Les chambres régionales des comptes

THE ROLE OF THE REGIONAL ROOMS OF THE ACCOUNTS IN THE FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES

[1) Missions of the regional rooms of the accounts

The Regional Rooms intervene in various cases of figures^29(*).

More precisely, the missions assigned with the regional rooms of the accounts are of three levels :

- the regional rooms of the accounts can, in certain cases, to carry out a control of the budgetary acts, i.e. to give opinions on the conditions of adoptions and implementation of the budget of the communities and local publicly-owned establishments.

- They also exert a jurisdictional control on the regularity of the accounts recalling the implementation of the budget by the accountant. It is there the origin of their mission. They are judges of the accounts. According to terms' of the Code of the financial Jurisdictions, they are ensured, since 1988, « regular use of the appropriations, melt and values ».

- Lastly, the regional rooms examine of the management of the director, i.e. the person, in general elected, who proceeds to the implementation budgetary and financial of her political projects. It is often the occasion to carry out a true evaluation of the policies followed by the various communities.

It is the most significant point of their activity since the observations of management give place to publicity and so return directly in the manufacture of the local political play. They « examine the management of the local authorities », always according to the terms of the code of the financial jurisdictions.

Elected officials claiming per moment, when they criticize the activity of the rooms, the strict application of the concept of opportunity since they estimate that the financial magistrates do not have to judge legitimacy of their action and that they must be limited to the regularity of the actions engaged by the municipal officials.

The rooms can thus be brought to be interested in management in fact, bearing on handling not - authorized public funds and which can lead to make ineligible the person convinced to handle public funds out of the lawful framework. They also intervene in other fields such as and the delegation market analyzes of public utility, or even the alarm of the communities shareholders of mixed economy.

Their perimeter of intervention is thus very important.

Jean-Luc Potter and Vincent Boeuf thus retained various values allowing to find itself in the choices melting the principles of intervention of the rooms, such as one can perceive them through the analysis of the letters of final observations^30(*) : internal audit ; budgetary sincerity ; financial balance ; sobriety in the use of the public funds ; regularity of the decisions of management ; transparency of the decisions and the assessments of activities ; the evaluation of the public policies ; the respect of competences between communities and publicly-owned establishments local ; the delegation of the missions of public utility ; equal acces to the public order ; the setting in conformity.

As it thereafter will be seen, they are thus brought more and more to qualify the public action, by what is called the evaluation of the public policies.

Before wondering about the modifications of the system of local regulation, we would like to present some qualitative and quantitative elements relating to the regional rooms of the accounts.

* ²⁹ G.Piole, regional rooms of the accounts, coll political local, Local Credit of France, L.G.D.J., 1999.

* ³⁰ J.L. Ox and V. Potter, «  Activity 1999 of the regional rooms of the accounts  », The Gazette of the Communes, supplement, n°1540 of March 6, 2000.