The President of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), Cristina Herrero, took part today in the first public policy evaluation conference of the Regional Government of Castile and Leon, where she welcomed the commitment to evaluation of the Autonomous Regions, which is key to promoting evaluation in Spain. In particular, she highlighted the case of Castile and Leon, a region that has made a firm commitment to this field by commissioning AIReF in 2020 to make five major policy evaluations, such as the institutionalisation of evaluation and active employment policies. Cristina Herrero stressed that AIReF has now completed the fifth study requested, focused on industrial promotion, and offered her collaboration to continue evaluating other policies in the future.
The President began her speech by reminding the audience that Spain does not have a long tradition of evaluating public policies, despite the fact that the use of public resources is recognised at the highest legislative level. According to her, the principle of efficiency and effectiveness has not been present in the design of public policies and, when it has been necessary to reduce public expenditure, the tendency has been to make linear reductions, without analysing targets and results or setting priorities.
In Spain, it was European momentum that brought about the paradigm shift, with the Eurogroup’s recommendation in 2016 for a comprehensive public expenditure review, known as the ‘Spending Review’, to identify improvements in efficiency. The task was commissioned to AIReF, which has since taken on this enormous challenge. It was the body chosen because it has a strong legal basis that guarantees independence and functional autonomy, it has powers over all GG sub-sectors, it has the credibility to take on such a task, and due to the synergies that exist between evaluation and fiscal supervision.
Following this momentum, successive economic shocks led the European Commission to insist on the need to make use of the Spending Reviews. This trend has been consolidated with the recent reform of the European fiscal framework, which is committed to the quality of public finances as a way of combining sustainability and growth. At a national level, this commitment has materialised in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (RTRP), which gives permanence to the Spending Reviews and reinforces their monitoring, and in the Structural-Fiscal Plan 2025-2028, which is also committed to the quality of public finances at both a central and regional level.
It is necessary to consolidate evaluation
According to Cristina Herrero, the commitment to evaluation is fundamental and should be truly consolidated in Spain. In her opinion, it is both possible and necessary. It is possible thanks to advances in the design of databases and the development of indicators, which make it possible to provide public managers with rigorous input and targets. And it is necessary to generate fiscal spaces that help guarantee the sustainability committed to in the Structural-Fiscal Plan, in a context in which debt stands at around 100% of GDP.
She acknowledged that much progress has been made in just a few years, with the preparation and publication of the three phases of the first Spending Review in which AIReF analysed policies such as healthcare, education, infrastructure and tax benefits, among others. AIReF is currently finalising the first phase of the second Spending Review, which focuses on the State’s financial instruments to support the productive sectors and the spending derived from the healthcare provided by the administrative mutual insurance system.
She also highlighted the growing interest of the Autonomous Regions (ARs), which has materialised in some far-reaching evaluations, such as the study on the university system in Andalusia, the studies on active employment policies and pharmaceutical expenditure in Extremadura and the studies on pharmaceutical expenditure, budgetary and staffing policies in non-university education and the funding model for the University of Zaragoza in Aragon, all of which have already been delivered. AIReF is also developing evaluations in new areas in healthcare, such as the analysis of human resources in Extremadura, the Balearic Islands and Navarre, the procurement strategy and model in Extremadura and the Balearic Islands, and the healthcare infrastructure in Navarre. In education, it is evaluating the human resources policy in the Balearic Islands.
Castile and Leon, a pioneering AR
Cristina Herrero referred to the evaluation experience of Castile and Leon, a pioneering region in this field. AIReF was commissioned in 2020 to carry out a total of five evaluations: the institutionalisation of evaluation, active employment policies, institutional communication, universities and a study on industrial policy. According to the President, Castile and Leon is a benchmark both for its proactivity when it comes to evaluation and for its desire to institutionalise evaluation in the General Government.
Cristina Herrero reviewed the results of these evaluations. She considered the study on the institutionalisation of evaluation to be particularly important, as it reflects this Autonomous Region’s firm commitment to this subject. She also highlighted the recently completed study on industrial promotion, which analyses the Financial Platform set up by the Regional Government of Castile and Leon. AIReF will publish the results at a later date, but it positively rates the exercise in coordination between the financing agents and considers the platform to be a success story, although it sees room for further coordination.
To conclude, the President pointed out that the success of this new evaluation trend requires a real and lasting political commitment on the part of the GG. In her opinion, it is essential to integrate evaluation into the budgetary process from the outset, designing policies that can then be evaluated, acquiring evaluation expertise in the GG and taking into account the target results in order to integrate them into decision-making. In this regard, she recalled the interactive monitor of AIReF’s findings and proposals available on the website and stressed that the goal is to move towards more extensive monitoring.
