In countries using the Westminster system the Estimates are a series of legislative proposals to parliament outlining how the government will spend its money.
The Estimates are drawn up by bureaucrats in the treasury department in collaboration with representatives from the cabinet. They consist of detailed reports on how each department or ministry will spend its money. The estimates are normally introduced in the House of Commons just prior to the main budget, which gives them time to be analyzed by House committees. Unlike the budget the estimates contain no references to fiscal policy, long term goals, or where the money is coming from. After each section is reviewed by the relevant committee the entire Estimates are voted on as one bill. This "supply" vote is a matter of confidence. Unlike tax proposals in the budget, the Estimates are rarely controversial, with most issues being dealt with in committee.
Most of the countries also mandate an update or series of updates to the Estimates to account for changes in the economy or in government policy. In Canada, for instance, this update must be passed in December each year.
Famous quotes containing the word estimates:
“Writing a book I have found to be like building a house. A man forms a plan, and collects materials. He thinks he has enough to raise a large and stately edifice; but after he has arranged, compacted and polished, his work turns out to be a very small performance. The authour however like the builder, knows how much labour his work has cost him; and therefore estimates it at a higher rate than other people think it deserves,”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
“A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“And, by the way, who estimates the value of the crop which nature yields in the still wilder fields unimproved by man? The crop of English hay is carefully weighed, the moisture calculated, the silicates and the potash; but in all dells and pond-holes in the woods and pastures and swamps grows a rich and various crop only unreaped by man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)