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Public Adminstration QUESTION #9558
Question 1
Zero-Base Budgeting (ZBB) and incremental budgeting represent fundamentally different philosophies of resource allocation. In a context where a government department has been running the same programmes for 15 years without outcome evaluation, which system would be more appropriate and why?
  • Incremental budgeting — because it ensures institutional memory is preserved and avoids disruption to ongoing service delivery
  • Zero-Base Budgeting — because it forces each programme to justify its continued existence from first principles, preventing perpetuation of outdated or ineffective spending✔️
  • Performance budgeting — because it links expenditure to measurable work units rather than requiring either a zero-base or incremental approach
  • Planning-Programming-Budgeting — because it integrates multi-year planning with annual budgeting to replace inefficient long-running programmes
Correct Answer Explanation
ZBB was developed precisely for this scenario: where incremental budgeting allows outdated programmes to persist by simply adding a percentage increase annually. ZBB requires all budget units to justify their expenditure from zero — forcing a fresh cost-benefit assessment. It prevents the perpetuation of ineffective programmes that would survive indefinitely under incremental approaches.