The head of the department which may be home to a new watchdog on government spending says he doesn’t expect it to be a large operation or duplicate the work of other agencies.
Under a deal with the independents to form government, Prime Minister Julia Gillard agreed to set up a parliamentary budget office (PBO).
The PBO will provide independent advice to MPs on budget-related matters including financial analysis and policy costing, and educate the public on budget issues.
A similar office operating in the United States since 1975 has 250 staff and a budget of $US45 million ($A44.5 million) a year.
The closest thing Australia currently has to the PBO – the Productivity Commission – has 188 staff and a budget of $34 million a year.
Department of Parliamentary Services secretary Alan Thompson told a Senate estimates hearing on Monday the PBO – which was best suited to come under his department – was needed, but should be done with value for money in mind.
“There’s just no way that I would conceive of a parliamentary budget office being anything of that (Productivity Commission) scale,” he said.
“(And) we don’t want to duplicate the work of Treasury and the finance department.”
There was a “high level of credibility” in the budget figures produced by government departments and the situation in Australia differed to that behind the formation of the US Congressional Budget Office in the 1970s.
At that time Congress members “did not believe the figures they were being fed by the then administration”, Mr Thompson said.
Liberal senator Scott Ryan said it was the role of the PBO to check the figures of departments such as Treasury, so there had to be a “substantial amount of duplication” of work.
“The objective of this is to give the parliament matching capacity so parliamentarians aren’t bewildered by books of portfolio budget statements,” he said.
“It needs to challenge the assumptions (of government departments).”
A parliamentary inquiry is under way into how the PBO might be set up.