Penza, 26 December 2014. PenzaNews. The Penza region took the 11th place in the 2014 all-Russian budget openness rating and the 4th place in the Volga Federal Disctrict.

The year-long evaluation process took four stages. During the first two stages, the reviewers rated the pre-approved budgets and data openness infrastructures, as well as completeness of annual budget reports.

The third stage rated the issues of budgetary performance, control and audit. The fourth stage of the rating was dedicated to budget projects for 2015 and 2016-2017 planning period.

During the evaluation, the Penza region held the 1-2nd place in the “Budget law changes introduction” subrating, was awarded the 3-5th place in “Yearly budget performance report” section, and took 3-6th place in “Control and Audit” category.

As the press service of the Penza region government says, the region still has room for improvement in terms of increasing state institutions publicity, and state service demand evaluation.

The rating is compiled by the Center of Applied Economics on commission from “Gosmanagement” e-magazine, and implements the technique used by the International Budget Parnership for calculating Open Budget Index among the countries of the world.

The 2015 rating will be compiled by the Scientific and Research Financial Institute in cooperation with the Applied Economics Centre.

The Penza region was given only the 15th place in the 2013 rating.