Performance-Based Budgeting

Performance-based budgeting is an approach to public budgeting that connects the funds allocated to programs with the results those programs are expected to and actually do deliver. Rather than appropriating money by line items such as salaries and supplies, it organises the budget around programs with stated objectives and performance indicators, so that resource decisions can be informed by what the money buys in terms of outputs and outcomes. Allen Schick's classic 1966 analysis of budget reform traced how budgeting evolved from controlling inputs toward management and planning orientations, of which performance budgeting is a central strand, and the OECD has documented its modern variants across member governments.