I have certainly seen more highly aggregated estimates than in Canada, but I did look at the main estimates a few days ago, and at least you have program-level information, which I think is very good. I've seen estimates that include more detailed information below the program level, sub-programs, or whatever you may call them. I don't know if your estimates also include that information. I'm not closely acquainted with that, but there are different ways of presenting estimates, and having programs in the estimates is very important. One could add a level of detail to that on the next level below the program level.
It is also important for estimates to have medium-term figures in them. Of course, you approve budgets on an annual basis, but certainly, in my opinion, in a good set of estimates I would like to see information on past expenditure, the current budget year, and then three years or so out into the future, of which the first year is the budget year. That gives me a range of years that I can then use to query government; I can ask how a program is developing, what is driving spending changes in a particular program. These are some of the things that I'd like to see in a good set of estimates that is given to Parliament.
The level at which you appropriate money is then a second issue, and I have very strongly advocated also appropriating money at the program level. I believe this will also force government, to some degree, to engage more carefully with parliamentary committees, and maybe it will also lead parliamentary committees to ask more detailed questions about programs, because when you just approve the budget at the vote level, you say, “Executive or government, you can do whatever you want”, within very highly aggregated spending lines.
These are just some of the points I would make.
With regard to the last point that was raised on whether it is possible to better analyze the budget, here I can just make the point again that you are extremely fortunate among the OECD countries to have access to the Parliamentary Budget Office. Although this is a growing trend among OECD countries, we have about one-third of all OECD country legislatures having such a research capacity, and the two-thirds that lack it have much less possibility to analyze the budget proposal.