PACs: A Comparative Analysis

1. PACs: A Comparative Analysis SADCOPAC Training for PACs in SADCOPAC Member countries Lesotho, October 14-16, 2013

2. Outline • Common Problems Facing PACs • Case Study: Jamaica • Case Study: Kosovo • Policy V Policy Implementation • Research Findings • Remit of PAC – Wide or Small? • Innovative Solutions to PAC Problems

3. PACs: A Comparative Analysis • Been an increasing focus within legislatures, academia and the international donor community on the role, performance and importance of PACs. • We are finding out much more about the work of PACs from conferences and networks such as this one, and through various regional case studies. • Less focus perhaps on the characteristics of PACs from countries of a smaller size – do they face the same problems to a heightened degree or just different problems? • Present examples from Jamaica (2.8 million) and Kosovo (1.8 million)

4. Common Problems Facing PACs (PAC Workshop, London 2013) • Skills of Members • Lack understanding of the workings of government/financial scrutiny • Unclear of their role in holding the executive to account • The Range of oversight requirement across the width of PFM • Resources • Finding enough parliamentarians to form strong committees • Adequate skilled support from parliamentary staff • Rules and Procedures • The powers of PACs are often not clear or inadequate

5. Common Problems Facing PACs (PAC Workshop, London 2013) • Political Volatility • Frequent party changes, high turnover of MPs make it difficult for PACs to work effectively • Corruption • If Corruption levels are high and tolerated, even the most transparent and open PAC may have difficulty in gaining impacts. • Limited support from SAI/Audit Office • Backlog of accounts • Limited efforts to brief the PAC • Lack of follow-up/enforcement of SAI work

6. Case Study: Jamaica • The customary practice is for the PAC to be chaired by the Opposition spokesman on Finance. • PAC will go through the report by ministry and their agencies, however PAC reports are generally not ministry specific, but generic. • Number of reports produced per session are quite small. • Not an unusual problem: The FPAC in The Seychelles did not produce a single report for the first four mandates of the National Assembly • Main problem identified by PAC Members was monitoring the implementation of its recommendations. • No formal mechanism for follow-up. • No requirement for responses from the government to be tabled in Parliament

7. Jamaican Solutions • The Auditor General carried out verification exercises to determine whether recommendations of the committee had been implemented • In other cases, the Committee Clerk was directed to carry out such follow-up action. • The PAC recommended that a special unit be established in the Ministry of Finance to update the Financial Secretary about the implementation of audit recommendations. • The Financial Secretary to then provides progress reports to the PAC and Auditor General.

8. Case Study 1: Jamaica • The Auditor-General’s annual report focused on financial compliance, but the PAC wanted more emphasis on performance audits on value for money issues. • PAC began to request such audits from the AG even though the PAC has no role is the review of AG operations … pressure has resulted in more special reports being prepared. • The PAC now breaks from its set programme of financial oversight to examine the specific issue highlighted in the AG’s special/performance audit. • The impact of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee

9. Case Study 2: Kosovo • In 2009 the Committee for Oversight of Public Finances (COPF) was established by the Kosovo Assembly. • Unfortunately, the highly partisan nature of Kosovar politics restricted the early work of the COPF. • Discussed responses: • Code of conduct (formal or informal) in which they pledge to respect the non-partisan nature of the Committee. • Include the principle that no member of COPF should participate in its consideration of any matter if he or she was at the relevant time a member of the government • The Chair of COPF must act more independently of party pressure than the chairs of other committees, even when commenting on matters outside the committee.

10. Case Study 2: Kosovo • Tensions between the Committee of Public Finances and Committee for Oversight of Public Finances • Mandate, personality and status • A clash of competencies between the CBF and the newly established COPF. • The need to develop a memorandum of understanding between the COPF and CBF/other committees? • Detailed Rules of Procedure for the COPF

11. Case Study 2: Kosovo • The role and remit of COPF, particularly with regard to the differences between policy and policy implementation, was not properly understood. • Most committees examine and challenge policy whereas a PAC takes the policy as read and focuses on whether it is delivering value for money. • In practice, however, there are a number of grey areas - and consequent scope for misunderstanding - concerning the examination of policy and its implementation.

12. Relationship between PAC and other Committees

13. Relationship between PAC and other Committees

14. Policy v Policy Implementation

15. PACs Remit: Broad or Narrow? • Prior to 2011 the PAC in the Solomon Islands combined the functions of budget scrutiny and audit examination. A Public Expenditure Committee was created in 2011to ease the burden of the PAC. • Is it preferable to have one Committee to examine each part of the process, than multiple committees monitoring certain segments of the budget process? • One difficulty of having two separate committees is that it requires both to be well versed concerning the budget. It has also caused problems relating to quorum because of the number of committees. • There is also a financial expense as two committees dealing with the budget requires two chairpersons with entitlements equivalent to the parliamentary entitlements of Ministers. 

16. Legislatures in Small States(Baldwin ed. 2013) • Many legislatures have no political parties or are dominated by non-party individuals (Pacific). • May encourage a personalization of politics. • However, the executive tends to have much tighter control in parliament in such states. • Contradictory experiences: • Less resourceful and less resistant (resort to imitation) • More likely to experiment and do things differently • Findings are often counter-intuitive (e.g. representation, bicameral)

17. Common Problems … • Members of Parliament are often part-time and voluntary (leading to an unequal relationship to the government and the bureaucracy). • Parliament of Malta meets in the evening. • However, practical skills and experiences can feed into parliamentary work. • Scrutiny is often weak; because of lack of numbers • Statutory limits on the executive’s size in Jersey, Wales and Ireland. • The Scottish Parliament has introduced ‘substitute’ committee members with voting rights who can substitute for absent members. • May boost party influence. • It is more common in small bicameral legislatures to appoint more ministers from the upper chamber than in larger legislatures. • In Grenada, an appointed Senator of the upper house was selected to be chair of the PAC

18. PAC Solutions • Guernsey’s PAC comprises a Chairman and four other States members, one of whom is chosen as vice-chairman, plus four non-States members, all of whom are voting members. • In Jersey, the Chairman must be a member of the States, but the remaining members of the PAC – currently 8 - is split equally between members of the states and those who are not. • The Presiding Officers in St. Lucia are considering whether to reconstitute the PAC to allow it to include external people. Two members of the Turks and Caicos PAC are external people. • The Kiribati PAC consists of three Members who serve for a term of two years. • Members of the FPAC in The Seychelles are asked to leave the Committee if they miss more than three consecutive meetings.

19. Some Final Questions/Issues • How to deal with the issue of Opposition MPs conflict of interest? • Is the convention that the Chair of the PAC be a member of the Opposition more of symbolic importance or is it practically significant? • Practice in some jurisdictions for the Leader of the Opposition (St Lucia) or Shadow Finance Minister (Jamaica) to chair the PAC. • Recent research (Pelizzo 2011) demonstrates that the activity of a PAC committee is not enhanced by the fact that the Chair belongs to the opposition. • The number of opposition MPs does have an impact on the number of meetings, but has no significant impact on the number of reports drafted by the Committee (the presence of larger staff is more important) • More research required on the impact of experience of ministerial office on both Chairs and PAC Members.