Transcript Slide 1

Union, principally financed by the EU
A joint initiative of the OECD and the European
The Changing Role of Parliament
in the Budget Process
The Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT)
in collaboration with Sigma
and
MATRA FLEX
Afyonkarahisar, Turkey
8-9 October 2008
© OECD
EUROPEAN COURT OF AUDITORS
Strengthening parliamentary capacity for
scrutiny and oversight of the budget:
experiences from the Netherlands
Contribution to the International Symposium on the changing
role of Parliament in the budget process
Jan Pieter Lingen
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
Experiences from the Netherlands:
• The setting
• The 1987 Action Plan
• Budgetary control committee
• Finance committee
• Sectoral committees
• Court of Audit
• The 1999 Action Plan on Performance based
budgeting and accounting
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
The setting:
• Dutch Parliament: two Chambers, only Second
Chamber elected directly; no threshold
• parliamentary rights
• political system / political parties
• coalition governments
• budget component in coalition agreements
• Central Planning Bureau / Economic Policy
Analysis
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
The Central Planning Bureau:
• relation CPB - politicians
• CPB makes forecast and
•
... evaluates policies
• no obligation to use CPB forecast, but….
• independence comparable to Central Bank
• freedom of publication
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
The Central Planning Bureau: position
• part of Ministry of Economic Affairs
• budget (12 mln Euro), labour statute
• no political interference with methods and analysis
• quality ensured by open attitude, transparency,
accountability, peer evaluations, reviews
• broad scope, comprehensive knowledge base
• active contacts with scientific community
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
The 1987 Action Plan (1):
• two main causes, subsidy scandal and six years
delay in submitting accounts
• sense of urgency
• close agreement between budgetary control
committee, MoF and Court of Audit
• budgetary control committee (BCC) strengthened
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
The 1987 Action Plan (2):
• administrative organization and internal control
• budgetary and accounting information
• budget presentation, clarity of budget documents
• internal audit and single audit
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
Implementation of the 1987 Action Plan
• Ministry of Finance leading
• line ministries allowed to invent their own
wheels.....as long as these were round and rolling
• monitoring by Parliament – by budgetary control
committee at general level
• actually using results through better scrutiny by
sectoral committees
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
The budgetary control committee‘s roles:
1) to deal with framework laws on budget and
budgetary management, reports from the external
auditor, and general discharge
2) to support and advise sectoral committees
second role mandated to staff
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
The budgetary control committee‘s functioning:
• procedures for scrutiny of the budget
• procedure for requesting audit reports by the
Netherlands Court of Audit
• procedure for approval and monitoring big projects
• staff of budget experts
• courses for MPs
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
The finance committee
• is responsible for overall fiscal policy
• prepares general budget debates
• includes financial spokespersons of all political
groups
• coalition parties do not allow major changes
• fiscal discipline is embedded in political practices
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
The sectoral committees
• responsible for scrutinizing the budget of their
respective ministries
• also for scrutinizing the accounts
• staff support through analysis
• especially on: risks, uncertain forecasts, room and
flexibility in the budget
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
Relation with the Court of Audit:
• growing mutual understanding
• budgetary control committee is linking pin
• regular discussion on work programme and issues
of common inmterest
• secondment of staff Court of Audit to budgetary
control committee
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
From policy budget to policy accountability
• initiative budgetary control committee: annual
report in the political arena
• speeding up discharge procedure
• making discharge more substantive
• focus on performance: 1999 Action Plan
• starting point performance based budgeting
• partnership BCC, CoA, MoF
• but overall political support generally lacking
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
Some concluding remarks:
• permanent adaptation, continuous process
• power balancing act between BCC and sectoral
committees
• support service model seems to have been
effective, but....
• no copy and paste of the Dutch model
• learning exercise
Strengthening parliamentary capacity
for scrutiny and oversight of the budget
Thank you for your attention!
[email protected]