Government Budget, Accountability & Transparency Public Private Partnership

Budget, Accountability & Transparency (BAT)  Working Group

The BAT Working Group is kicking off a new project to pilot a trusted government financial management system in one or more local government institutions.  The goal is to implement the system in local school systems, city budget offices or other small-scale government institutions.

Problem Statement

Governments around the world and at all levels must plan and manage budgets – large and small. Many governments continue to use outdated processes for budgeting, appropriations, and tracking that have not changed in over 100 years!  And, while many have digitized, the fundamental processes remain unchanged. Thus, we continue to pour new wine into old wineskins.

Meanwhile, millennials, the “there’s an app for that” generation, are beginning to fully engage with government: first as voters, and now as legislators or in other key roles in government; and they do not understand why it should take months and years to pass budgets. They don’t know why there is not more transparency in the management of public funds. They have become suspicious and believe that their hard earned money is being squandered by politicians and administrators.

So, the time has come to review these processes and ask ourselves if new paradigms, approaches, and technologies should be considered.  Instead of a federated system where we “elect” people to represent us, and send them off to closed rooms in distant cities to make budget decisions, might a different approach be better?  Could the capabilities of a distributed ledger, artificial intelligence, smart contracts, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and blockchain unlock new methods, tools, and techniques?

Mission

The mission of this working group is to explore and pilot new methods, tools and techniques for government institutions to budget, appropriate, track, report and manage public funds.  We are launching two projects and are actively looking for public sector organizations that would like to participate in one or two proof of concepts being developed.  They are:

1.  Blockchain-based program management solution, and
2. Blockchain-based raffle or lottery system for state or local governments.

If you would like to participate in this project, please contact one of the two program leaders:

• Project Manager:  Steve Olson
• Project Coordinator:  Gerard Dache

Or complete the contact form below and select Public-Private Partnership.

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