COVID Module Question 22

How was the legislature involved in monitoring the implementation of the emergency fiscal policy package under consideration?

Guidelines
While emergency measures had to be taken in haste and may not have followed the usual legislative approval procedures, legislatures can and should play a key role in ensuring accountability and oversight of the implementation of these measures.

They can do so by examining the implementation of the emergency measures during the budget execution period for which they were approved, as well as ex post oversight following the implementation of the emergency package. The review of these reports is most frequently done by a legislative committee and can be followed by the publication of an official report with findings and recommendations. In-year and ex-post monitoring by the legislature will be affected by the frequency that the executive publishes the emergency-related execution reports, and by how soon the SAI’s emergency-related audit reports are released.

In addition, and in light of that fact that one quarter of parliaments in the OECD set up special COVID-19 committees or cross-party working groups to consider emergency responses as they were implemented, researchers should check on whether a similar committee was established in their own country. For example, the New Zealand Parliament created an opposition-chaired special committee from 25 March to 26 May 2020 with 11 members from all five parties to review and report on the government’s response to COVID-19. The committee had broad powers to summon testimony and documents from ministers and experts and meetings were publicly broadcasted on traditional media and online

Overseeing the emergency measures is no simple task, also in consideration of the magnitude and unprecedented set of measures that have been introduced and the restrictions that may be in place to actually perform the checks. This indicator is therefore also assessing whether the legislature hears testimony from members of the executive to get a better picture of the execution of emergency-related policy execution.

Tick boxes: ''Please check the boxes of the items that appear in the relevant documentation. If none of the items are presented, please check ‘None of the Above’. In the comment box, please provide a detailed citation for each item selected below as described in the assessment directions as well as any additional details.''


 * ☐  Legislature receives and debates regular or special reports which include information on the execution of emergency fiscal policy packages.
 * ☐  Legislature hears testimony from members of the executive to get a better picture of the emergency-related policies execution.
 * ☐  Legislature receives and debates regular or special audit reports which include information on audits of emergency fiscal policy packages.
 * ☐  Legislature established a special COVID-19 committee to oversee emergency-related execution, or granted additional powers to an existing committee.
 * ☐  None of the above