Guide

Guide to the Budget documents

A number of documents are released on Budget day. The purpose of these documents is to  provide information about the Government’s fiscal intentions for the year ahead and the wider fiscal and economic picture. The documents released on Budget day are as follows:

Budget at a Glance#

The Budget at a Glance is an overview of the Budget information and contains the main points for the media and public. This summarises the Government’s spending decisions and key points included in the Budget Speech, the Wellbeing Budget 2022, and the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update.

Wellbeing Budget 2022#

The Wellbeing Budget 2022 is the main source of Budget information. It sets out the Government’s priorities for the Budget, the approach taken to develop it, and includes an annex with a summary of all initiatives included in Budget 2022. It also contains reports on fiscal strategy and child poverty, as required by the Public Finance Act 1989. These outline respectively the Government’s short-term fiscal intentions and long-term fiscal objectives and how the Government is progressing towards its child poverty targets.

Budget speech#

The Budget Speech is the Budget Statement the Minister of Finance delivers at the start of Parliament’s Budget debate. The Budget Statement generally focuses on the overall fiscal and economic position, the Government’s policy priorities and how those priorities will be funded.

Budget Economic and Fiscal Update#

The Budget Economic and Fiscal Update includes the Treasury’s economic forecasts and the forecast financial statements of the Government incorporating the financial implications of Government decisions and other information relevant to the fiscal and economic outlook. The Budget Economic and Fiscal Update also discusses key risks to the economic and fiscal forecasts.

The Estimates of Appropriations#

The Estimates outline, for the financial year about to start (the Budget year), expenses and capital expenditure the Government plans to incur on specified areas within each Vote, and capital injections it plans to make to individual departments. The Estimates are organised into 9 sector volumes, with each Vote allocated to one sector. Supporting information in the Estimates summarises the new policy initiatives and trend information for each Vote and provides information on what is intended to be achieved with each appropriation in a Vote and how performance against each appropriation will be assessed and reported on after the end of the Budget year.

Also released on Budget Day:

The Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations#

The Supplementary Estimates outline the changes to expenses, capital expenditure and capital injections to departments required for the financial year about to end. Supporting information for each Vote provides reasons for the changes to appropriations during the year, related changes in performance information and full performance information for new appropriations.