A Systematic Literature Review of Planning–Budgeting Coherence in Public Sector Accounting

Abstract

Planning–budgeting coherence has gained renewed attention as governments struggle to reconcile strategic planning ambitions with budgetary execution in increasingly data-driven public management environments. However, existing studies conceptualize coherence through isolated lenses—administrative capacity, political incentives, or digital reforms—without explaining how these components interact to generate systemic alignment. This article undertakes a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) guided by PRISMA 2020 to synthesize 84 relevant studies published between 2010 and 2024, revealing that coherence is not a procedural alignment issue, but the outcome of a layered institutional mechanism. The review identifies data governance as the foundational condition that ensures indicator consistency and semantic integrity; technocratic capacity as the mechanism that translates information into performance logic; digital governance as the infrastructure that institutionalizes alignment; and political dynamics as the contextual moderator that shapes the durability of coherence across fiscal cycles. Based on this synthesis, the study proposes the Integrated Data-Driven Planning–Budgeting Coherence Model (ID-PBCM) and introduces three operational metrics—the Indicator Alignment Index (IAI), Digital Interoperability Score (DIS), and Data Consistency Rate (DCR)—to transform coherence from an abstract ideal into a measurable governance construct. The article concludes that coherence in contemporary public financial systems is fundamentally dependent on the strength of data architectures rather than administrative compliance, and calls for empirical testing of the proposed model across multi-level government settings.