Future of the finance ministry: An evolving role in government
A global study of government finance leaders has revealed shared priorities and challenges in an era of unpredictable geopolitics and rapid digital transformation.
The Future of the Finance Ministry study – published by Global Government Forum and sister title Global Government Finance – is based on interviews with 10 senior leaders from finance ministries around the world.
The interviews were led by John McCarthy, chief economist in Ireland’s Department of Finance, working with the editors of Global Government Forum and Global Government Finance. Microsoft is the knowledge partner for the report.
“In a world where ‘disorder is the new norm’, the traditional role of the finance ministry is undergoing a fundamental transformation,” McCarthy writes in the foreword.
Four key themes are identified in the report: the evolving role of the finance ministry in response to uncertainty; the shift to more flexible finance systems that support outcomes; digital transformation and the growth of artificial intelligence; and the battle for talent and trust.
This chapter extract focuses on the evolving role of the finance ministry.
Download the full report: The future of the finance ministry: Insights from government finance leaders around the world
Beyond budgeting
Global volatility undoubtedly has an impact on the public finance bottom line, requiring ministries to change long-standing spending priorities. “As finance ministries, we have to allocate resources to help the export sector, or to help the SMEs [small- and medium-sized enterprises],” one interviewee explained.
“These kinds of expenditure items may not be familiar with the old world.”
This presents challenges for finance ministries, and a need to engage in more systemic leadership and to increase flexibility in economic planning and budgeting in response.
Interviewees said finance ministries are moving beyond their traditional roles as ‘budgetary gatekeepers’ to provide strategic leadership across government. This means that they are taking a lead on institutionalising foresight, building systemic resilience, and acting as stewards of long-term stability in government.
One interviewee described a two-pronged approach. In their case, they provide both clear and rigorous advice for disciplined budget assessments, and also streamline financial frameworks to make it easier for other parts of government to comply.
Aligning fiscal risk assessments with broader policy objectives, and then coordinating action, is also increasingly required. This is especially crucial as more issues are now reaching the finance ministry’s door as the system of government grapples with the new world. Areas such as trade and foreign policy, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and health policy are now among the issues receiving greater focus from finance ministries.
The interviews revealed that finance ministries are working to build this systemic leadership capability in several ways. One aspect of this is boosting flexibility and resilience in their more traditional work around budgeting and economic planning.
“We know that there will be another crisis… there might be a need to free up resources quickly, and therefore we need to rebuild margin for manoeuvre.”
One leader said: “We know that there will be another crisis… there might be a need to free up resources quickly, and therefore we need to rebuild margin for manoeuvre.”
Interviewees highlighted, for example, rising defence and security demands, long-term fiscal pressures from ageing populations, and the challenge of balancing spending within constrained budgets.
Together, these pressures reinforce the shift from finance ministries as budget-holders to strategic brokers of long-term trade-offs across government.
The Global Government Finance Summit is a unique event that brings together senior civil servants from finance ministries around the world. Enquire about attending the Global Government Finance Summit: 14-15 September 2026, Dublin.
Thinking ahead and forecasting
For many interviewees, these challenges mean they are working to expand strategic foresight capabilities so that responses to the changing world can be effectively thought through.
“We have to look at more Plan B scenarios and options,” one interviewee said. “Unlike the very friendly and cooperative world we had some 20 or 30 years ago, when the world was counting on specialisation, free trade and progress for all, nowadays with trade wars becoming our daily routine, I think many countries have to rethink their economic strategies.”
One leader explained that the finance ministry is therefore providing a “geoeconomics” perspective from the centre of government, with the goal of identifying how national law and policies need to respond to international shifts to help coordinate and influence the work and planning across other departments.
Several leaders also identified “a need to reinvent the way we do things” and make better use of data to provide this intelligence.
One commented: “One of the things we [have] discussed is how we get better at horizon scanning and aligning our assessment of risks with government policy… One of the things we’re trying to do is look at how we build scenario planning.”
Another said finance ministries need to “work harder in terms of having a middle and long-term perspective about the fiscal position”, adding: “I think we should be more prepared to work with data analysis for policy decisions going forward… I think we should be starting to look more forward than the day-to-day issues.”
Finance ministries and their stewardship role
This challenge underscores the need for ‘system stewardship’ and the finance ministry’s role in it. Global Government Forum’s Making Government Work report, published in August 2024, defined stewardship as a shared vision between political and civil service leaders on how to deliver policy while safeguarding public institutions.
Across the countries interviewed, there are different approaches to making this happen. These include finance ministries taking an increasingly central role in providing leadership on helping governments understand the growing geopolitical and trade risks they face.
This means that finance ministries are also investing in analysis work in order to map economic dependencies. As one put it: “We’ve done quite a lot of analytical work to identify where our supply chain vulnerabilities are… to identify our dependencies on the import and on the export side”, with the finance ministry leading this cross-government work. This was described as contingency planning to ensure that the finance ministry – and the broader government – can react to crises or shocks.
But, despite these efforts, some interviewees from smaller economies acknowledged that they will always be at the mercy of great powers – and planning must be reactive to current realities: “We just take the situation as it is and try to be very accurate in our planning. We are very dependent on the situation of others.”
Webinar: The future of the finance ministry unpacked – and what it means for government – on 24 June 2026, focused on the research’s findings
Global engagement is growing
Given this context, interviewees also spoke about the increasing importance of international collaboration to better understand the pressures that peer countries face.
One leader commented: “It’s beneficial to keep our eyes and our ears open to what happens in the world and rely on multilateralism.”
This view was shared by many others, one of whom stressed that these alliances are “all part of this resilience discussion we’re having”.
As one leader said, there is “an incredible amount of work that is driven by global engagement because we’re all part of a bigger ecosystem, and need to comply with global rules, both across the EU and the OECD and internationally”.
“The overhead associated with [engaging with international organisations and building bilateral relationships] is astronomical… we really are going to have to build up that capacity.”
For many, this includes specific engagement with the United States – which is “very, very important for us”, as one interviewee highlighted – at a time when its government has significantly changed how it engages with the world.
This work to engage with international organisations and build bilateral relationships can often place a large pressure on the work of finance departments.
“The overhead associated with that is astronomical, and I don’t think anyone outside of the ministry really understands the impact that has on the day-to-day workload for us,” one said. “So, my thought process – in terms of how we futureproof – is that we really are going to have to build up that capacity.”
Future of the finance ministry: building predictive and leadership capacity
The finance ministry’s increasing stewardship role changes how it prepares for uncertainty. Interviewees were clear that volatility is no longer episodic but structural, and that ministries must adapt accordingly. It’s clear that finance ministries will need to build the capacity to proactively absorb market intelligence and geopolitical trends, and act on this intelligence. Several described expanding horizon-scanning and scenario-planning capabilities to move from reactive crisis management to institutionalised foresight.
Boosting the leadership capability of finance ministries will be key to achieving this through ensuring that ministries invest in deeper analysis of economic dependencies and supply chain exposure.
“I think we should be more prepared to push harder for governments to have mid-term fiscal scenarios,” one leader said. These would better embed understanding of fiscal risk around departments, as well as an understanding of how financial markets impact a government’s fiscal position.
The ambition is not simply better forecasting, but greater readiness. The finance ministry of the future will play a strategic role in combining fiscal discipline with a more forward-looking, system-wide perspective.
One leader told us they had conducted an exercise looking at the challenges and issues that government will face over the next four decades. The corresponding report has “provoked a very interesting debate”, they said, illustrating the value of long-term thinking.
“The reaction… around our leadership and strategic foresight in this area has been really, really positive.”
Another leader said they had expanded their horizon-scanning efforts, and that the next challenge was to ensure that policies reflect the risks identified. This means fully embedding the finance ministry’s stewardship role into decision-making in the centre of government.
Interviewees for the study were: Lai Chung Han, permanent secretary, Ministry of Finance, Singapore; Carlos Guberman, secretary of the Treasury, Argentina; John Hogan, secretary general, Department of Finance, Ireland; Andrew Lai Chi-Wah, permanent secretary for financial services and the Treasury, Hong Kong; Struan Little, chief strategist, Treasury, New Zealand; Chidozie Ofoego, financial secretary, Government of Bermuda; Dorothée Rouzet, chief economist in France’s Treasury; Merike Saks, secretary general, Ministry of Finance, Estonia; Bas van den Dungen, secretary general, Ministry of Finance, The Netherlands; and Matt Yannopoulos, secretary, Department of Finance, Australia.
About Ian Hall and Richard Johnstone
Ian Hall is editor, Global Government Finance, and Richard Johnstone is executive editor, Global Government Forum.
