This presentation was made by Larry Honeysett, House of Commons, United Kingdom, at the 8th meeting of Parliamentary Budget Officials and Independent Fiscal Institutions held in Paris on 11-12 April 2016.

1. Ireland:
OECD review of budget oversight by
Parliament
Larry Honeysett
Head of Financial Scrutiny
Scrutiny Unit
House of Commons, United Kingdom

2. Shared heritage- shared shortcomings
• Heavily executive dominated systems of
budget oversight
• Scope for real engagement on budgetary
issues by Parliaments limited
• Limitations of standing orders on budget
amendment even more restrictive in Ireland
than UK
• Government prerogative to propose budgets
• Lack of ex ante parliamentary input to budget
planning
• Estimates voted upon after year has started
• No Budget or Estimates committee

3. Reform proposals- measures of success
• What benefits are the changes intended to bring?
• Are the changes likely to command widespread support,
including from the Government, or will there be obstacles
to overcome in getting them through/compromises to
make?
• If the changes are agreed, what are the practical
implementation issues?
• How will we know if the reforms have achieved what they
set out to do?

4. Earlier publication, earlier involvement
• Input to medium term planning process may avoid
situation where it is too late for Parliament to affect
direction
• Earlier formal approval of annual Estimates also essential
to avoid “rubber stamp” concerns
• Counterfactual budget is an interesting idea (similar to UK
budget scorecard validated by OBR but developed not just
as an economic/fiscal forecasting tool, but a way of
focusing choices)

5. Possible issues
• What’s in in it for government? Possible obstructiveness
• Earlier consideration may mean more later changes to
budgets being proposed by the government
• How open will government be to listening to Parliament
on budget priorities?
• Political and presentational issues of being seen to “back
down” and listen to concerns, or accept changes

6. Committee and other Parliamentary
consideration
• What will the Estimates committee’s relationship with
other committees be?
• How can committee consideration avoid becoming too
confrontational/party political?
• How detailed will consideration of Estimates be, and
how will topics/issues for consideration be selected?
• What will the outcome be?

7. Professional support and skills development
• Roles and relationships between proposed PBO, IFAC,
Estimates committee and select committees need to be
defined. Could look at other countries where this model
has been established (eg Austria)
• Would PBO have “standalone” existence eg publishing
material in its own name? Or would it be wholly a support
unit for Committees (like the Scrutiny unit in the UK)?
Will it have full budgetary/appointment independence?
Pros and cons.
• Professional development for MPs needs to focus on
benefits to them, and understanding how to follow up
responses with further lines of questioning

8. Performance reporting
• A system is already established, but has flaws (eg 50% of
measures reviewed were not considered relevant in a
performance context, poor presentation.)
• Graphical representation of data and messages is likely to be
beneficial- need to consider how that could be achieved. Also
how to include a commentary/narrative about change drivers.
• Ownership of performance data- who determines metrics,
outputs and outcomes measured? Parliamentary scrutiny
may avoid Govt selecting easy or irrelevant data/information,
but Govt also needs to have ownership and be committed to
achievement . Independent audit may boost confidence.
• Difficult, but worthwhile area, to pursue, and likely to engage
MPs’ interest

9. Conclusions
• Report contains a lot of sensible recommendations with
potential to improve Parliamentary oversight and scrutiny
• Parliamentary situation may create ideal environment for
cross party agreement on parliamentary reforms.
• But structural and process changes will not, in
themselves, give better Parliamentary scrutiny- need
commitment and engagement on all sides
• Timetable and ownership of reform programme needed to
maintain momentum
• What will outcome be and how will we know if reforms
have been a success?