The budgetary traffic light is a primary technical tool for identification of risks to achieve budgetary objectives. This tool provides an answer to a question, whether, in a current year, the government is on track to meet its budgetary objective expressed in terms of the general government balance.
Forecasts of revenue and expenditure budgetary items are prepared based on detailed outturn data for public entities and are subsequently used to calculate a deviation of the expected level of general government balance from the budgetary objective. This assessment incorporates the entirety of the general government and is carried out consistently with the ESA 2010 system of accounts.
A release of the budgetary traffic light incorporates information about areas of the public budget, where a deviation is identified relative to budgetary objectives. Changes in the levels of individual revenue and expenditure items can indicate not only risks for the current fiscal year, but also for subsequent year over the medium-term horizon. At the same time, this framework allows us to identify impact of government measures adopted during the ongoing fiscal year.
The budgetary traffic light is released monthly. It evaluates detailed information about the budget execution independently of the government and the ministry of finance.