The President of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), Cristina Herrero, took part today in the presentation of the Hay Derecho Foundation’s ‘Dedómetro’, and highlighted the three elements that, in her opinion, are key to preserving the independence of public institutions: effective management, maximum transparency and a strong legal basis that guarantees functional autonomy. The Hay Derecho report, which analyses the merit and ability of public sector managers and the transparency of public sector institutions, recognises AIReF as a success story outside the “partisan game of colonising public institutions”.
During her speech, Cristina Herrero pointed out that the democratic quality of a country depends on the quality of its institutions, with no room for the personalism of its leaders. In her opinion, there are three essential elements that are required of all public action: effective management, maximum transparency and a strong legal basis that guarantees functional autonomy.
With regard to the first point, Cristina Herrero agreed with the report on the importance of having effective management with top managers who are selected on the basis of the principles of merit and ability. In her opinion, the different models that exist should guarantee the technical competence of the candidates, the transparency of the process and a final decision-making system that ensures that these candidates have the maximum possible support.
In this respect, she recalled that, at AIReF, the guarantees of this process are sought through the high requirements of technical expertise and the approval of the candidate by an absolute majority in Parliament. Cristina Herrero, in her case, was elected unanimously. And, in her view, it is essential that the candidate presents a strategic plan. Once the candidate has been chosen, the technical validity and commitment to the institution and its independence must be demonstrated on a day-to-day basis. In the case of AIReF, the Strategic Plan 2020-2026 that Cristina Herrero presented to Parliament has been specified in annual action plans and in reports on the degree of implementation of those plans.
On the second point, the President recalled that compliance with the Transparency Act should be an essential obligation of any institution, although, in her opinion, it should go further with a continuous examination of the public sector. In this regard, she referred to the need to publish not only the CV of the current leader, but also those of previous leaders, and to ensure accessibility to information. In her words, transparency and accountability must be paramount, something that is very much assimilated in Independent Fiscal Institutions such as AIReF.
Specifically, transparency is one of AIReF’s guiding principles, along with independence and accountability. Thus, the institution publishes all the data and methodologies behind the reports and opinions, identifies the assumptions and hypotheses, analyses scenarios, develops interactive tools, revises its own forecasts and sustains very active communication.
Lastly, Cristina Herrero referred to the need for public institutions to have a regulatory framework that offers guarantees for performance of their duties with genuine functional autonomy and independence. In this respect, she pointed out that AIReF has its own financing fee, public authorities have a duty to collaborate with AIReF and the recommendations it issues in its reports are governed by the ‘comply or explain’ principle.
However, there is room for improvement with greater flexibility in the management of human resources and by providing AIReF’s evaluation function with the same legal guarantees as the supervision function. Cristina Herrero was also in favour of revising the requirements relating to the incompatibilities of senior public officials, which to date have been confined to the private sector and could be extended to independent institutions such as AIReF. To conclude, she stressed the need for institutions to get involved and commit themselves to independence and management capacity as a way of ensuring that they are efficient and useful to society.