The Compilation of Evaluation Criteria for the Country's Budget Document from the Experts' Point of View

Preparing and editing the budget document is one of the most vital annual actions of governments. This document has a strategic role in making the government accountable for its duties, economic growth of the country, realization of social justice, planning at the macro level of the country and providing public services. In this qualitative research, the evaluation criteria of the budget document is considered and the question is raised, what are the evaluation criteria of the country's budget document? The participants of the current research were 18 managers, employees of the country's program and budget organization and university professors who were selected by snowball sampling and were subjected to in-depth and semi-structured interviews until theoretical saturation. After conducting each interview, its text was analyzed by theme analysis technique. In the end, the evaluation criteria of the country's budget document were identified in the form of 6 main themes of efficiency and effectiveness, alignment with laws and upstream documents, comprehensiveness, type of budgeting approach, prioritization of important issues of the country, and transparency along with 26 sub-themes and 77 codes.