The government seems to be calmly accepting recommendations to improve the quality of spending. Independent Institution for Financial Responsibility (AIReF) Based on analysis commissioned by the Executive itself. from the total 277 offers The improvements ever formulated by AIReF are the first ‘spending review (expenditure review report) For the period 2018-2021, the Government accepted around 100 proposals for items totaling €90,000 million (27% of the total, affecting almost 22,000 million). However, according to data presented by AIReF this Wednesday, the Government has decided to ignore 23 more recommendations totaling approximately 3,240 million. According to the data submitted by AIReF, there are 154 further improvement proposals currently under evaluation by the Government.
For example, recommendations undertaken by the Government include tightening the cut for contributions to pension plans. Among the disapproved, the Government cites different reasons, such as lack of authority (integration of the Cercanías railway system with other urban and inter-urban modes of transport) or political reasons as outlined by the mayor at a press conference. AIReF’s Public Expenditure Evaluation Division, José María Casado. In this latter category, for example, the Government’s refusal to reformulate its current subsidy scheme for air transport for archipelago residents can be framed to prevent airlines from including some of the assistance (through higher prices) in their margins.
According to data provided by AIReF, in addition to the 100 proposals to improve expenditure formulated by the AIReF and 23 accepted and rejected by the Government, there are still 154 ongoing proposals. According to AIReF president Cristina Herrero, the important thing is that the Government considers and does not abandon the organization’s proposals in its policies, even if it “rejects” it for reasons it sees fit. in the “process” state.
More commitment requests
Cristina Herrero, head of the Independent Financial Responsibility Authority (AIReF), demanded a “true commitment” from the Government this Wednesday to assess the quality of spending (effectiveness and efficiency) in public policy. Herrero notes that reports on the quality of expenditure commissioned by the Government (‘spending commentator) has an increasingly low amount despite the commitment made in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) to perpetuate these analyzes. He also questioned that in recent government commissions the analysis of cross-cutting policies shared with autonomous municipalities, such as health expenditure, has disappeared.
“We can’t lose momentum, and I think that momentum has been lost in the rhythm of evaluation. We’ve also lost our focus on analyzing cross-cutting policies like health,” Herrero said. The head of AIReF appeared at a press conference to present a new interactive computing tool (Observatory of Findings and Recommendations) that makes it possible to monitor and welcome or reset the recommendations for improving the quality of spending formulated by the organization. government.
According to data provided by AIReF, after presenting 33,000 and 57,000 million spending blocks in the first two phases first ‘expenditure review’ 2018-2021 Orders commissioned by the government have fallen to 14,000 million and 10,000 million in the last two waves. In these first two phases, key expenditure items were analyzed, such as tax benefits (35,000 million), subsidies (34,300 million), transportation infrastructures (13,000 million), prescription drugs (10,171 million), hospital pharmacy (6,933 million) or assets. employment policies (6,500 million).
In the last two waves, orders affect financial instruments supporting internationalization (7,150 million), municipal waste management (6,700 million), productive sectors (8,200 million) and other financial instruments to support reciprocity (2,200 million). As a result, Herrero explained that in the future phases of the second ‘expenditure review’ 2022-2026, AIReF will undertake the analysis of guarantees for: loaned 140,000 million euros ICO also companies, in the so-called covid-credits, as included in the Action Plan proposed by the body and approved by the Executive.