- José María Casado joins AIReF’s Steering Committee, which is chaired by Cristina Herrero and also comprises the Directors of the Budget Analysis, Economic Analysis and Legal Affairs Divisions
- The new Public Spending Evaluation Division marks a very important step for AIReF and strengthens its capabilities by making Evaluation one of the Institution’s core activities
At the proposal of the President of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), Cristina Herrero, the Council of Ministers has appointed José María Casado as Director of the institution’s Public Spending Evaluation Division, as laid down in the Ministerial Order published on Saturday September 25th in the Official State Gazette (Spanish acronym: BOE). The new Public Spending Evaluation Division was approved by the Government on September 14th, in compliance with the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (RTRP), which defines specific actions for improving the efficiency of public spending, and is in line with AIReF’s 2020-2026 Strategic Plan.
Cristina Herrero highlighted José María Casado’s work to date as head of Public Policy Evaluation at AIReF and the challenges ahead. “José María Casado has been coordinating the development of the evaluation function, which is taking on an increasingly important role, both in the Central Government and in the Autonomous Regions. It now requires consolidation to improve the use of public resources and encourage evidence-based decision making.”
In the exercise of its functions, AIReF has so far performed several public spending evaluations commissioned by the Central Government (such as the two phases of the Spending Review and the Study of Minimum Income Schemes in Spain), as well as a growing number of studies for various Regional Governments.
The creation of the new Public Spending Evaluation Division strengthens this evaluation function in AIReF and comes about in compliance with Component 29 of the RTRP, which recognises the usefulness of AIReF’s evaluations and undertakes to “give continuity and permanence to the spending review exercises by creating a permanent Spending Review division in AIReF”.
The new Division, which will consist of two areas, will strengthen the institution’s ongoing evaluation capabilities. For this purpose, it will be provided with all the necessary resources to perform this work, thus enabling it to address new challenges, including the new phases of the Spending Review, with the necessary quality.
José María Casado, experience in evaluations
With a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, a Master’s Degree in Science in Economics from University College London, an MSc. in Economics (DEA) from the University of Zaragoza and a BSc. in Economics from the University of Extremadura.
Since 2009, he has been a Senior Economist at the Bank of Spain, in the Directorate-General of Economics, Statistics and Research. He has been the head of Public Policy Evaluation at AIReF and, since 2018, Deputy Coordinator of the institution’s Spending Review programme.
He has been a lecturer at the Department of Principles of Economic Analysis at the Colegio Universitario de Estudios Financieros and the University of Zaragoza, a senior economist at the Bank of England, a research analyst at FEDEA and an economist on the European Commission’s AGMEMOD project between 2001 and 2004.
His areas of research interest, in which he has several publications in international journals, include the evaluation of public policies, inequality, fiscal microsimulation, consumer behaviour and household finance.
