Les chambres régionales des comptes

Introduction

The regional rooms of the accounts constitute an innovation within the French politico-administrative system, since they take part of a renewal of the methods of assessment of the territories exerted by the State.

With decentralization and them « rights and freedoms » granted to the various local communities, the mode of territorial regulation of the public action, deeply evolved so/moved and was perceived like such by the whole of the territorial civils servant^1(*). The properly political nature of decentralization generated a modification of the types of local actions generated by the reduction of the political territories.

The model of the crossed regulation^2(*), which described the particular behavior local actors in search of resources for their strongholds in a diagram vertical and hierarchical, seems to have lived, even if the State remains an important actor in the regulation of the territories.

« The passage of a model of regulation crossed with a model marked by the institutionalization of the collective action questions on the models of co-operation through which the public action is built at the same time as on the transformations of its nature even. It is because one passed historically from a logic of production of public action, based on the supply of services, with a logic of construction of public action, defined by the consistency of the public interventions, that the relations between the actors are considerably »^3(*).

It thus seems to us interesting to analyze the metamorphoses of this mode of regulation by in particular studying the operation of a regional room of the accounts, that of High-Normandy, through the declarations of various actors and to bring back this local situation to the national context.

The position of the actors will make it possible to light us the evolutions of a particular mode of^4(*) regulation : that of the external financial control of the local authorities by the peripheral administrative system and of the evolution of the territorial public action.

Indeed, if the system of the cross regulation^5(*) seems to have lived, to leave the place to an increasing territorialisation of the public action, associated a redistribution of the role of the actors^6(*), it remains to wonder about the forms of reorganization of the decisional capacities of the actors, dependant on disengagement partial of the State of the circuits of budgetary decisions and to the evolution of the mode of the supervision. One thus forwards oneself to an analysis partial of a local government^7(*), which would represent the totality of the public actions determined by the local communities within a given jurisdiction.

Which are the stakes, the constraints or the room for specific maneuvers to each actor in this news gives which joins together the local authorities, the regional rooms of the accounts and the Prefect ?

Which are the lines of fractures between these various participants in the local system of action ? And how they vis-a-vis the stakes are organized determining their participation in the regulation of the local system of action ?

To accompany the appearance of political decision-making centers independent of the bodies of the State , the legislator with envisaged the existence of Regional Rooms of the Accounts, whose mission will consist in applying locally, on a given territory, jurisdictional and financial missions of control normally and historically fallen to the Court of Auditors.

The majority of the supervisions, administrative, financial or technical, heavy on the local public institutions were removed, reduced or softened (from where the explanation, in particular, of the title of the law : « Rights and freedoms of the communes, the departments and the areas »).

In fact, if controls of legality, bearing for example on the budgetary rules budgetary (utilizing representing of the State and CRC^8(*)) can be carried out upstream ; the control of management, even the evaluation of the public policies, are carried out a posteriori, ex-post, on territories in which local autonomy thus was deeply reinforced.

However, if the financial magistrates of the regional rooms do not have faculty, have regard to the democratic legitimacy of the elected officials, to exert a control of opportunity of such or such capital expenditure, concept indicating on the occasion faculty of subjective judgment of the magistrates financier, the publicity carried out around the management of the public accounts contribute to the political change of the administrative territories and the establishment of new rules of operation within the local system of action.

Because it is well there one of the points central of the explanation of the local system of action.

The elected officials, laying out, following the various reforms, of important decisional capacities, in particular in terms of investments of structures, do not have inevitably taste with the financial analyzes not formulated by the magistrates, whom they take for regulations nor with the publicity made around the examinations of management, which form part of local political space and thus disturb the conditions of realization of the local political market, like obtaining the rare resources.

If the legislative and lawful framework appreciably evolved/moved, under the impulse of the policies, since the laws of 1982, it is not the case of the institutional framework which preserved an identical configuration. Perhaps also, would owe us, to explain the modes of coordination and integration of the stakes, to defer us to other analyzes.

We find ourselves here in the wake of P. Wales, following Jessop, « the governorship within the meaning of political sociology is thus defined like a process of coordination of actors, groups social, institutions to achieve clean goals discussed and defined collectively in split up environments, dubious »^9(*). In this context, the analysis of the types of actors and their resources proceed of a step aiming at elucidating the mechanisms controlling the local system of action.

The concept of regulation returns here to the characteristics stated by Lange and Regini^10(*) for which the regulation is spread in three distinct forms : mode of coordination of various activities or relations between actors, the resource allocation in bond with these activities or these actors, finally regulation of the conflicts.

This fact the financial magistrate takes part of this movement of reorganization of the territories, thus modifying the metabolism of the local system of action. Often in conflict, in a legitimate way, with the elected officials or the representatives of the controlled organizations, the financial magistrate became gradually the genuine controller of the acts of the local authorities.

Its position, its statute and its capacities of interventions are the subject thus of recurring negotiations enter various the representatives of the parts concerned, of which the elite of the financial magistrates, members of the Court of Auditors, and this, filtered by the political fragmentation of the territories and the characteristic of the French political system.

Initially, we will be interested in the principal subject of concern of the financial magistrates : local authorities. Those, thanks to decentralization, were seen granted a broad functional and decisional autonomy allowing them, using broad financial amounts, to finance many of the infrastructures related ones to their competences. The methods of assessment by the State of these communities thus changed.

In second the time, us go to see how the magistrates function within the rooms, whose operation appears specific within the French landscape administrative, within a body mainly represented by the members of the Court of Auditors. The financial magistrates appear conscious of the territorial stakes and nationals related to the activity of their room and of the regional rooms of the accounts.

Lastly, we will be interested in the dynamic aspect of the local system of action, through the study of the conflicts, the stakes or of the concrete cases, which structure the opposition between the elected officials, decisional as regards public investment and the financial magistrates, responsible for good behavior of the public accounts swears. This part will enable us to wonder about the behavior of the actors in situation of adjustment of the positions.

* ¹ J.C. Thoenig, «  The institutional innovation  », The Public action, selected Pieces of the review policies and public management (PMP), under the responsibility of François Laced and Jean-Claude Thoenig, ED. Harmattan, Paris, 1996.

* ² Mr. Crozier, J.C. Thoenig, «regulation of the complex organized systems. The case of the local system of decision politico-administrative  », Re-examined French of sociology, 16 (1), January-March 1976.

* ³ P. Duran, J.C. Thoenig, «  The State and territorial public management  », Re-examined French of Political Sciences, 4, 1996.

* ⁴ For the explanatory theories or the approaches of the theories of the regulation  : Metamorphoses of the political regulation, under the Management of Jacques Commaille and Bruno Jobert, ED. LGDJ, 1998 and in particular  : J.C. Thoenig, «  The analytical use of the concept of regulation  »  ; B. Jobert, «  Political regulation  : the point of view of a politist  »  ; E. Fouilleux, «  Polycentrism  : constraint and strategic resource. The case of the common agricultural policy  ».

* ⁵ Mr. Crozier, J.C. Thoenig, «  Regulation of the complex organized systems. The case of the local system of decision politico-administrative in France  », Re-examined French of sociology, 16 (1), January-March 1976.

* ⁶ P. Duran, J.C Thoenig, «  The State and territorial public management  », Re-examined French of Political Sciences, 4, 1996.

* ⁷ P. Duran, «  Local government. Local government with the government of the territories  », course duplicated, ENS Cachan, 2000/2001.

* ⁸ Regional room of the Accounts

* ⁹ P. Wales, «  Regulation, governorship and territory  », Metamorphoses of the political regulation, Right coll and company, under dir it. Of Jacques Commaille and B. Jobert, ED. LGDJ, 1998.

* ¹⁰ P. Lange, Mr. Regini, «State, Social Market and Regulation», Cambridge University Near, Cambridge, 1989.