The Supreme Judicial Council is a permanent authority which represents the judiciary in Bulgaria, ensures its independence and manages its activities without infringing upon their independence. To exercise its powers, among other things, the Supreme Judicial Council considers the draft budget of the judiciary, as proposed by the Minister of Justice, submits it to the Council of Ministers for incorporation in the draft state budget of the Republic of Bulgaria Act and controls its implementation.

The challenge

In past years, judicial systems around the world have been experiencing significant change related to restructuring, measures to deal with limited financing, and innovative approaches to planning and management. The project aimed to meet one of the needs of the judiciary in the context of the changes, namely to test an approach to budgeting which was completely new to magistrates in Bulgaria.

Budgeting in the judiciary has traditionally been resource-oriented. More attention is paid to the amount of funding bodies will receive rather than the goals of budgeting costs and the expected results. It appeared that the link between costs and effectiveness and their impact on economy was missing.

KPMG’s approach

KPMG has worked with the Supreme Judicial Council to implement program based and result oriented budgeting in the judiciary under a project funded by the European Social Fund implemented through the Administrative Capacity Operational Programme 2007-2013. It is a positive step in the process of reforms.

The KPMG team designed a complex set of objectives, expected results and performance indicators for the entire judicial system. This included setting out its mission, vision, strategic goals and five programs to achieve these goals.

KPMG advised the judges and prosecutors on specific budgeting techniques to justify the resource requirements which stem from and relate to outputs required to achieve these goals such as boosting public trust and confidence in the judiciary, further implementation of e-justice, and enhancing magistrates’ qualifications. These techniques have also been used to model the cost allocations for all programs of the judiciary for the next three-year period.

The result

The Supreme Judicial Council now has a practically oriented methodology developed by KPMG on how to implement strategic planning and program based budgeting in the judiciary.

The judicial authorities are now more confident that fundamental change is possible and that they can continue their reforms with the help of the practical steps KPMG has provided to them.