Parliamentary financial scrutiny in hard times

The changing landscape of the financial and political arenas across the case study countries and the severity of the austerity measures raise concern about the lack of resources available for parliamentary financial scrutiny. [...] Further detail on the activities of the Scrutiny The studies show that, although it has raised awareness of Unit can be found in Chapter 7. the significance of financial risk and the fragility of the global banking system in general, the financial crisis has At the general level, and not confined to the field of fiscal not been the only impetus for change in and parliamentary policy, there has bee [...] The mechanisms of the The exception is Ireland, where reform of the budget and legislature are often slow to change, owing to the financial scrutiny processes is driven by the urgent need to difficulties in reforming both procedures and operating respond to financial collapse and the milestones set out in systems, as well as dealing with the complexities involved. [...] In the UK, the involvement of select committees in the Lack of detailed information about expenditure, indicated scrutiny of estimates is now focused largely on an by the small number of lines included in each estimate, assessment of the efficiency and performance of the prevents parliamentarians from scrutinising the proposed relevant department, rather than a detailed examination of spending all [...] Also, in response to the current localism reforms of the UK coalition government, the Public Accounts Committee a sense of direction (PAC) published a significant report examining the There is a lack of overarching strategy from Parliament to implications of such reforms to the functionality of guide the actions of select committees in relation to Parliament.