The finance minister, Ruth Merino, led on Friday the inaugural meeting of the Interdepartmental Commission for Improving Public Expenditure Efficiency. This newly created body will examine how the regional government uses its resources and the outcomes of these investments. Speaking to reporters, Merino described the initiative as unprecedented and aligned with the administration led by Carlos Mazón. She emphasized the necessity of such oversight in the current climate, where the long-standing underfunding of the Valencian Community is compounded by the return of fiscal rules that demand tighter achievement of deficit and debt targets.
The Valencian Institute of Economic Research (IVIE) will assist in designing the expenditure evaluation system to ensure the highest possible effectiveness in how the Generalitat manages its resources. The commission has begun its work by asking all departments to define strategic and operational indicators that will measure how well budgetary objectives are being met, according to the Finance Ministry.
“Public managers have a duty not only to identify citizens’ needs and decide how much and where to spend to meet them, but also to analyze afterward whether those aims are truly being achieved,” stated the finance chief. She noted that the imminent restoration of fiscal rules after years of pandemic-related suspensions places everyone in a new framework where optimizing scarce public resources will be critical. She stressed that this does not justify cuts. “This is not about spending less; it is about spending better,” she asserted.
Furthermore, Merino highlighted that the government’s priority is to maximize the value of every euro paid by taxpayers, guaranteeing not only the sustainability of public finances but also the highest quality in public service delivery.
“To achieve this, we will raise our own standards and conduct a self-audit to confirm that we are fulfilling our role as stewards of public money. In short, the aim is to ensure every euro goes to the best possible use,” the finance minister added.
“With this commission, we demonstrate that we are doing our part to improve efficiency and effectiveness in public spending and resource use. Still, it is essential for the national government to reform the regional financing system to address the structural shortfall in revenue faced by the Generalitat,” Merino argued.
Bidirectional Analysis
The Interdepartmental Commission for Public Spending Efficiency was created to drive, coordinate, and advise on measures proposed to improve spending efficiency and the execution of Generalitat policies. Merino underscored this commitment as a framework for ongoing improvement.
It is worth recalling that the 2020 Generalitat budget already included a seventh additional provision establishing a Strategic Plan for Evaluating Public Policies, which set the procedures for assessing spending policies carried out through annual budgets.
In Friday’s session, commission members, led by the regional secretary of Finance, Eusebio Monzó, reviewed past work on policy evaluation, set the commission’s objectives, and established a timetable for the working groups.
The commission will operate on two levels to create a practical guide for good practices in spending efficiency. First, a thorough analysis of the most recent budget settlement for all regions will be conducted using homogenized data published by the Ministry of Finance. The goal of this first level is to compare how each region allocates resources across both economic and functional lines.
Second, spending across all departments will be examined, with particular focus on those that absorb the largest share of resources (Health, Education, and Social Services). This will be based on a set of reference indicators defined by the departments themselves, representing an innovative approach that few administrations are currently pursuing.
Strategic Plan for Evaluating Public Policies
Additionally, IVIE presented the main conclusions of the study titled Implementation of a Strategic Plan for Evaluating Public Sector Spending Policies in the Valencian Community. The research, conducted in 2021 by Juan Pérez and José Antonio Pérez, outlines proposals to advance policy evaluation and proposes a pilot study with a specific budget program to be extended later to other programs. This work already identified indicators for evaluating spending in Education and will serve as a foundation for the departments as they set their own indicators in coordination with IVIE.
The study analyzes the current state of the Generalitat’s evaluation capabilities and offers recommendations for implementing a System of Continuous Evaluation, including the development of strategic and operational indicators to assess the extent to which policy goals are met.