Les chambres régionales des comptes

[3) Some concrete cases of public affairs

The production of local businesses, related to the intervention of the regional rooms of the accounts is important but the object of this report is not to identify culprits but to draw up a repertory of the types of interventions of the rooms.

The activity report of the rooms is regularly published, some is the form taken, in particular by « The Gazette of the Communes ». We here will take an article of 1997^31(*) which shows the various cases of figures raised by the regional rooms of the accounts.

This one proposes a certain number of points which often reveals an absence of control on behalf of the local community or a manifest lightness in the management of some of its business. Thus, the criticism carried to the approximate estimated insufficiency of the actions of communication of the department of Charente-Maritime or study trips organized by the department of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, of 1985 to 1991, which should have shown public reports/ratios, « to avoid malevolent interpretations ».

In addition, if the rooms the importance of the economic stakes, they worry about the facility with which the local communities forsake the control of the counterparts at the time of financings granted to the companies.

Lastly, the financial and budgetary aspect becomes paramount insofar as it makes it possible to determine the room for associated maneuvers. It is necessary to know to analyze the financial health of the controlled organizations, starting from various financial ratios of which that of the debt. It should be noted that much of local communities have here recourse to cabinets of audits, which brings expertise and external glance to them, like that directed by Régis of Castelnau, Avocat-conseil and who produced various publications relating to his professional field of activity.

Often, the rise of the receipts, related on the weight of passed or the wishes of investments, is inescapable.

Position of communities local, have regard with stakes political and economic, is often ambiguous, as to of testifies position to city to Nancy, which in 1994, following a renegotiation of the debt, did not communicate all the time-elements useful for the deliberating assemblies which could not, so to carry a possible controversy.

With regard to the evaluation of the public policies, the regional rooms seek more and more to estimate the adequacy between financial means and the results reached.

« The regional room of Island-of-France carried out a total control of the municipal centers of health of the commune of Sartrouville, which made it possible to evaluate three dimensions : level of the financial follow-up of the activity ; evolution of the exploitation ; adequacy enters the needs to satisfy and the operation of the public utility. The commune has two municipal centers of health (CMS), the center Maurice Berteaux created in 1936 and located in the center town, and centers it Yves Culot, open in 1981 on the plate of the city of the Indies. Proposing medical departments or patient profiting from the paying third, the two centers offer a broad pallet of specialities : The ORL, cardiology, ophthalmology as well as acupuncture, study of allergies or angiology. Taking into account the times put by the commune to gather, at the request of the room, the financial reports/ratios and of activity, the follow-up of the two centers appears insufficient. »

« With an activity in constant progression, the two centers present both of the strongly unbalanced budgets, the total deficit for 1994 having reached 7,6 million francs, that is to say 150 francs per capita. The tables [of analysis of the activity] show that the deficits were in regression, primarily thanks to the effort made by the centers to recover the unpaid ones by computerizing the systematic sending E revivals ; the levels of deficit remain however alarming. (....) The efforts of management which were accomplished must be continued and accentuated. The municipality will have in particular to tend towards the best possible adequacy between the needs to satisfy and the operation of the centers. The room takes note of the intention announced by the mayor to reduce to the maximum the deficits of the two centers »^32(*).

The evaluation relates to all the fields of interventions of the communities. That can be in fact the management of road competences, like the maintenance of the roadways to the load of the departments, the evaluation of the cases of municipal credit, the evaluation of the policies of economic aids to the companies or the evaluation of cultural policies, such as that carried out by the regional room of the Countries of the Loire on the cultural action of the town of Nantes., or the evaluation of the expenditure of social action or the evaluation of the tourist strategy.

* ³¹ J.L. Ox, V. Potter, «main part of the letters of final observations of the CRC  », The Gazette of the communes, the departments, the areas, n°9, March 3, 1997, fasc. n°2.

* ³² Supplement of the Gazette of the Communes of March 6, 2000 devoted to the activity of the regional rooms of the accounts, p.33. - 34.