The year in review
2023–24, as the middle year of the parliamentary cycle, was one of consolidation. We embedded the changes commenced at the start of the 47th Parliament, adapting and refining our approach as we learned what worked to deliver value for our stakeholders.
Highlights for the year included:
- Continued strong demand for our costing and budget analysis services, completing a higher volume of parliamentarian request options than we anticipated, in a timelier manner, whilst maintaining quality.
- Expansion of our self-help interactive tools with the launch of our innovative Small Model of Australian Representative Taxpayers (SMART) tool on our new website, and additions to our popular Build your own budget (BYOB) tool.
- Leveraging our new website to increase the scope of our data visualisation in the presentation of our self-initiated products, including our suite of fiscal update chart packs and analytical pieces, such as the National Fiscal Outlook and Beyond the budget.
- Extension of our stakeholder outreach activity, including introducing drop-in sessions to our Budget Insights program, partnering with the Parliamentary Library to deliver bespoke education opportunities, and conducting our 'once every parliament' triennial stakeholder survey to ensure that we continuously improve our services.
- Lifting our engagement with agencies through a series of roadshows to build their understanding of what we do and how we work, as well as briefing international delegations and supporting international capability and capacity building.
- Leveraging technology to innovate our data management and analysis models and tools, enabling us to mature our approach, promoting efficiencies, improving capacity and risk mitigation.
- Proactively planning and investing to be ready to deliver our election responsibilities.
- Embedding our OnePBO organisational culture, refreshing our approach to diversity and inclusion and investing in building the skills and capability of our people to support operational resilience and our capacity to deliver across all our business goals.
Parliamentary Budget Officer's review
During 2023–24 the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) continued building strong relationships with our clients and partners in the 47th Parliament and with Commonwealth Departments. The number of requests received from parliamentarians was more than double that of the comparable period after the previous election. We published enhancements to many of our online analysis tools and began preparations for the next general election.
Being mid-way through the term of the 47th Parliament, 2023–24 was a year for consolidating what we had learned from our stakeholders about their needs.
We focused on ensuring that we made our work more accessible to our clients. We extended our Budget Insights education program to include informal drop-in sessions for parliamentarians and their staff and further streamlined our internal work tools.
For the second year in a row, we met our performance target of a median of fewer than 15 business days for responding to Parliamentarian Requests.
Our self-initiated products remained popular and our focus on enhancing chart packs and reports with interactive Power BI charts has added new elements to our flagship products. Topical Budget Explainers continue to provide informative background information for clients and the public alike, informing users well beyond their date of publication.
In May 2024 we published the full version of the Small Model of Australian Representative Taxpayers (SMART) tool, the latest in our series of online self-service interactive data tools. SMART is an innovative approach to modelling with large datasets which finds a balance between usability and analytical rigour.
We regularly receive visits from international governmental and parliamentary delegates interested in learning how the PBO operates. This year, our staff also attended an important meeting of Asian PBOs in Seoul and spent time in Fiji with the United Nations Development Programme’s mission to support budget analysis.
I would like to acknowledge the effort of the staff of the PBO who have delivered to a high level during a year of strong demand for our services, while continuing to innovate across our products and internal systems and ramping up for the next general election.
The year ahead
Now in our second decade of operation, we will continue to mature our business practices to ensure efficient tools and processes to deliver our core services to parliamentarians.
Our steady focus on health and wellbeing, education and capability policies stand behind our view that people are key to our success.
We expect to welcome a new Parliamentary Budget Officer in the coming months and, in the coming year, we will necessarily focus on preparing for and delivering our legislated role of publishing the Election commitments report following the next general election, before we introduce a new parliament to our services.
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