Hello dear participant !

Welcome to our training workshop on drawing up and updating commitment plans.

In this sequence 15, we will review the steps involved in drawing up a final sectoral commitment plan.

As we have seen in previous sequences, the initial Sectoral Commitment Plan is drawn up by the user administration, then forwarded to the Directorate General of Budget after the finance controller has given his opinion on its sustainability.

In this sequence, we shall see that the sectoral commitment plans are subject to consultation in the form of a review conference prior to consolidation. Following a second level of consultation, this time on the consolidated commitment plan, finalization instructions will be sent to the various administrations before the final version is implemented in the budget information system.

When the initial sectoral commitment plans arrive at the DGB, a concertation called the SCP review conference is organized. Through the dialogue established during the SCP review, the administrations communicate their appropriation intentions for the year; and the administrations in charge of coordinating the budgetary process ensure the consistency of these commitment plans by checking that the appropriations are in line with the Finance Law, and that the expected information is complete and accurate.

At the end of the SCP review conferences, the initial sectoral commitment plans will be consolidated by the DGB into a consolidated commitment plan, as we shall see in the next module. A regulatory body known as the Treasury and Budgetary Regulation Committee will examine the consolidated commitment plan in the light of cash flow forecasts, and will make arbitrations. The arbitrations made by this committee will result in instructions to the various administrations.

These instructions, and the subsequent revision of the initial commitment plans, must be taken into account as part of the management dialogue organized both at ministerial level and at the level of each programme within the ministry or institution.

The document obtained by each administration after taking into account the instructions it has been given is the final Sectoral Commitment Plan.

Once the sectoral commitment plans have been finalized, they are implemented in the budget information system, resulting in the introduction of blocking commitment ceilings. The purpose of this control system is to ensure compliance with instructions in relation to available cash.

The final sectoral commitment plans are implemented in the budget information system at the request of the Director General of Budget, who administers the system.

From this sequence, you should note that the initial sectoral commitment plans sent to the DGB by the administrations are the subject of a review conference attended by the sectoral managers and those in charge of coordinating the budgetary process. These conferences are followed by the aggregation of the initial SCP into an initial Consolidated Commitment Plan. A second level of consultation takes place between the DGB and the Treasury department within the framework of the Treasury and Budget Regulation Committee, to harmonize the needs of administrations with the availability of resources. From this committee come the instructions that the DGB will transmit to the sectoral administrations to enable them to draw up the definitive SCP, which will be implemented in the budget information system to set the commitment ceilings.