National Audit Office of Finland

The latest data related to labour market status show that between April and September 2020, the number of people who moved outside the labour force compared with the previous quarter was twice as high as in the corresponding period last year. The rate at which jobs are changed has slowed down. The NAOF has produced a visualization of the labour market shifts.

Parliament has taken a decision on the fifth supplementary budget for 2020. The estimates of the development of tax revenue made during the spring and summer have been adjusted in the fifth supplementary budget. The development of all estimated income and expenditure can be examined in the visualization compiled by the National Audit Office.

The coronavirus crisis has challenged the conventional ways of working within the Government and public administration. The crisis has required comprehensive management of the situation and a completely new kind of operating capability.

New investments and maintenance costs should be adapted to each other in the lifecycle management of the transport network. The volume of investments should be at a level that makes it possible to maintain an appropriate service capacity in the entire transport network even in the future.

Finland is one of the first countries in the world to start developing so-called phenomenon-based budgeting to support sustainable development. The Finnish Governments have included sustainable development budgeting in their action plans. The issue has been discussed by a working group set up by the Ministry of Finance, and the Parliamentary Committee for the Future has underlined the need to promote phenomenon-based budgeting.

Different administrative branches do not have uniform procedures for drafting the budget. The drafting procedures were not unified in 2015–2019, and non-uniformity has only increased in the budget for 2020. The Ministry of Finance should strengthen the budget proposal process to enable it to take action in the case of proposals that are contrary to the new drafting regulation. The ministries should make sure that they take the changes in the drafting regulation into account when drafting their budgets.