The financial Shape of Administration through the Lens of parliamentary Debate

Abstract

The short paper is dedicated to the analysis of the tools that Parliaments have to connect with the administrations. Using a comparative perspective, it highlights how traditional financial procedures (e.g., appropriation) can provide the assemblies the opportunity to include the administration in the pluralism and debate essential for representation. The significance of a cognitive democracy emerges then through the guise of an administration that is dedicated not only to the implementation of legislation but also to solving the problems of a community.

Elena di Carpegna Brivio

The question

The Parliaments’ powers on public budget have significantly evolved since the modern welfare states have deepened and differentiated their activities. The relationship between people and administration is now based on a multifaced request for outcomes that implies representative institutions are able to oversee that public action translates into tangible benefits and results for the community.

Many Countries have used the traditional power of the purse of their Parliaments to develop a function of oversight aimed to bring representative institutions directly into the activities carried out by administrations.

The most advanced experiences

A distinct primacy is held by the U.S.A., which has consistently invested in the ability of their representative assemblies to use financial instruments to increase knowledge and intervention in administrative activity. In his Congressional Government, Woodrow Wilson declared that «not only discussed and interrogated administration is the only pure and efficient administration, but, more than that, the only self-governing people is that people which discusses and interrogates its administration». The checks and balances of the American Constitution have provided the ideal context for rearranging the congressional powers and tackling the increasing weight of the Presidency in steering public policies. Taking advantage of its audit and accounting activities on the priorities of the Presidency, the Congress has been able to cover with its oversight a wide range of purposes, from verifying that the legislature’s intentions are being carried out to improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and economy of administrative action, performance evaluation, and the protection of the public interest, rights, and freedoms.

The appropriation procedure, by which Congress authorizes agencies and departments of the Federal Government to spend the funding necessary to achieve their priorities, has been a valuable tool. The congressional Committees analyze the expenditures of different administrations in detail and require a public explanation of the reasons supporting the Government’s budgetary requests. This parliamentary activity can rely on the General Accountability Office (GAO), an independent body designated to investigate all matters implicated by public spending and the use of public funds. Every decision with financial implications has to be submitted in advance to the examination of GAO.

In the UK, the 1979 parliamentary reform redesigned the Select Committees of the House of Commons as institutions specialized in covering the activities of a specific Ministry. Every Committee oversees the spending, the administration, and the policies of a Ministry with powers inspired by the judicial authority. In addition, the National Audit Act (1983) introduced the National Accountability Office (NAO) as an independent body led by a Comptroller and Auditor General. The NAO has the institutional task of reporting to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House of Commons. NAO and PAC defined an accountability cycle: every year, they choose a branch of administration that should be evaluated. Subsequently, NAO conducts an investigative activity and prepares a report that is published and sent to the PAC. The PAC hears the administration supervised and drafts a final report with recommendations to the Chancellor of Exchequer for improvements to the intervention under analysis. The cycle ends with the publishing of the commission’s report and the Chancellor’s answers.

These experiences show how a parliamentary financial evaluation can create new pathways between representation and administration, providing a stable and durable framework for administrative activities even if Governments are changing. In addition, it makes it possible to guarantee a certain level of political participation in everyday administrative activities.

The situation of Italy

Compared to these advanced experiences, Italy lags.

Since 1971, financial rules have been considered for rebalancing the institutional framework and emphasizing the role of the Executive without changing the text of the Constitution. This result has been achieved by increasing the Government’s guiding role in defining the budgetary policies and, correspondently, downsizing the evaluating and controlling role of the Parliament. The budgetary procedures have then been reduced to a political ritual in which Governments should convince their parliamentary majorities about the policies they are proposing; then, once the executive’s goals are consistent with the European Union’s parameters, the only thing that is required to Parliament is to give its final approval within a specific schedule. Budgetary decisions have thus become increasingly channeled into the governmental mechanism without the parliamentary passage being used to build an in-depth public debate on the policies and their lasting effects.

This kind of situation is detrimental to the administration because its task has become increasingly just the execution of the legislation without any attention to the effects that public policies can produce over time. It is also detrimental to the State in general because, without a Parliament able to verify the results of the administration, the public system cannot understand the dynamics of the public decisions, dynamics that, instead, require a complex accountability about the actual achievement of the institutional goals.

Without an authentic knowledge of the abilities and the potentials of the administration, representatives’ decisions are exposed to the risk of promoting solutions that have unproven effectiveness, and also, the parliamentary debate could be reduced to a difficult negotiation about financial numbers that when applied to the administration, could easily result in an austere budget reduction that could affect the possibility of developing innovative public policies for the future.

Conclusions

In conclusion, today’s representative democracy is not just about votes and elections; it is also about the ability to question, consult, debate publicly, monitor, and correct the results of the administration. The financial power of the representative assemblies could be a strategic tool for developing a cognitive democracy able to reach a new level of political participation.

In Italy, however, the financial shape of the administration is considered by the Parliament without extensive knowledge of the results and the effects of public action on society. The possibility of setting long-term strategic goals is then affected. Also, a financial debate restricted to the discussion of numbers cannot reflect the complexity of the activities administrations should carry out to guarantee a full community improvement.