A proposito di indipendenza

Sul Finalcial Times del 10 luglio è comparso un articolo sull'Office for Budget Responsability inglese. Riporto il testo perchè spiega la nostra contrarietà alla proposta emendativa (ormai cassata insieme a tutte le altre) del senatore Morando all'art. 7 comma 18 della manovra correttiva:

Free the OBR

UK fiscal supervisor must be seen to be independent

The Office for Budget Responsibility, Britain’s new fiscal watchdog, has not yet been let off the leash. The institution currently operates on an interim basis under temporary leadership. But it will soon receive statutory backing for its role as the government’s independent forecaster and guardian of the public finances. Let us hope it learns how to bark.

As the Financial Times has revealed, the OBR secretly changed its forecasting assumptions in the week before the last Budget. Among other things, the OBR decided to start assuming that the state would cut its contribution to public employees’ pensions. This is not current government policy; a review of public pensions is only beginning.

But, as a consequence of these changes, the OBR helped the government politically by reducing by 175,000 the projected fall in public sector jobs over the next five years. The OBR pleads that it committed an innocent mistake. Perhaps so. But this error fits into a pattern of behaviour that suggests that some of the institution’s staff, all of whom come from the Treasury, are susceptible to pressure from that institution. The OBR’s claim to independence is damaged.

Over the past fortnight, the OBR went out of its way to counter claims about its assessment of the Budget that were damaging to the government. But it did not challenge David Cameron, the prime minister, when he compared old OBR analysis with its latest assessment – which we now know used very different assumptions.

Sir Michael Scholar, head of the National Statistics Authority, chastises politicians for abuse of state statistics. The OBR should follow his lead, responding aggressively to the misuse of its output – even by the prime minister.

The OBR must, of course, strive to improve its models continually. But the institution must be open about such decisions, and release enough data to allow assessment of the impact of specific government policy changes. The OBR must now release reconciled forecasts, on openly stated assumptions, so that the impact of the Budget can be assessed.

The government is still finalising the structure of the permanent OBR and has yet to choose a new head for it. Sir Alan Budd, its interim chairman, has already announced his return to retirement. The structure – and the appointment of its chairman – must be made with one objective in mind: securing independence.

The OBR cannot continue to be run by Treasury civil servants whose careers hang on preferment within the finance ministry. Nor can the body be housed within it. It must be a creature of parliament. The chairman should be subject to confirmation by the Treasury select committee. The OBR must be seen to have teeth.