Seminar "Opening Financial Data in Turkey: transparency, accessibility and citizen involvement" Aline Pennisi Ankara, April 19 2012

1. EU TWINNING PROJECT
TR 08 IB FI 02
“ Improving Data Quality in Public Accounts”
AB EŞLEŞTİRME PROJESİ
“ Kamu Hesaplarında Veri Kalitesinin Artırılması”
Opening Financial Data in Turkey:
transparency, accessibility and
citizen involvement
Ankara, 19 April 2012
(Activity 1.7)
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Twinning Project “Improving data quality in public accounts”

2. EU TWINNING PROJECT
TR 08 IB FI 02
“ Improving Data Quality in Public Accounts”
AB EŞLEŞTİRME PROJESİ
“ Kamu Hesaplarında Veri Kalitesinin Artırılması”
International Guidelines for data
dissemination and fiscal
transparency
Aline Pennisi (State General Budget Office / MoF Italy)
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Twinning Project “Improving data quality in public accounts”

3. Public finance data reporting and access
Since the late 1990s, major efforts at the international level
have been deployed to promote more effective public
accountability for the way in which governments raise
taxes, borrow, and spend public money.
Fiscal transparency requires providing information about
past, present and future activities of government in
collecting and allocating public resources and in a way that it
be:
• comprehensive, reliable, timely, comparable (in time and
space), understandable to the public [the
fundamentals, up to now]
• easily accessible, at detailed level (raw data), re-useable
…. i.e. open data [evermore necessary….]
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4. Fiscal transparency: why is it deemed important?
Although there is room for debate, there is a broad consensus on
the fact that fiscal transparency is relevant for:
Better informed decisions (in government and outside it)
o it helps to highlight potential risks to the fiscal outlook
o it enables public debate on resource allocation
o it encourages governments to pursue sound economic policies
and achieve greater financial stability
Increased accountability of policy action
o it strengthens its credibility and public understanding
o it may enhance social consensus
Increased accountability of public officials
o It makes it easier to detect (and reduce) corruption
Better access to capital markets
In any case it is more and more considered a right of citizens
to have access to detailed information on government's
activities….
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5. International Guidelines on budget transparency
Guidelines and assessments on the extent to which countries satisfy
them are promoted by international organizations and civil society
organizations
1) IMF Fiscal Transparency Code (since 1998, revised in
2007)
http://www.imf.org/external/np/fad/trans/code.htm
2) OECD Best Practices for Budget Transparency (since 2001)
http://www.oecd. org/dataoecd/33/13/1905258.pdf
3) Open Budget Initiative (since 2005)
http:// www.openbudgetindex.org.
4) Open Government Partnership (OGP) on Budget
Transparency (since 2011)
http://www.opengovpartnership.org/
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6. Good practices on what should be reported to the public
Internationally accepted good practices require governments
to publish at least eight key budget reports at various points
in the budget year:
Pre-Budget Statement
Executive’s Budget Proposal
Enacted Budget
Citizens Budget
In-Year Monthly Reports
Mid-Year Review
Year-End Report
Audit Report.
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7. Fundamental aspects of fiscal transparency /1
Comprehensiveness
The budget documentation, including the final accounts, and other published
fiscal reports should cover all budgetary and extra-budgetary
activities:
o transactions related to commercial activities of government agencies
(user fees) that are not included in their budgeted revenue and
expenditure;
o social security funds,
o nonmarket nonprofit institutions, financed by government transfers or
earmarked revenues
o revolving funds
o tax expenditures
o contingent liabilities
o quasi-fiscal activities
The central government should also publish information on:
o the level and composition of its debt and financial assets, significant
non-debt liabilities (including pension rights, guarantee exposure,
and other contractual obligations), and natural resource assets.
o the fiscal position of subnational governments and the finances
of public corporations.
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8. Fundamental aspects of fiscal transparency /2
Reliability
Fiscal data should meet accepted data quality standards, related to
definitions and classifications:
o accounting policies meet generally accepted accounting standards
o international standard classifications to be used for economic and
functional descriptions (e.g. COFOG / SEC), on the side of national
classifications
and related to checking the data:
o automated procedures are used to facilitate the monitoring of the
accuracy of data reported by individual government sector units for
internal consistency testing of each institution’s data (e.g., cross-
checks). Data inconsistencies and out-of-trend values are confirmed
with reporting units, and documented.
o data are assessed by checking across different sources (e.g.,
payables by one part of the general government are equal to
receivables by another, checking independent creditor and debtor
sources, and domestic bank financing records compared with banking
records, etc.).
o sound techniques are in place to estimate missing data, when
relevant (to deal with coverage problems).
.
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9. Fundamental aspects of fiscal transparency /3
Comparability (in time and space) and timeliness
o fiscal aggregate outcomes are compared with previous forecasts and with outturns
of previous years
o dissemination of advance-release calendars
o simultaneous release to all interested parties
o Monthly updates on expenditures and revenues, which show progress on
implementing the budget
 They should be released within four weeks of the end of each month
 They should contain the amount of revenue and expenditure in each month and
year-to-date
 A comparison should be made with the forecast amounts of monthly revenue
and expenditure for the same period. Any in-year adjustments to the original
forecast should be shown separately.
 A brief commentary should accompany the numerical data. If a significant
divergence between actual and forecast amounts occurs, an explanation should be
made.
 Expenditures should be classified by major administrative units (e.g., ministry,
agency), by economic and functional categories should also be presented.
 Information on commitments in additional to information on payments
 The reports should also contain information on the government’s borrowing
activity
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10. Fundamental aspects of fiscal transparency /4
Understandable to the public
The understanding of the budget process by individual citizens and non-
governmental organizations should actively be promoted:
o Fiscal information should be presented in a way that facilitates policy
analysis
 Fiscal data should be reported on a gross basis, distinguishing revenue,
expenditure, and financing
 Expenditure should be classified by economic, functional, and
administrative category.
o A clear and simple summary guide to the budget should be widely
distributed at the time of the annual budget.
o Budget presentations and accounts contain clear statements of the
government’s objectives (e.g. missions and programs) as well as a listing
of the items on which money is spent (as in traditional line-item
budgeting).
o Results of previous policies should also be evaluated against their
stated objectives, by measuring also measure outputs and outcomes in
relation to these objectives.
….. and a Citizen’s Budget should be made available (the government’s
work is highly technical, it is not sufficient to simply disclose specialized documents.
Access to information means using formats to access information in a language that
ordinary people can understand and appreciate)
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11. Where does Turkey stand according to the major international
assessments?1
In Turkey the budget is unified, but three central institutions are involved in
budget preparation, execution and internal control:
o The MoF is responsible for budget preparation, budget execution,
accounting and reporting, and revenue collection.
o The State Planning Organisation (SPO), now Ministry of
Development is responsible, among other duties, for preparing the
public investment program and the macroeconomic framework.
o The Undersecretariat of the Treasury is responsible for debt
and cash management and for exercising state ownership rights in
state-owned enterprises and public banks.
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12. Where does Turkey stand according to the major international
assessments?2
Open Budget Index:
o Turkey’s ranking 57 over 100 in 2010
o Improved over time …
o Comparable to several neighbors, and to Italy … but lower than EU
average
OBI score Turkey OBI score 2010 several countries
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13. New challenges for fiscal transparency
Today, most people would agree that the new standard of
public transparency is measured by the amount, significance
and re-usability of data released on the web.
Data on revenues and expenditures should be easily
accessible, digital, re-useable from a technical and
legal point of view, machine readable, ……. === open
data
The idea is that with “open data” the public can sort,
search, and transform the information to meet their
needs and answer detailed questions:
o how much of my tax money is spent on cancer research?
o how much public money is spent for schools in my region?
o how much revenue is raised by taxing fuel?
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14. New challenges for fiscal transparency
Since 2009, governments are making important
pronouncements on the principles for transparency and on
the value of making public data widely accessible for
practical applications in and out of civic life:
o the US (Obama memorandum 2009)
o the UK (http://data.gov.uk/ )
o … and many others following and launching “open data
portals”
In the EU, much of the debate revolves around Directive
2003/98 for the re-use Public Sector Information
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/index_en.htm
Its main objective of is to establish “a minimum set of rules
governing the re-use and the practical means of facilitating
re-use of existing documents held by public sector bodies of
the Member States”.
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15. Fiscal transparency and citizen’s participation in an open data
perspective
Examples of Government initiatives:
US Recovery Act http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/default.aspx
UK COINS - the Combined On-line Information System
http://hm-treasury.gov.uk/psr_coins_faqs.htm, http://hm-
treasury.gov.uk/psr_coins_data.htm,
http://issuu.com/hmtreasury/docs/coins_coding_presentation_july_10
UK Public spending & reporting transparency
http://hm-treasury.gov.uk/psr_transparency_index.htm
Italy State general budget
Examples of Civil society initiatives:
UK Where does my money go http://wheredoesmymoneygo.org/
UK Guardian Department expenditure over 25 thousand pounds
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2010/nov/19/government-data-
interactive-guide
EU Farm Subsidies http://farmsubsidy.org/
UK Local Council Spending http://openlylocal.com/councils/spending
Italy Chamber of Deputies expenditures / LinkedOpenCamera
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16. Italy – Chamber of Deputies, representation of raw data
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17. Italian State Budget – requirements on data dissemination
• The reformed accounting and public finance law requires the
publication in a usable electronic format in the MoF website of the bills
and budget laws, all in-year budgetary variations and the final
accounts.
Legge n. 196/2009
TITOLO II - MISURE PER LA TRASPARENZA E LA CONTROLLABILITÀ DELLA SPESA
Art. 6 (Accesso alle banche dati e pubblicità di elementi informativi)
1. Ai fini del controllo parlamentare sulla finanza pubblica, anche di settore, la Camera dei deputati e il
Senato della Repubblica hanno accesso, sulla base di apposite intese, alle banche dati delle
amministrazioni pubbliche e ad ogni altra fonte informativa gestita da soggetti pubblici rilevante ai fini
del controllo della finanza pubblica.
2. Nel sito del Ministero dell'economia e delle finanze sono pubblicati, in formato elettronico
elaborabile, i disegni di legge e le leggi di cui agli articoli 11, 21, 33 e 35 con i rispettivi
allegati.
3. I decreti di variazione al bilancio adottati in conseguenza dell'approvazione di provvedimenti
legislativi sono resi disponibili, sul sito del Ministero dell'economia e delle finanze, il giorno
successivo a quello della loro registrazione da parte della Corte dei conti.
4. Il Comitato interministeriale per la programmazione economica (CIPE) trasmette in via telematica alle
Camere le proprie delibere entro dieci giorni dalla data della registrazione da parte della Corte dei 17
conti ovvero, ove questa non sia prevista, entro dieci giorni dalla data della loro adozione.
Twinning Project “Improving data quality in public accounts”

18. Evolution of the Italian State Budget dissemination standards
e.g. Budget bill (PDF -
1.2 MB)
http://www.rgs.tesoro.it/VERSIO
NE-I/Bilancio-d/Bilancio-i/
http://www.rgs.tesoro.it/VERSIONE- Table, databases and
I/Servizio-s/Studi-e-do/La-spesa-d/ raw data
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19. Raw data and aggregate reporting standards: both are needed
The release of “raw” data is very significant in itself and it
provides an opportunity for many interested parties to
understand public finances and answer specific and
significant questions on revenue and expenditures.
However, it does not by itself make the government's
finances necessarily more “scrutable”:
o It contains highly technical information, requiring
detailed knowledge of variable definitions and
encoding schemes
o Data files are often too large to load into widely
available analysis tools such as Microsoft Excel, a
common tool-of-choice for many “simple” data
investigators
o It must be complemented by metadata and also by a
selection of (more or less flexible) summary tables
and aggregate data
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