The document discusses making budget data more open and reusable in Russia. It proposes the Open Budget Format (OBF) as a standard to represent budget data in a simple, universal way using text formats like JSON and CSV. The OBF would include key fields like item ID, amount, and classification codes. It also supports versioning of budget documents and compatibility with other standards. The goals are to analyze current approaches, implement international open data methods for Russian budget data, and develop an initial OBF specification.

1. Open
Budget
Format
Olga
Parkhimovich,
Vitaly
Vlasov
FRUCT16,
Oulu,
Finland
1

2. Outline
• Reasons
• Budget
process
in
Russia
• Project
scope
• Approach
1.
Using
OpenSpending
• Approach
2.
Open
Budget
Format
• Future
work
2

3. Reasons
• High
interest
among
authorities
in
making
budget
more
transparent
and
reusable
• Current
budget
process
is
inefficient
• Problems
of
using
current
format
• Citizens
need
to
know
how
their
taxes
are
spent
• Civil
society
should
engage
in
all
stage
in
the
budget
process
3

4. Budget
Process
in
Russia
Stage 1. Drawing up the
draft budget
Stage 2. Review and
approve the budget
Stage 3. Implementation
of the budget
Stage 4. Preparation the
budget execution report
~4 budget
versions
+ >2 budget
versions
Budget
Life
Cycle
>12 budget
execution reports
Levels
of
Budget
National
Regional
Municipal
1 doc
>80 docs
>23 000
docs
Government
Contracts
4

5. Current
Structure
of
Budget
File
Name Target costs
Type of
costs
Section,
subsection
Amount
1 Total 76 591 596,0
2 State Program «Public Health» 51 0 0000 13 388 576,1
3 Subprogram «Primary health care» 51 1 0000 601 242,0
4
Costs for the operation of state-owned public
institutions
51 1 0016 169 453,3
5
Wage fund of state-owned institutions and
contributions for compulsory social insurance
51 1 0016 111 135 922,3
6 Ambulatory care 51 1 0016 111 0902 135 922,3
budget item
Budget
classification
code
5
Code of the
chief
administrator
of budget
funds
Section
code
Subsecti
on code
Code of the target article
Type of
costs code
Government
Operations
code
Program
code
Sub
prog
ram
code
Spending
priorities code
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

6. Project
Scope
•Goal:
to
make
budget
data
simple
and
useful
for
developers
and
citizens
•Tasks:
•analyse
existing
approaches
•implementation
of
international
methods
for
the
Russian
data
•develop
initial
standard
and
specification
of
Open
Budget
Format
(OBF)
version
1.0
6

7. Approach
1.
Using
OpenSpending
7
• Popular
platform
for
publication
of
financial
information:
https://
openspending.org/
• Budget
items
are
presented
as
rows
with
values
of
different
«dimensions».
Dimensions
could
be
organized
in
groups
and
facets
for
better
visualization
• Open
Refine
tool
has
been
used
to
prepare
data
for
OpenSpending.
https://openspending.org/russianbudgets/
Dimensions
Using
of
Open
Refine

8. Implementation
Problems with OpenSpending:
• Current budget format could not be imported
directly (without preparation)
• Specific requirements for Open Spending
Solution:
• Automation of preparing budget file with Open
Refine tool.
Pros:
• System is ready to use
• Good visualization tool
• Budget items are interlinked
Cons:
• This is proprietary format. Open Spending is just one of
systems and like «Microsoft» in the world of financial data
(like XLS vs. CVS).
• Government is not ready to put data into third-party services.
• This data format could not be used for interoperability for
government needs.
Name
Program
Code
Budget
Code
Budget item page
Code
SubProgram
We suggest another way:
• Our approach is not software but proposal of Data
Format which could be applicable for different systems.
• Government can use this format as they want and
integrate in their own systems.
• Easy to use for exchange information and building new
services (official government services or citizen apps)
Name
…
…
See example of "budget item" page in Open Spending
beta
version
of
Leningrad’s
budget
for
citizens
website:
lenobl2014.ru

9. Approach
2.
Open
Budget
Format
• Include best practices of the existing
1
standards (e.g. SDDS
of IMF
2
, Open
Contracting
3
, Open Spending)
• Compatible with Data Packages
4
.
• Based on text formats (JSON, CSV,
XML)
SDDS1 OCDS3 XLS5
JSON CSV XML
9
Data package4
Versioning
Compatibility
Versality
Scalable
Current budget
formats
Text formats
Key
characteristics
1
SDDS - Special Data Dissemination Standard
(http://dsbb.imf.org/Pages/SDDS/home.aspx)
2
IMF - International Monetary Fund
3
OCDS - Open contracting Data Standards by
Web Foundation (http://ocds.opencontracting.org/
standard/r/0__3__2/.html)
4
http://dataprotocols.org/data-packages/
5
XLS - current Russian standard of budget

10. Approach
2.
Open
Budget
Format.
Versality
Key
Characteristics
Simple, general and universal, represent the budgets on
different levels.
Good for automation
Convenient for automatic processing and clear, if necessary
for editing (converting) it by user.
Scalable Ability to use to represent any budgets in other countries too.
Versions support
It is necessary to be able to specify different versions of the
budget.
Integrated. Compatible with
other budget formats
Easy for integrating with other existing formats such as Open
Spending, Open Contracting Data Standard and Budget Data
Package.
Friendly and intuitive
In connection with trend of publishing «budgets for citizens»
and «open budget» by governments it is necessary to have
such version of OBF (readable both for machines and people).
10

11. Implementation.
Meta
Data
Fields
in
OBF
Name
Avaliable
types
Mandatory Description
itemId string required
Unique ID of item in current data set. May include
numbers, etters, special symbols
version string required
Version of budget doc, see details below. Could be
«final» or Number
docVersion number required Last version of document
level enum required "national" (N), "regional" (R), "municipal" (M)
country string required Code of Country (RU, US, etc)
subject string required Name of City, Region or Country, depends on level
dateCreation date-time required Date when current budgetItem has been created
dateChanged date-time required Date when current budgetItem has been changed
tag enum required "expenditures", "income"
stage enum required
"Proposal", «approval", "adjustment", «execution",
"amendment". Any additional comments could be
included in comments section.
lang string required Current language of document
comment string optional For example reference to law
11

12. Required
Data
Fields
in
OBF
Name
Avaliable
types
Mandatory Description
budgetItemCode string required
National budget classification or code system (in
Russia Code of Budget Classification)
budgetItemName string required Name of budget item
adminName string required
Name of organization that carries out operations
with current budget item
adminCode string optional Code of organization
amount number required Amount of budget item
currency string required Currency of country or operation
12

13. Specific
Data
Fields
in
OBF
Name
Avaliable
types
Mandatory Description
programName string for Russia Name of program
programCode string for Russia Code of program
subprogramName string for Russia Name of subprogram
subprogramCode string for Russia Code of subprogram
sectionEcName string for Russia Section of economics
sectionEcCode string for Russia Code of section of economics
subsectionEcName string for Russia Name of subsection of economics
subsectionEcCode string for Russia Code of subsection of economics
articleCode string for Russia Code of target article
typeOfCosts string for Russia Type of expenditure
typeOfCostsCode string for Russia Code of type of expenditure
govOperName string for Russia Government operation name
govOperCode string for Russia Government operation code
uri string optional If available for current budget item
cofogCode string optional Code of Classification of the Functions of Government
cofogName string optional (NCaOmFeO oGf )COFOG
imfName string optional Name of International Monetary bank (IMF) classification
imfCode string optional IcMoFd eCode
13

14. Versioning
14
•Mechanism
of
updating
current
file
(«U»,
update)
•Each
version
has
own
file
(«F»,
files)
•Info
about
stages
of
budget
(«S»,
stages)
U-­‐,
US-­‐,
F-­‐,
FS-­‐
versions

15. CSV
version
of
OBF
v1.0
•All
data
is
presented
as
rows
•First
rows
should
contain
names
of
field
•All
areas
of
fields
should
be
presented
for
each
row
•U,
US,
F,
FS-­‐versions
could
be
implemented
15

16. JSON
view
&
XML
view
JSON Schema
{
“budgetItem” : {
“itemId” : “121299”,
“version” : “final”,
“docVersion” : “1”,
“level” : “R”,
“country” : “RU”,
“subject” : “Leningrad Region”,
“dateCreation” : “16-09-2014 13:14:13”,
“dateChanged” : null,
“tag” : “income”,
“stage” : “execution”,
“lang” : “ru” }
}
<metadata>
!
<level>R<level>
<country>RU</country>
<subject>Leningrad Region</subject>
<lang>ru</lang>
</metadata>
<items>
!
<budgetItem>
!
<itemId>121299</itemId>
<version>final</version>
<docVersion>1</docVersion>
<dateCreation>16-09-2014 13:14:13
</dateCreation>
<tag>income</tag>
<stage>execution<stage>
</budgetItem>
</items>
{ "type": "budgetItem",
"properties": {
"itemId": { "type": "string" },
"version": { "type": "string" },
"docVersion": { "type": "number" }
"level": {
"type": "string",
"enum": ["N", "R", "M"]
}
... },
A piece of data
Example of XML data
16

17. Conclusions
&
Future
Work
•We
can
convert
and
visualize
the
budget
for
less
than
three
hours,
and
explain
this
process
to
the
ordinary
citizen
or
official
•We
have
the
first
version
of
Open
Budget
Format
•Future
work:
•ontologies
for
Russian
budget
process
and
mechanism
for
making
linked
budget
data
•comparison
of
budgets
and
government
contracts
•more
useful
visualizations
17

18. Contacts
!
Olga
Parkhimovich,
olya.parkhimovich@gmail.com,
@OpenDataRu
!
Vitaly
Vlasov,
inxaoc@gmail.com,
@inxaoc
FRUCT16,
Oulu,
Finland
18
KEEP
CALM
AND
TRY
TO
RESEARCH
BUDGET
DATA