3 Expenditure
DFID Expenditure
18. Parliamentary strengthening is a small but growing
proportion of DFID's overall work. DFID spent £22.5 million
on parliamentary strengthening projects in 2013-14, which equates
to 0.25% of DFID's total £10 billion spending.[53]
Figure 2 breaks down the regional balance of this spending,
with the majority of spending concentrated in two areas: South
Asia (£11.2 million, 49%)—the majority of which (£9.5
million) was actually spent in one country Pakistan—and
East Africa (£4.8 million, 21%). Globally the overwhelming
majority of spending (82%) was Fragile and Conflict Affected states
(FCAs).[54] £3.1
million (14%) of this spending was via centrally managed programmes,
with the remainder managed by DFID country offices.[55]
DFID also provides core funding for multilaterals which undertake
parliamentary strengthening programmes; while this is hard for
DFID to assess precisely the UK taxpayer may be providing £3.5
million to such multilateral projects.[56]
In addition, DFID provides other funds, like the global grant
to BBC Media Action (£21.4 million in 2013-14), which are
partly used for parliamentary strengthening. Figure
2: Breakdown of Spending by Region
19. Spending on parliamentary strengthening projects
is a small proportion (3%) of the £724 million DFID spends
on governance and security projects[57]
(see Table 1 overleaf). DFID's spending on parliamentary
strengthening is approximately half of what it spent supporting
elections (£46 million in 2013-14).[58]
Table 1 shows spending on parliamentary strengthening in
the 10 programmes with the largest proportion of their spending
on governance and security in 2013-14; in all countries spending
on parliaments was less than 10% of total governance spending.[59]
We do note that in a number of these countries UK institutions
are working with parliaments (e.g. in Sierra Leone) but they are
funded from non-DFID sources. According to the World Bank DFID's
spending patterns are typical: historically, donors have given
a higher priority to elections than parliaments.[60]
Table 1: Top 10 Governance and Security Programmes
in 2013-14: Significance of DFID parliamentary strengthening spending[61]
| Programme | Country Spending 2013-14 (£m)
| Amount spent on governance & security 2013-14 (£m)
| Amount spent on parliamentary strengthening 2013-14 (£m)
| Parliamentary strengthening as % governance & security
| Parliamentary Strengthening as % country spending
|
| Afghanistan | 182.3
| 40.8 | 0
| 0% | 0%
|
| DRC | 162.2
| 39.3 | 0.05
| 0.1% | 0%
|
| Mozambique | 77.4
| 17.6 | 0
| 0% | 0%
|
| Nepal | 104.7
| 25.5 | 0
| 0% | 0%
|
| Nigeria | 266.2
| 71.6 | 1.32
| 1.8% | 0.5%
|
| OPT | 93.9
| 47.7 | 0
| 0% | 0%
|
| Sierra Leone | 68.6
| 18.0 | 0
| 0% | 0%
|
| Somalia | 83.6
| 20.6 | 1.78
| 8.6% | 2.1%
|
| Tanzania | 175.2
| 42.6 | 0.51
| 1.2% | 0.3%
|
| MENA regional programme
| 48 | 29.7
| 1.54 | 5.2%
| 3.2% |
20. Witnesses called on DFID to prioritise parliamentary
strengthening more in its governance work, but DFID stressed that
its relatively low level of spending on parliamentary strengthening
did not indicate that it saw this work as a low priority:
The volume of expenditure is not necessarily
representative of the status of parliamentary strengthening work.
Whether through core parliamentary programmes or as part of larger
sector programmes, support to Parliaments is not typically a high
cost intervention. Small volumes of funds supporting democratic
oversight can potentially have a multiplying effect across the
wider programme, which is also not captured by expenditure figures
alone.[62]
The Minister also observed that DFID spends more
on elections because elections are more expensive. This does not
mean that parliaments are less important.
Elections are an awful lot more expensive; that
is undoubtedly the case, so that would certainly account for much
of the extra spend… However, I am prejudiced; I am a Member
of a Parliament. I do believe that overwhelmingly the most important
thing is the Parliament. It is vitally important. A properly working
Parliament informs so many other expectations within a society
about what they can expect from their government.[63]
It is undeniable that in some circumstances spending
small sums of money can be very effective, as we saw on our visit
to Burma.
21. DFID has few staff specialising in parliamentary
strengthening: it has one full time staff member specifically
responsible for its parliamentary strengthening work in London,
plus a cadre of 120 general governance advisers who manage different
aspects of parliamentary strengthening projects in different country
offices or centrally.[64]
Few are specialists in parliamentary strengthening, though some
have worked in parliament.[65]
The Minister highlighted that governance staff are kept up to
date though acknowledged that staff obviously do not have the
direct experience of being parliamentarians themselves.[66]
DFID noted that: "Many Governance Advisers have significant
direct experience of working on political systems and accountable
governance such as support to electoral processes, parliaments
and political parties in developing countries." In
particular, it highlighted that all Governance Advisers are required
to demonstrate their capabilities in political analysis.[67]
22. DFID identifies and uses key performance indicators
(KPIs) to monitor and report on the performance of its most important
areas of operations, including its governance work.[68]
Though it has governance indicators relating to elections (where
it reports the amount spent supporting elections each year), and
on its support for accountability in general (the number of people
it has reached and supported to hold decision makers to account)—which
it then tracks through its business plan results indicators, DFID
does not have any key performance indicators specifically focused
on parliaments. This suggests parliamentary strengthening is less
central to DFID's governance ambitions. For instance, there is
only one mention of parliament in DFID's Operational Plan for
its governance pillar.[69]
Similarly, the Annual Report and Accounts has little to say about
parliamentary strengthening.[70]
A previous indicator committing budgetary support to accountability
institutions has been discontinued.[71]
The GOSAC operational plan has no results referring to parliamentary
strengthening.
23. DFID Governance Department does not monitor its
spending on parliamentary strengthening centrally through its
account codes, and was only able to identify its spending for
2013-14 by a one-off manual exercise with each country office
(see chapter 5 for discussion of this exercise for commissioning).
It felt this exercise was too time consuming to repeat to establish
spending in 2012-13. The risk with one-off exercises is inconsistency
and error since some country offices were unable to identify the
amount in a project that should be apportioned to parliamentary
strengthening activities, and offices identified projects differently.[72]
This gives some uncertainty to the spending figures DFID has provided
us. Moreover, DFID was not able to estimate the amount of staff
time devoted to parliamentary strengthening work. The Minister
acknowledged that this is a problem:
I had spotted the difficulty that you clearly
have about how you know exactly what you have spent, because the
only way that we could get that figure of £22.5 million,
as I understand it, is by going to each of our country teams and
saying, "Exactly how much have you spent?" Many of the
projects do span Parliament and other aspects of governance, and
it is quite difficult, certainly with accounting codes, to determine
precisely how much has been spent on any particular element. I
appreciate that is a problem, but it is one that we have to wrestle
with. [73]
24. In practical terms, this limited understanding
means that DFID is unable to assess how its spending on parliamentary
strengthening has changed over time, or how it is sustaining work
over the long term. It also means DFID does not have the information
needed to check how its balance of spending compares to its intended
priorities (whether regionally, e.g. whether 40% of its spending
should be in Pakistan; or compared to other areas of governance
e.g. parliamentary strengthening vs. elections; or by type of
state, e.g. spending on FCAs vs. developing middle income countries).
Other UK Spending
25. DFID is not the only part of HM Government that
funds parliamentary strengthening. The Foreign and Commonwealth
Office spent just over £7 million in 2013-14, including its
contribution to the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which
is less than one third of the sum spent by DFID.[74]
Like DFID, the FCO struggles to identify exactly how much it spends
on parliamentary strengthening, needing to identify projects manually
and unable to identify the staff resources devoted to parliamentary
strengthening.[75]
26. Of other UK bodies, WFD has a budget of approximately
£6 million, largely funded by the FCO and DFID.[76]
Parliament spends approximately £3-4 million[77],
divided between the budgets of the Overseas Offices of the House
of Commons and House of Lords, UK branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary
Association and the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
The Overseas Office of the House of Commons notes that it is also
hard for Parliament to meaningfully estimate the staff resources
devoted by Parliament to parliamentary strengthening.[78]
There is also spending on parliamentary strengthening by other
parliaments in the UK, for example the Scottish Parliament. The
National Audit Office spends approximately £1.5 million on
parliamentary strengthening, the majority of which it recovers
from funders.[79] The
British Council also does parliamentary strengthening work as
part of its development programme.[80]
27. While DFID spends significantly more on parliamentary
strengthening than all other UK bodies combined, the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office is the lead Government department for parliamentary
strengthening and promoting democracy. It is also the parent department
for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. Lead responsibility
for promoting democracy in HMG sits within the FCO's Human Rights
and Democracy Department. The FCO produces an annual report about
its work promoting human rights and democracy, which includes
a discussion of its work on parliamentary strengthening, including
that funded by DFID, though focuses on the FCO's work.[81]
Parliamentary Strengthening Worldwide
28. It is impossible to get an accurate figure, but
based on information from the UNDP and others we estimate that
globally approximately £250 million is spent annually on
parliamentary strengthening by taxpayers around the world.[82]
The UK's share of this (including its contribution to multilaterals
work) is very approximately 15%. DFID is thus a significant player
in global parliamentary strengthening work, but it is not the
largest.
29. The largest providers are multilaterals such
as UNDP (£80 million)[83]
and the World Bank. Charles Chauvel told us that the UNDP is,
by a significant margin, the world's largest implementer of parliamentary
strengthening programming, and that its programming has grown
significantly over the past two decades to match the demands for
the global spread of democracy.[84]
The European Commission informed us that it spent on average £8
million a year, though this is not all its spending.[85]
DFID is a significant contributor to all three of these multilateral
institutions, and ought to be able to significantly influence
their work. There are a number of other key national agencies,
particularly the US institutions, such as the National Democratic
Institute and the International Republican Institute, the French
Assemblée Nationale, the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty
Democracy, and German political foundations (Stiftungen). A number
of submissions argued that DFID should consider its role in parliamentary
strengthening in the context of this global effort.
Conclusions and recommendations
30. We welcome DFID's increased commitment to
parliamentary strengthening. We agree with DFID that its relatively
low levels of spending on parliamentary strengthening do not necessarily
mean it is a low priority; we are aware that inexpensive projects
can be very effective. However, the fact that DFID does not have
any governance performance indicators specifically focused on
Parliament and that its Annual Report does not refer to parliamentary
strengthening suggest this area of work is not a priority. We
recommend that DFID:
· develop a Key Performance Indicator
for parliamentary strengthening in its governance pillar for its
Governance, Open Societies and Anti-Corruption Operational Plan,
as it has for elections and for accountability institutions more
generally, that reflects its ambitions for parliamentary strengthening,
particularly for its work with parliamentary committees.
· conduct an annual analysis of its
global spending on parliamentary strengthening and other areas
governance and its performance to ensure its spending and programmes
reflect its priorities.
· include an analysis of its parliamentary
strengthening work in its Annual Report
· ensure that the resources devoted
to parliamentary strengthening compared to elections and other
areas of governance reflect its assessment of their respective
importance.
31. We recommend that DFID develop a better
understanding of the total resources it is using in its parliamentary
strengthening and other governance work, including staff time,
and that it assess the viability of improving its systems to allow
this, rather than relying on time-consuming manual exercises with
country offices. While it requires a better understanding of the
resources it devotes to parliamentary strengthening it is clear
that DFID is one the largest spenders in this area in the world.
We recommend that DFID have more than one specialist working full-time
on parliamentary strengthening and that DFID ensure that all its
governance advisers improve their knowledge of parliaments and
improve their links with the UK Parliament and other Westminster-based
institutions.
53 IDC analysis of figures provided in DFID submission, Annex B.
Back
54
DFID submission, Annex B. £18.5 million was spent in FCAs
with identified parliamentary strengthening programmes: Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, Burma, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan,
Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Back
55
See: DFID submission, paragraph 9 Back
56
DFID publishes data showing the imputed share of UK multilateral
contributions that is spent on 'legislatures and political parties',
drawing on data published to the OECD's Development Assistance
Committee by multilateral organisations directly.The relevant
imputed UK share of all multilateral reporting to OECD DAC in
2011 (latest data sent by DFID) is £2.5 million and £0.7
million Back
57
DFID Annual Report and Accounts 2013-14, page 56 Back
58
DFID supported elections in four countries in 2013-14: Mozambique,
Nepal, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. DFID Annual Report and Accounts
2013-14, page 54; Table 2.3: Latest data on DFID Business Plan
results indicators; DFID reports spending £39 million on
elections through bilateral programmes, and £7 million through
multilateral programmes in 2013-14: See: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/331591/annual-report-accounts-2013-14a.pdf Back
59
DFID clarified that some of these country programmes have parliamentary
strengthening programmes which did not spend anything in 2013-14
(e.g. Afghanistan), that some had other programmes where it was
not able to identify accurately the amount spent on parliamentary
strengthening and so recorded this as zero (e.g. DRC), and some
are in countries where there is no parliament to work with. See:
DFID Submission, Annex B Back
60
The World Bank cites a 2012 study which noted that in sub-Saharan
Africa in 2010 donors reported spending six times more on funding
elections and 11 times more funding civil society than they did
funding parliamentary strengthening. The World Bank notes that:
"The legitimacy that comes from conducting election processes
that reflect the will of the people needs to be reinforced by
institutions that can deliver open, responsive, and accountable
governance." See: World Bank Submission, Section 4 Back
61
Table 1 figures refer to 2013-14 expenditure. IDC sample of 10
governance and security programmes were selected from DFID Annual
Report and Accounts (governance & security accounted for more
than 20% of the country programme, and total programme spend was
more than £10 million). Figures for governance and security
spending and total country budgets taken from DFID 2013-14 Annual
Report and Accounts. Figures on parliamentary strengthening provided
in DFID submission, Annex B (DFID Project Summary) Back
62
DFID Submission, paragraph 11 Back
63
Oral Evidence from Minister of State Desmond Swayne MP, 25 November
2014, Q86 Back
64
DFID submission, paragraph 13. 88 of this network of governance
advisers are based in country offices. Back
65
Oral Evidence from Shiona Ruhemann, DFID, 25 November 2014, Q127:
"To get through the door either as a governance adviser or
a social development adviser you are tested on your social and
political analysis, and a lot of people work directly with political
systems. The majority would have firsthand experience in
overseas countries and some of us, including me, have worked in
this Parliament. I was not elected, but I was an adviser to a
frontbench MP, so a lot of us know a lot about the House of Commons
as well. You do not even get through the door if you do not have
that experience." Back
66
Oral Evidence from Minister of State Desmond Swayne, 25 November
2014, Q125: "They are all required to have a thorough understanding
of governance issues. We provide an online library of the latest
evidence and learning abilities. We have just had the professional
development conference, one of the sessions of which was largely
based around your own findings in Burma. We are alive to the need
to keep our people up to speed all the time. However, what they
do not have is what we have in this room here: that direct experience
of having been a Member of Parliament, being involved and that
is a key element of the mix." Back
67
"All Governance Advisers are required to demonstrate understanding
of governance evidence, policy and practice in a range of settings,
including use of political and institutional analysis."
DFID submission, paragraph 13 Back
68
For governance and security its KPIs relate to: 30% of its budget
to be spent in Fragile and Conflict Affected States, to support
elections in 13 countries, to empower 40 million people to hold
their decision makers to account [which is primarily achieved
through media work], and to help 10 million women have access
to justice. There is one MDG KPI related to parliaments-on the
Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments-which
guides DFID's Results Framework. However, DFID does not have any
of its own KPIs on parliamentary strengthening. Back
69
The updated Operational Plan for DFID's Governance, Open Societies
and Anti-Corruption Department mentions supporting the role of
parliament once as potential activity for the indicator on supporting
domestic accountability and citizen empowerment See: Operational
Plan 2011-16 Governance, Open Societies and Anti-Corruption Department
(Updated December 2014) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/389494/GOSAC_Operational_Plan.pdfp.10 Back
70
For instance, in the 2013-14 Annual Report and Accounts, strengthening
parliaments is noted only in two country programme discussions
(Burma and Kyrgyz Republic), neither of which actually had any
spending on them in 2013-14. Back
71
DFID did make a commitment in 2011-12 that 5% of all bilateral
budget support would go to supporting accountability institutions,
such as parliaments. The 2011-12 DFID annual report and accounts
includes as part of the DFID Structural Reform Plan mention of
a commitment for 5% of budgetary support to go to accountability
institutions. "The last year has seen an enhanced
focus on accountability and empowering people to hold their governments
to account on how money is spent. This included new guidance to
ensure that up to 5% of all budget support goes to accountability
institutions." https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/67353/Annual-report-accounts-2011-12.pdf;
p 33. The Commitment from the 2011-12 Strategic Reform Plan was
subsequently revised to an Additional Departmental Action, and
is no longer required to be reported to the Cabinet Office. DFID
informs the Committee that it internally tracks this commitment,
and for November 2014 it spent 11.2% of budget support on accountability
institutions. It is unable to analyse how much of this relates
to parliamentary strengthening. See: Additional DFID evidence
following 25 November hearing. Back
72
It also risks inconsistency in how country offices classify projects.
For instance, the Aawaz Programme was treated by Pakistan country
office as a parliamentary strengthening project, whereas the State
Accountability and Voice Initiative project was not by the Nigeria
country office, despite both primarily working to empower local
citizens to engage with regional authorities and assemblies Back
73
Oral Evidence from Minister of State Desmond Swayne MP, 25 November
2014, Q87 Back
74
According to its submission, the FCO provided almost £4 million
in parliamentary strengthening grants in 2013-14. In addition
it provided £3.5 million grant in aid to the Westminster
Foundation for Democracy. FCO Submission (unpublished), plus WFD
2013-14 Annual Report and Accounts. See: http://www.wfd.org/upload/docs/WFD%20Annual%20Report%20and%20Accounts%202013-14%20.pdf
Back
75
FCO Submission (unpublished) Back
76
See: http://www.wfd.org/upload/docs/WFD%20Annual%20Report%20and%20Accounts%202013-14%20.pdf Back
77
The 2013-14 House of Commons Administration Accounts and House
of Lords Resource Accounts record grants of £1.2 million
and £0.5 million to CPA UK, £0.8 million and £0.3
million to BG-IPU. The House of Commons Overseas Office has a
budget of £3.7 million, though this includes its grants to
CPA UK and BGIPU, and its parliamentary diplomacy work as well
as its parliamentary strengthening work. See accounts of House
of Commons: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/Admin-accounts-2013.pdf
(Note 7); House of Lords http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldresource/24/24.pdf
(Note 1.12) Back
78
House of Commons Overseas Office submission, paragraph 16: "Overall,
because it is largely officials' time that is provided, it is
not possible meaningfully to estimate the resources which have
been devoted by the House Service to parliamentary strengthening." Back
79
See: http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/NAO-annual-report-2013-141.pdf Note 6,
page 90 Back
80
Parliamentary Strengthening forms part of the British Council's
Building Capacity for Social Change pillar of work. Back
81
http://www.hrdreport.fco.gov.uk Back
82
This estimate aims to give a sense of the scale of parliamentary
strengthening worldwide. It is necessarily a rough estimate as
few agencies directly report their spending specifically on parliamentary
strengthening, and vary in how they define what constitutes parliamentary
strengthening. The estimate is based on the UK and non-UK spending
figures we received from UK providers, the UNDP and the EC, plus
the public accounts available for bodies whose activities we have
entirely classed as parliamentary strengthening (e.g. the Netherlands
Institute for Multi-party Democracy (£8 million), and estimates
for bodies who promote democracy where only a proportion of their
activities are parliamentary strengthening (such as the German
political foundations (approximately £300 million combined,
or the US National Endowment for Democracy budget allocation [$104
million in 2014], plus estimates for smaller provider. We have
tested the reasonableness of this figure with a number of witnesses.
However, it remains an estimate. Back
83
Charles Chauvel submission: UNDP spent over $127 million in 2012
on parliamentary strengthening projects, in 68 countries. Back
84
Charles Chauvel, UNDP Submission, Introduction Back
85
European Commission Submission, paragraph 5.1 notes that: "EC
funding specifically earmarked for PSPs [parliamentary strengthening
programmes] has been a total of approximately EUR 135 between
2000 and 2014." This does not include all the governance
programmes where parliamentary strengthening is part of a wider
democratic governance intervention. Back
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