Accountability Tool Kits: Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys

The past decade has witnessed an overwhelming interest among citizens and civil society groups around the world to engage with budget issues, through a mix of analysis, public education and advocacy. This interest is a consequence of a increasing recognition that budget allocations, when used as indicators of the supply of public services, are poor predictors of the actual quantity and quality of public services. There is now a significant and growing body of literature that demonstrates that, rather than the quantum of funds, it is the processes and mechanisms through which funds get translated into outcomes that determine the quantity and quality of services provided. Poor outcomes in service delivery are actually a consequence of failures of accountability in the set of institutional relationships between inputs and outcomes (Amin, Das and Goldstein 2008). Therefore solutions to the problem of service delivery cannot be effectively resolved by simply increasing public expenditure. We will need to address the links between public spending and its translation into public services, and to explore and ascertain these links, we will need micro‐level tools (Reinikka and Svensson 2002).

This tool kit offers an overview of PETS, and some insights into it. Although this overview is specific to the education sector, the processes and implementation strategies discussed here could be extended to other services as well.