BUDGET DECENTRALISATION: RESULTS AND CURRENT CHALLENGES

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to analyse the results of budgetary decentralisation in Ukraine, to identify the factors that have the greatest impact on its success, and to identify the urgent tasks for improving the financial capacity of hromadas. Results. The article analyses the content of the strategies for reforming the public finance management system for 2017-2020 and 2022-2025, as well as the reports on the implementation of the Strategy for the period February 2017 – December 2019 and for 2022. The paper identifies the main achievements and unresolved issues of implementation of these strategies. The study highlights the factors that have the greatest impact on the success of the implementation of the tasks of reforming the public finance system. The coefficients of budgetary centralisation and decentralisation are calculated on the basis of expenditures of the Consolidated, State and local budgets. The article examines the results of a survey of local government representatives conducted in 2023 from April 27 to May 4 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology within the framework of the Sectoral Support Initiative for Civil Society in Ukraine project on the availability of post-war recovery plans in hromadas. Value / Originality. The undisputed results of the budget decentralisation for the period 2017-2020 include an increase in the volume of local budgets' own financial resources and a certain improvement in the quality of public services provided to consumers, but it is noted that the goals of the Strategy for Reforming the Public Finance Management System were not achieved during this period. The authors note a significant improvement in the quality of strategic planning in 2021 compared to 2016. It is emphasised that the implementation of most of the budgetary decentralisation measures planned in the latest Strategy was prevented by the full-scale war with Russia. Among the unresolved issues of the reform are the following: significant dependence of local self-government on central government transfers, duplication of functions by district and regional state administrations, low human and institutional capacity of local self-government bodies, and the procedure for administering local taxes. One of the urgent tasks of budgetary decentralisation is the need to develop and implement post-war reconstruction measures.