© OECD A joint initiative of the OECD and the European Union, principally financed by the EU 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

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

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! Strengthening parliamentary capacity for scrutiny and oversight of the budget