Well, I’ve thought some more about budgets and while I still have a gut feeling budgets are a bad idea I can’t come with anything I think might work better. Perhaps a mix of systems would work? Part budget, part asking for approval and financing before going ahead with a project?
In the case of road works, things like maintenance and repairs would be on-going and it wouldn’t make sense to have to apply for funding each time a pot-hole needed sorting. In these cases budgets would be appropriate. An amount is allocated, if not all is used in a particular period the remainder is handed back. If there’s not enough then the shortfall is made up automatically from taxes.
New projects however should be properly assessed as to whether they are really needed, then costed and the findings submitted for approval before money is allocated and the project started.
If one person or one group is responsible and knows their decisions and requests for money will be accepted then presumably they wouldn’t have to worry about spending their entire budgets in case the budgets are reduced in future. One person or group is responsible for a given area; that person or group is responsible to the government and if spending exceeds what is deemed to be reasonable then they become accountable and have to justify their actions.
I can almost hear someone out there saying ‘this is basically what happens anyway’, but does it really? We can all see the state of the roads, we can all think of a project that was carried out needlessly while other, vital, work is left undone because they come from different budgets. We hear about officials in all areas who are given golden handshakes after failing in their work. People these days tend not to hold themselves responsible and are certainly not held accountable.
Perhaps the problem is not so much the system as the people in the system.
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