II.COMPARISONS OF OECD COUNTRY LEGAL FRAMEWORKS FOR BUDGET SYSTEMS

the degree of separateness between the legislature and the executive. Documentation requirements are:

●Established in considerable detail in law. The documentation requirements for the federal budget in the United States extend for about ten pages. The executive is required to present analytical perspectives, historical tables, and appendices (the last are largely to enable the appropriation sub-committees of the legislature to begin amending, at a detailed level, the proposed draft programmes and appropriation accounts). The legal requirements are the most detailed of OECD countries. Other less extreme examples, where a law specifies requirements in detail, include France (see Box II.3, which shows the type of detail that is included in the law in some countries) and Germany.

●Briefly elaborated in the budget system law. Sweden’s Parliament Act and its State Budget Act contain a few requirements for budget documents. Similarly, the other Nordic countries do not have legal requirements for detailed budget documentation to be prepared Full information is nonetheless provided, on a voluntary basis, in the light of informal discussions between the Ministries of Finance and parliamentary finance committees.

●Not required by a law. Prior to 1990, the Westminster countries’ executives

decided the content of budget documentation and the form of the estimates. In recent years, fiscal responsibility laws, or near-laws16 have specified the

content of pre-budget and budget reports. Canada has not adopted such a law.

4.2. Parliamentary approval of the budget

4.2.1. Timetable for parliamentary discussion and adoption of the annual budget

The timetable for parliamentary discussion partly depends on the nature of the legal obligations to: 1) submit the draft budget by a certain date; 2) limit budget debate time in parliamentary committees and plenary sessions; and 3) adopt the budget before the beginning of the new fiscal year. This subsection is limited to points 2 and 3; for 1, see Table II.4.

Parliamentary debate time on the draft annual budget may be limited by law, parliamentary regulations, or not at all. In France such restrictions are embodied in the Constitution. The first readings of the draft annual State budget law are required to be completed within 40 days (National Assembly) and 15 days (Senate) of its presentation, with Parliament (both chambers) making a final decision on the budget within 70 days of its presentation. The Constitution, as amended in 1996, also limits the time – to 50 days – for making a decision on draft social security financing laws. It is highly unusual for parliamentary discussion time to be limited in the Constitution. However, France adopted the constitutional change in 1958 in reaction to uncontrolled