The Ministry of Finances (MF) is an office of government administration serving a Minister for state budget, public finances, and financial institutions. One of the basic tasks of MF is to prepare, execute, and control the state budget. Moreover, the ministry busies itself with the system of financing territorial self-governments, the public sector and state security and manages public debt. MF is responsible for the execution of income and expenditures of the state budget (i.a. tax income), and for foreign financial, credit and payment cooperation as well as for execution of rules of law on customs and fiscal control. MF carries out tasks concerning the functioning of the financial market, inclusive of banks, insurance agencies, investment funds and concerning trade with securities. Moreover, it initiates the governments policy on the securities market. The Minister of Finances controls through the agency of the Ministry the Head Inspector for Financial Information, the Head Inspector for Fiscal Control, directors of chambers and heads of tax offices and customs offices.
In 1999, works on increasing the efficiency of the process of preparing and transferring financial reports from territorial self-government units to Regional Financial Control Chambers (RIO) and further to the Ministry of Finances started. Till 2002, a functioning system was created. However, in the course of using the systems, it turned out that the applied technologies are insufficient to manage actual functionalities and to create new ones. Therefore, a decision was made on building a new system.
As a result of executing the project a system was being created that had a three-level structure and worked in territorial self-government units, Regional Financial Control Chambers and in the Ministry of Finances. The functionalities of the system cover:
- Accountinga.
- Budgetary
- Financial - 2Budget plan management
- Data exchange
- Administration of local parameters of applications
- Administration of central parameters of applications
- Subsidy management
- Function of the so-called “alarm network.
Microsoft technology in distributed architecture. Communication between individual JSTs, RIOs and MF takes place with the use of a communications server. The system has a functionality of automated updating. Within the frameworks of the system it is possible to use electronic signature. Due to the flexibility of the adopted solution connected with accepting the communications server as a central point of the system and the automatic distribution of application versions, there is a possibility to expand the system with new functionalities, new types of supported data and to increase the number of users in a relatively simple way. Additionally, the system ensures a high level of data security – the data that was sent through the communications server is archived and may be recreated if it has been destroyed by a given user.
The system has a three-level structure and is composed of subsystems for Territorial Self- Government Units (JST), Regional Financial Control Chambers and the Ministry of Finance. BeSTi@ serves mainly for transferring, collecting, processing and analyzing of reports data on JST budget execution, balances and budget Acts. Owing to the system implementation, the time of transferring information is shorter and the quality of data improved.
Zofia Ogińska
the deputy director of the Office of Minister of Finances*
* In an interview for a Magazine of Foundation for Polish Communes Promotion “Gmina”.
Benefits
Owing to implementation of the system, the process of transferring reports by territorial self-government units to RIOs and the Ministry of Finances has been simplified and accelerated. During the implementation, a flexible communication platform has been created. This platform allows to expand the system with new functions necessary in the future.
