu and Hon S Chan Government budgeting and the quest for value-for-money outcomes in Australia 17 John Wanna Projecting long-term fiscal outcomes 43 Mike Woods Budget reform in China: Progress and prospects in the Xi Jinping era 65 Christine Wong Public budgeting system in Taiwan: Does it lead to better value for money? 79 Tsai-tsu Su Making ‘accountability for results’ really work? 95 Andrew Podger Adoption or implementation? Performance measurement in the City of Guangzhou’s Department of Education 127 Meili Niu Public financial management and the campaign against extravagant position-related consumption in China 149 Hanyu Xiao Accountability reform, parliamentary oversight and the role of performance audit in Australia 175 Zahirul Hoque and Des Pearson 10 The development of performance auditing in Taiwan 201 Kai-Hung Fang and Tsai-tsu Su 11 Budgeting and financial management of public infrastructure: The experience of Taiwan 221 Yu-Ying Kuo and Ming Huei Cheng 12 Municipal financial strategy responses to fiscal austerity: The case of Taiwan 251 Hsin-Fang Tsai 13 Australia’s employment services, 1998–2012: Using performance monitoring and evaluation to improve value for money 277 Wendy Jarvie and Trish Mercer 14 Case study of the role of third-party evaluators in performance-based budgeting reform at the local government level in China 299 Zaozao Zhao 15 Education outlay, fiscal transfers and interregional funding equity: A county-level analysis of education finance in China 317 Ping Zhang, Zizhou Bu, Youqiang Wang and Yilin Hou 16 Timely help or icing the cake? Revisiting the effect of public subsidies on private R&D investment in Taiwan 345 Hsini Huang and Nailing Kuo 17 ‘Value for money’ lessons and challenges 367 Andrew Podger List of figures Figure 6.1 Commonwealth governance structures policy assessment template 103 Figure 6.2 The budget and performance management cycle until 2015 106 Figure 6.3 The performance management framework 108 Figure 6.4 Enhanced Commonwealth performance and budget cycle 115 Figure 7.1 Education department’s budget, 2010–16 (RMB million) 136 Figure 7.2 Evaluation procedure for the programs assessed by the finance department 140 Figure 7.3 Evaluation procedure for selected programs assessed by the education department 141 Figure 10.1 The maturity model of SAIs 203 Figure 10.2 Number of cases reported to the Control Yuan due to negligence of duty or poor performance 209 Figure 11.1 Application and evaluation procedure for government planned projects 230 Figure 13.1 Decline in cost per employment outcome, 1991–2006 281 Figure 13.2 Cost per employment outcome 283 Figure 14.1 Changing rules for PBB third parties since 2004 304 Figure 15.1 Density distribution of the adequacy index with extreme outliers included (all counties in all provinces) 325 vii Value for Money Figure 15.2 Trend change of inequality index over sample period (adequacy) 326 Figure 16.1 Comparison of civil R&D expenditure as a percentage of national GDP across Taiwan and OECD countries: A 1996–2012 average 346 Figure 16.2 Taiwan’s civil R&D/GDP ratio and government R&D spending to private firms, by year, 1996–2013 348 Figure 16.3 Public R&D support to the private sector as a percentage of private R&D expenditure in Taiwan, 1999–2014 349 Figure 16.4 Total tax reductions for R&D in Taiwan, 1993–2014 350 Figure 16.5 Possible effects of public R&D funding on firms’ R&D expenditure 353 Figure 16.6 Enterprise R&D funded by the Taiwanese Government, 2001–13 (per cent) 355 viii List of tables Table 7.1 Subordinate units of the education department (departmental budget 2015) 135 Table 8.1 Four types of interaction between formal and informal rules 167 Table 9.1 The ANAO output–outcome framework 193 Table 10.1 Total number of NAO staff and their average age 204 Table 10.2 Educational level of NAO staff 205 Table 10.3 Performance auditing–related training received 206 Table 10.4 Number of performance audit reports 208 Table 11.1 Incentives for promotion of private participation in public infrastructure projects 227 Table 11.2 Tax expenditure on tax incentives for infrastructure projects (NT$ million) 229 Table 11.3 i-Taiwan 12 projects 232 Table 11.4 Total investment and private investment in i-Taiwan 12 projects 233 Table 11.5 Major private investment projects 234 Table 11.6 Public infrastructure projects, 2017 (NT$ billion) 236 Table 12.1 Revenue, expenses and balance at all levels of government (NT$100 million) 252 Table 12.2 Ratio of five municipalities’ revenue and dependence on grants (per cent) 253 Table 12.3 Strategies for cutback management 256 Table 12.4 Structure of the Local Fiscal Consolidation Project 258 ix Value for Money Table 12.5 Local financial appraisal index indicators 261 Table 12.6 In-depth interview respondents 262 Table 12.7 Municipalities’ performance in broadening sources of income, 2013 (per cent) 264 Table 12.8 Municipalities’ performance in reducing expenditure, 2013 (per cent) 266 Table 12.9 Municipalities’ debt management performance, 2013 (per cent) 267 Table 13.1 Employment services in Australia, 1998–2012 282 Table 13.2 Weightings used for the star ratings under the Active Participation Model, from 2005 (per cent) 288 Table 13.3 Employment services: Design features to drive better outcomes at lower cost 292 Appendix Table A13.1 Weightings used for JSA star ratings (per cent) 296 Table 14.1 Definition of standards and ranking of PBB third-party performance 310 Table 14.2 Assessment of PBB third-party performance in the three cases 311 Table 15.1 Summary statistics of main variables 329 Table 15.2 Four model specification results without time differences: Impact on inequity index (dependent variable) (fixed-effects estimator with robust standard errors) 331 Table 15.3 Model including difference measures (inequity index) 334 Table 15.4 Cross-section model, dependent variable = inequity index difference between 2006 and 2000 337 Table 16.1 Granger causality test: Government R&D expenditure versus private R&D expenditure 358 Table 16.2 Granger causality test: Government R&D expenditure versus R&D labour costs 359 Table 16.3 Granger causality test: Government R&D expenditure versus R&D capital costs 360 x ... VALUE FOR MONEY BUDGET AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT REFORM IN THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, TAIWAN AND AUSTRALIA EDITED BY ANDREW PODGER, TSAI-TSU SU, JOHN WANNA, HON S CHAN AND MEILI... required for reforms to be successful The chapters in this book explore budgeting and financial management in three very different jurisdictions: Australia, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the. .. oversight of the budget and of the performance of government agencies and programs, notwithstanding the recent establishment of the Parliamentary Budget Office Mike Woods in Chapter examines Australia s