Hello dear participant !

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

In this sequence 13, we’ll look at the process of drawing up the initial Sectoral Commitment Plan.

Initial Sectoral Commitment Plans are those drawn up by the individual administrations and consolidated at DGB level to serve as input for the cash position plan.

The commitment plan drawing up process begins with the production of the initial sector commitment plan. As we have seen in previous sequences, the SCP is based on two main tools: the Annual Work Plan (AWP) and the Simplified Procurement Plan (SPP).

An administration’s AWP sets out a list of activities and tasks for each of its programmes and for each action within that programme, together with the appropriations needed to implement them. These activities and tasks are implemented according to an annual schedule.

Some activities, which are carried out by means of a procurement procedure, have specific information in the Simplified Procurement Plan, notably the amounts and payment dates of the various breakdowns, as well as the source of funding. It should be noted that only Ordinary Internal Expenditure (RIO) is considered in the SCP. Expenditure financed from external sources is therefore excluded.

Drawing up the initial SCPs involves grouping the appropriations required to implement the activities and tasks set out in the AWP by expenditure heading, and scheduling the commitments, liquidations and payment authorisations required to implement these activities and tasks by month.

An activity may involve several types of expenditure. Each planned expenditure must be associated with an expenditure type, which will position it on the appropriate SCP line. The month in which the activity is scheduled to take place must allow you to decide in which month to schedule the commitment, liquidation and authorization of expenditures linked to the activity.

These dates must be set with sufficient lead-time to ensure that the necessary resources are available before the activity begins. They must also take into account the budget year closing calendar (dates for approvals or authorizations)

As we saw in module 1, expenditures in a SCP are grouped by major mass, and within each major mass, they are classified by order of priority. There are mandatory expenditures, priority expenditures and other expenditures. This hierarchy is justified by the scarcity of resources, and to facilitate arbitration.

It is important to note that the level of priority assigned to an expenditure is set by the user administration. In fact, the explanatory note accompanying the SCP must include a table identifying all expenditures deemed to have priority.

For example, a management control activity scheduled for May could require two types of expenditure:

• – an expenditure for purchases, classified under the main heading EXPENDITURE FOR GOODS AND SERVICES as a priority expenditure for goods and services
• – another type of expenditure for bonuses and gratuities, which will be classified as other personnel expenditure under the heading PERSONNEL EXPENDITURE.

As the activity is scheduled for May, commitments can be made in March, and liquidation and authorization in April.

This operation must be repeated for EACH ACTIVITY in EACH PROGRAMME of the administration concerned.

The data from each programme is then aggregated to obtain the initial SCP for the Ministry or institution.

The initial SCP, accompanied by an explanatory note, the AWP and the SPP, will be sent to the finance controller for his opinion on its sustainability, before being forwarded to the Directorate General of the Budget.

From this sequence, you should remember that the initial SCP is obtained after processing the Annual Work Plan and the Simplified Procurement Plan. It summarizes all expenditure on Ordinary Internal Resources planned for the year, grouped by priority within each major item. Its preparation requires programming which, depending on the expected date of implementation of activities, anticipates the appropriate dates for commitment, liquidation and scheduling, in compliance with the year-end constraints of the end of commitment and payment authorisations dates.