OGP-GIFT Fiscal Openness Working Group: London Workshop, 2 November 2013

1. OGP-GIFT Fiscal Openness Working Group: London Workshop, 2 November 2013 Murray Petrie Lead Technical Advisor GIFT

2. Overview 1. How transparent are OGP countries’ budgets? 2. What types of fiscal transparency commitments did OGP governments make? 3. What is the pattern of OGP commitments against the GIFT High Level Principles? 4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the commitments? 5. For countries for which Progress Reports under the Independent Reporting Mechanism are available, what has been the experience to date in implementing fiscal transparency commitments? 6. Are there any immediate steps that OGP countries could take? 7. Concluding comments.

3. How transparent are OGP countries’ budgets? • 2012 Open Budget Index: • Average OGP country score = 59 • Average non-OGP country score = 34 • Some OGP countries have achieved rapid improvements in OBI scores between the 2010 and 2012 surveys e.g. Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Argentina, Bulgaria, Colombia, Slovakia. • Many gains from publishing existing internal reports • Public participation: • Average score for all countries = 19 • Average OGP member score = 29

4. What types of fiscal transparency commitments did OGP countries make? • Citizens’ budgets • Reporting of fiscal data: • Revenues: general; natural resources; aid/external financing • Expenditures: general; public investment projects; sub-national government • A large number of general commitments on ‘open data’, and further analysis required of overlap between open data and fiscal transparency.

5. What is the pattern of commitments against the GIFT High Level Principles? • The mapping of OGP commitments against the GIFT HLPs showed two main areas of focus: • Public reporting of fiscal data (HLP 3) • Direct public participation in fiscal policy (HLP 10). • Areas where there are few OGP commitments are: • HLP 8 - legislative oversight of fiscal policy • HLP 2 - macro-fiscal policy • HLP 1 - a citizen right to receive fiscal information.

6. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the commitments? • Against ‘SMART’ criteria, many commitments are not specific or measurable, and few have time lines. • Three selected good examples: • ‘…commits to publish data on government subsidies to elementary and junior high schools and to publish health expenditures and budgets at every community hospital in 497 regions…’ • ‘Update the annual report on the state budget execution for 2012 with an explanation about the difference between the original macroeconomic forecasts for the budgetary year and the real outcomes and publish it within statutory deadlines.’ • ‘Improve the management of public resources by increasing the country’s ranking in the Open Budget Index from providing ‘limited information’ to providing ‘significant information.’

7. Implementation Progress • The Philippines and UK National Action Plans contained significant fiscal transparency commitments: • Philippines: dissemination of fiscal information; public participation; new IT initiatives; procurement; Citizens’ Budget Completed 3 out of 19 commitments, 16 in progress • UK: innovations in open data and online service delivery. On fiscal transparency, publication of evidence and databases behind policy statements, and ODA data. Completed 17 out of 41 commitments completed, 20 in progress, 4 withdrawn.

8. Indonesia 12 commitments, 5 completed, 7 in progress ‘Considering the ambition of the Action Plan, this was a promising start…’ IRM report On schedule: publish extractive industry revenues; e-procurement; publish budget reports across cycle Health, education, and national budget data are at too high a level of aggregation in terms of the administrative classification

9. Mexico 37 commitments: 20 completed; 14 in progress; 2 not started; 1 unclear On schedule: improved e-procurement; spending on public servant salaries; join EITI Behind schedule: transparency of climate change expenditure and financing; information on subsidy programs; budgets for each school.

10. Public Consultation Findings from the first five IRM progress reports point to weaknesses in all the countries in public consultation in developing the first national action plans – although improvements are evident. There is a need to ensure awareness of OGP both inside and outside government, and to step up and institutionalise public consultation processes. Indonesia established ‘Open Government Indonesia’ as national coalition to coordinate NAP – 5 government bodies plus 4 selected CSOs Mexico established a Tripartite Commission comprising Ministry of Public Administration, the Federal Institute for Access to Information, and a coalition of CSOs

11. What immediate steps could OGP countries take? • There are relatively easy gains from publishing reports that are already produced within govt. • Based on the 2012 OBI, the number of OGP countries that produce internally but do not publish: • Pre-budget statement: 8 countries • In-year budget reports: 3 countries • Mid-year budget review: 5 countries • Year-end report: 3 countries • Audit report: 1 country • 20 OGP countries do not publish a Citizens’ Budget

12. Concluding Comments Some OGP countries have demonstrated large and rapid improvements in fiscal transparency. OGP commitments have 2 areas of focus: fiscal reporting, and public participation. Weaker in legislative oversight, macro-fiscal policy, and citizen right to fiscal info. Need to develop connections with open data initiatives. Country commitments must be well specified and new. In some countries need for more disaggregated spending data. Relatively easy gains possible in many countries from publishing reports already produced within government.

13. Overall conclusion There is considerable scope to design more ambitious and better specified country commitments on fiscal transparency in initial and subsequent national action plans, based on sound public consultation and deliberation, cross-country learning, and technical support.