Budgets should not add up original+revised for the same time period

[markbrough]

In the following World Bank activity: http://d-portal.org/q.html?aid=44000-P167000

The budgets total USD 1.06bn.

However, they should total USD 530mn.

According to the latest IATI guidance on budgets, revised budgets should replace the amount of the original budget covering the same time period, rather than adding to it. So from my understanding of the data, this activity is currently showing double the value of budgets that it should do.

[notshi]

Thanks, @markbrough - the new guidance reads a little confusing as it seems to contradict itself.

The new revised figure should be added, rather than the difference from the original to the revised budget.

Here it says the budgets should be added, not replaced.

A data user should be able to add up all the revised budget values which each cover different time periods.

Here it says replaced, not added.

Any advice, thank you @amy-silcock @PetyaKangalova

[amy-silcock]

Hi Shi,

The guidance is on our website here: https://iatistandard.org/en/guidance/standard-guidance/activity-budgets/

It's probably a little confusing about 'who' should be doing the adding?

For the data publisher:

• The new revised figure should be added, rather than the difference from the original to the revised budget.

For the data user:

• A data user should be able to add up all the revised budget values which each cover different time periods.

Ideally, organisations publish budgets of no longer than a year.

• 'users' such as d-portal look at the revised budget figures for the lifetime of the activity.
• there should be no overlapping revised budgets for the same time period.
• IF a revised budget is not available for the time period, then the original budget is used.

However IATI can't yet enforce this. There may be more than one revised budget per time period, time periods may be over one year and overlap with each other. Organisations may also have reported the difference rather than the total amount in the revised budget.

It would be great if d-portal could follow the new guidance, as it will start highlighting errors to publishers. But I guess it would need a number of caveats to work with edge cases and still be able to show data?

[notshi]

We're slowly going through this with a fine-tooth comb and trying to understand what to show on d-portal.

We might display budgets as two different types - original and revised; ie. like transaction types.

We are, however, concerned that revised budgets can overlap. Does this mean that within an activity, revised budgets might not correspond exactly with an original budget period? If so, this would be difficult for a user, like d-portal, to use because the rules are rather vague.

However IATI can't yet enforce this.

What does the validator do about this?

Overall, this seems like an impossible mess to untangle - we could be looking at just displaying original budgets to prevent double counting; ie. as graphs.