Our performance against the three elements of our function is underpinned by the capability of our employees and our ability to access relevant information.

Employees

Our employees are our biggest asset in terms of our ability to provide high-quality policy costings, budget analysis and research. The PBO comprises a group of employees with experience and highly developed skills in economics and data analysis and a deep understanding of a wide range of policy areas.

As discussed above, during 2018–19 we actively sought to build skills and recruit in areas that would assist our policy costings work in the lead-up to the election and the election commitment report.

We also implemented a range of measures, including training, to build the resilience of our staff and promote their ability to perform effectively through our peak workload period.

Data and models

Our models and access to the data held by Commonwealth agencies are critical to our ability to accurately cost policy proposals and analyse budget issues through our research program. We have a memorandum of understanding with Commonwealth agencies that govern our access to government models and data, allowing us to undertake analysis and simulate policy proposals using similar models, frameworks and data. This is fundamental to the work that we do. We acknowledge the valuable support we continue to receive from agencies who provided us with data and models on a timely basis to support our work during 2018–19.

We enhance the models we receive from agencies and build our own models to ensure that we have capability across the full range of revenue and expenditure programs that we may be asked to analyse. This is especially critical in the lead-up to an election where the timeliness of our responses becomes increasingly important.

Table 3 shows the number of requests sent to agencies during 2018–19, and the associated response timeframes. The support we are provided is reflected by the fact that 98 per cent of responses to requests for information were returned within the timeframe we requested.

Table 3: Information requests to agencies

Appendix B contains details of information request responsiveness for each agency that we requested information from during 2018–19, as well as historical information on responses to our requests for information.

In addition to our engagements with our expert panel members, the JCPAA and agencies, we maintain a range of other relationships that build our capabilities and in turn allow us to contribute to the capability building in other organisations undertaking related functions.

• The Parliamentary Budget Officer is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Network of Parliamentary Budget Officials and Independent Fiscal Institutions. This network meets annually to discuss issues and share experiences relating to the work of these organisations.
• In 2018–19, we held discussions with the New Zealand Treasury and hosted one of their employees for a month, to support preparations for the implementation of a parliamentary budget office in New Zealand.
• The Parliamentary Budget Officer continues to be a member of the Advisory Board of the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the Australian National University, to provide input to the Institute’s research priorities and identify opportunities for the PBO to work collaboratively with the Institute.
• We engaged with the new Victorian PBO and the temporary New South Wales PBO to provide advice on our experience to inform their establishment; and then with the Victorian PBO to learn aspects of their implementation that could assist us, particularly in relation to workflow management.