The Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT) organises an exchange of views with experts on how to raise the level of transparency in public spending, especially in the area of EU structural funds, in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Brussels

LIBERADZKI, Bogusław (S&D, PL)

public hearing

Committee on Budgetary Control

structural funds (T)

Transparency in Structural Funds: extract from the public hearing

SOUNDBITE (English), Bogus&#322;aw LIBERADZKI (S&amp;D, PL), rapporteur, EU countries are required to put in place management and control systems to ensure correct expenditure, however good standards count for little if the people cannot see for themselves how things are done. Information on how funds are used ensures that citizens can form use on supported programs and scheme and so be better equipped to become active in consultation over future use of funds. Accuracy of such information also protects the EU and its institutions from false claims in the Press about how funds are used.

SOUNDBITE (English), Earl E. DEVANEY, Chairman of the Board of the Accountability and Transparency Board of the U.S., based in Washington, USA, I'm pleased to report that nearly 1 &frac12; into our oversight mission we seem to be succeeding in our efforts to prevent fraud, waste or abuse of the federal spending. I believe this is the direct result of the unique screening process our Board uses to analyse data to identify high-risk recipients of federal contracts, grants and loans."

SOUNDBITE (English), Earl E. DEVANEY, Chairman of the Board of the Accountability and Transparency Board of the U.S., based in Washington, USA, We look at risk factors such as fraudulent business addresses, past criminal behaviour, financial history, tax debt status and whether the recipient has previously been suspended or debarred from government work. This process helps to determine whether an entity is eligible for Recovery Act funds or is a high fraud risk. The 2nd tier uses newly developed software tools to uncover non-oblivious and high-risk relationships between entities. To ensure we make the most efficient use of these tools, we have a wide range of professionals with background auditing, investigations, procurement, program analysis, and statistics analyzing the data in a holistic manner, looking for anything suspicious that may set off an early-warning alarm.

SOUNDBITE (English), Earl E. DEVANEY, Chairman of the Board of the Accountability and Transparency Board of the U.S., based in Washington, USA, Today it is possible for Americans to long onto Recovery.gov, type in their postal zip codes and then drill down into their own communities to actually see where Recovery-funded projects are underway near they live of work. In fact we believe our website is now compelling enough to encourage the average American to log on routinely and track the money flow, and we are finding that when citizens see something they believe doesn't look quite right, they are calling to let us know. I fondly refer to these modern-day deputies as our 'Citizen IGs'. (Citizen Inspector General).

SOUNDBITE (English), Jerry BRITO, Senior Research Fellow, George Mason University, Washington, USA, By aggregating data, Web sites can present government information in innovative and useful ways. For example, federal spending data gathered from a government Web site could be presented by a third party as an interactive map that shows the locations of funding recipients. Such applications make data exponentially more valuable. Government need not develop such innovative tools itself, as long as the data is made available online in a structured format, private parties will make good use of it.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jerry BRITO, Senior Research Fellow, George Mason University, Washington, USA, What we bring to the table that is not available at Recovery.gov, and which in fact would likely not be allowed by regulation on a government site, is the crowd sourcing and citizen participation. Again citizens can use wikis to add local knowledge to pages on the site, each project funding page has a comments section for discussion, and of course, citizens can vote on stimulus spending. The result, I hope is that we will see crowd sourced accountability.