France doesn't fit the 'small country' criterion, but the organisation of the budget is nevertheless interesting, as described in the attached documents.
The budget has three levels:
1) Forty or so missions describing the main areas of State policy.
Parliament approves the budget at mission level, which means that the emphasis can be placed on the purpose of public policies. Missions are the level at which appropriations are approved and they cover a set of programmes, which may come under different ministries. They may be created only on the Government’s initiative. Parliament may change the allocation of expenditure between programmes within a mission proposed by the Government.
2) Some 150 programmes defining responsibility for policy implementation.
Each programme comprises a coherent set of actions and is entrusted to a programme coordinator appointed by the Minister concerned. Programme coordinators receive a fungible overall budget enabling them to choose the resources best suited in achieving these objectives. A programme is a single-purpose appropriation unit with capped appropriations and a sub-limit for expenditure on personnel.
3) Some 500 actions define programme purposes in greater detail.
Actions provide the information about the use to which budget resources are put. At action level, expenditure is planned and monitored as it is incurred, solely for guidance purposes. The programme coordinator steers a set of actions without being restricted by capped appropriations.
