Public Budget Analysis course

Understanding the processes of formulating and executing the federal public budget is fundamental for government relations professionals. Firstly, knowledge of the topic is paramount to understand the country’s current political and economic setting. The federal budget is constantly on display in the main media outlets. As an example, recent news regarding the 2015 public deficit; the consequent increase in public debt; the need to recreate the Provisional Contribution on Financial Transactions (CPMF); the urgency to reform the welfare system and the financial challenges of Petrobras can be cited. These events can have an impact on a wide range of public or private institutions to a lower or greater degree.
The second reason why knowledge of the public budget is essential for a government relations professional is due to the fact that it is the main tool that the federal government has to govern. By understanding the budget, a public relations representative is able to understand the federal government’s priorities, its revenue prospects and investment proposals.
Professionals who are willing to take part in preparing or improving public policies need to know about and follow the dispatch and approval of the Multi-Annual Plan (PPA), Budget Guidelines (LDO) and Annual Budget Law (LOA) by National Congress. They should also be able to understand additional credit facilities and identify enforcements of parliamentary amendments, which recently reached newspaper headlines with the so-called Proposal to Amend the Constitution (PEC) for the imposed budget and which authorised R$ 9.0 billion for individual amendments in 2016.
Lastly, acquiring knowledge on the public budget can give a government relations professional the capacity to illustrate phenomena or anticipate trends. This is the third reason for him to have knowledge of the budget. The downturn of the Brazilian oil and gas sector, for example, may have been represented if the drop in Petrobras investments in recent years had been observed.

As can be seen in the graph above, Petrobras had been decreasing its investments since 2013, following a period of expressive increase in expenditure. It should be noted that the values shown were not corrected for inflation during the period. If it had been, the decrease in investments after 2013 may be even more accentuated.
Therefore, understanding the premises of the federal public budget and having the capacity to carry out analyses of the information made available by the federal government is of utmost importance for the performance of professionals who intend to intermediate the relationship between the private and public sectors. This is highly relevant information but has been forgotten by the main courses in the area, whether at graduate or post-graduate level. In order to fill this gap, the Brazilian Institute of Research and Data Analysis (Instituto Brasileiro de Pesquisa e Análise de Dados – IBPAD) is offering a Federal Public Budget course during March. Click here for further information.

Would you like to learn how to carry out searches like those performed in this text?

Simply visualising Petrobrás investment information, as presented in the text above requires basic knowledge of Siga Brasil, whether theoretical or practical. The IBPAD Federal Public Budget course provides the knowledge needed to give participants autonomy when performing analyses and to correctly interpret the information obtained.

Within the domain of theory, for example, one needs to be aware that income from public companies is not available on the system. Only information regarding its investments is made available.
Therefore, first of all, one needs to enter Siga Brasil (www.sigabrasil.gov.br) in order to gain access to it. Then, click on the “Web Intelligence” option.

The third step is selecting the “New” option, followed by selecting “Universe”. Various alternatives are then opened. Select the “executing state investments expenditure” universe for the year desired.

The last step is personalising the search according to the parameters required. It is fundamental that the institutions that you want to search, the period to be researched and which filters should be considered, among others, are clear at this time.

Would you like to find out more? Enrol on the course!