World Bank GN-PBO Community Meeting, Ottawa How to write MP friendly reports Sahir Khan Visiting Senior Fellow Jean-Luc Pépin Chair on Canadian Government.

World Bank GN-PBO Community Meeting, Ottawa

How to write MP friendly reports

Sahir KhanVisiting Senior Fellow

Jean-Luc Pépin Chair on Canadian GovernmentWednesday, June 11, 2014

Jean-Luc Pépin Chair on Canadian GovernmentKevin PageSahir Khan

Helaina Gaspard

About us

The objective of the Jean-Luc Pépin Chair on Canadian Government is to: Produce research in Canadian and international public finance Support parliamentary institution-building in Canada and abroad

through leading multilateral organizations such as the World Bank, OECD, IMF, among others

Provide advisory services to governments, parliaments and non- governmental organizations on budgeting, fiscal analysis, transparency and governance

To develop a Centre for Fiscal Studies & Public Finance at the University of Ottawa

The legislated mandate of the PBO

The Parliament of Canada Act mandates the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) to provide independent analysis to the Senate and to the House of Commons about the state of the nation’s finances, the estimates of the government, trends in the national economy and to estimate the financial cost of any proposal that relates to a matter over which Parliament has jurisdiction

The PBO has been provided with a broad mandate to support Parliament and parliamentarians in holding the government to

account for the good stewardship of public resources

Supporting the work of committees

The legislation also directs the PBO to support the following parliamentary committees: The Standing Committee on National Finance of the Senate The Standing Committee on Finance of the House of Commons The Standing Committee on Public Accounts of the House of

Commons Though not specifically named in the legislation, the Standing

Committee on Government Operations and Estimates of the House of Commons is clearly implied by the mandate

The Canadian PBO at a glance

Position Created: December 2006 Created via the Federal Accountability Act in a particularly

political climate Budget: $2.8 million for FY 2013-14 Staff: 14 employees

Huge expectations by Parliamentarians, the media and citizens but without the commensurate resources

A parliamentarian’s question to the new incoming Canadian PBO…

“Do you want to be useful or useless?”Deputy Chair House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance

…our answer

The PBO will provide independent analysis that is authoritative, relevant and timely in order to help parliamentarians discharge their constitutional obligation to hold the government to account

In spite of the challenges, we chose the former

The operating model

During the consultation process, parliamentarians were of the consensus view that the PBO should employ a fully transparent, open publishing model This view was echoed by academics, think-tanks and current and former

senior bureaucrats The model would also draw from best practices in peer organizations

such as the Auditor General and the Congressional Budget Office The model would also aim to be fully compliant with the OECD Principles

for Independent Fiscal Institutions A fully transparent open publishing model would enable the PBO’s

research to be undertaken in a collaborative basis with third parties and include peer review, where practical

The challenge

Legislative and fiduciary obligations High expectations from a complex stakeholder universe Complicated institutional arrangements Limited resources A different language in Parliament

So, PBOs have to be authoritative, relevant and timely…and while their client(s) speak an entirely different language

Your clients will judge you not only on their perceptions of the work but that of all stakeholders

So, what does this have to do with writing reports?

Everything

Balance is key…

Accessibility Rigor

Sacrificing one for the other will not get you very far

How did we achieve balance

1. Report approach and structure2. Know your client(s)3. Briefings – Parliamentary, media and public4. Dissemination – television, print, radio, Internet5. On-going client training…important to changing language

You will notice that writing the report is only one of the five dimensions of accessibility…but the key to all of them

1. Report approach and structure – the problem

Through feedback and web analytics, what we learned how our reports were being read…and it was not what we had thought: Only the first 5 to 10 pages were being read (and some reports

were over 80 pages long) Many considered our reports to be inaccessible and highly

technical Consistent feedback came from both parliamentarians and media Only academics thought that everything was fine ;-)

We needed to adjust our strategy

1. Context - diversity of topics posed challenges…

…so our strategy had to reflect this reality

1. Report approach and structure – the response

The report had to appeal to multiple constituencies, including motivated partisan opponents

Over time, reports went to four components: Executive summary – the responsibility of management Main body of the report - the responsibility of the lead analyst

and written for rigor and defensibility Appendix – additional supporting information including tests of

reasonableness on main findings and assumptions PBO website – data sets, models and additional analysis for

greater transparency

The drive to increase accessibility also helped to improve rigor and transparency

2. Know your client(s)

When we first started in the Canadian PBO, a political staffer advised us that we had no more that ½ dozen clients in each political party What he meant was that both interest in the subject matter and the

comfort with the financial and economic language was limited While that might have been true, we also quickly learned that the media

and Canadian citizens were also clients for the work Working with political staff and parliamentary

researchers/bureaucrats, along with broad consultation with MPs and Senators, we tried to identify the “target market”

Accessibility of the reports was initially focused on this group of early adopters

It was hoped that the early adopters would serve as a launching point for identifying a larger constituency over time

3. Briefings – Parliamentary, media and public

Following OECD principles for Independent Fiscal Institutions, PBO reports were published for simultaneous access via the PBO website

However, the first technical briefing provided on the report was done for parliamentarians in an in-camera session After providing about 30 minutes to read the report, a presentation was

done followed by a question and answer session A second briefing was done afterwards for the media, and on roughly

the same model A five-minute media scrum was provided in order to provide on-the-

record comments by the PBO Typically, the briefings were done using PowerPoint slides…a key tool

…continued…

3. Briefings – Parliamentary, media and public

Throughout the first day of report release, additional briefings were provided to parliamentarians and media PBO staff provided media briefings on background only Parliamentarians sometimes preferred getting private briefings on the

report rather than participate in the open session of the morning Additional parliamentary briefings could continue into the subsequent

days and weeks based on the level of sustained interest on the particular report

Briefings were provided to the public, NGOs, lobbyists and pretty much anyone who paid taxes Such briefings could continue for weeks or months following publication

Briefings enabled greater understanding of the reports in addition to providing important feedback including critiques

4. Dissemination – television, print, radio, Internet

The report publication was always considered to be only 50% of the task at hand Defence of the report constituted the balance

Government reaction to a report could occur through the media and the PBO response was often done in the same fashion At all times, the media interviews were based on the report content and

refrained from providing views on policy or political matters In some cases, parliamentarians would seek additional understanding

as part of their own media activities

…continued…

4. Dissemination – television, print, radio, Internet

The PBO website had as many as 10,000 registrants

The website served as important tool for transparency and dissemination

Updates/errata and clarifications to the report could be uploaded to the site

Many clients used the website to be alerted for new reports and to receive additional content related to the reports

5. On-going client training

This is different from report briefing Understanding and language must be addressed before reports are

published This supports an approach of publishing both regular and ad-hoc

products Training can be linked to committee processes and hearings Political staff as well as parliamentarians need to be included in the

process Staff are often responsible for briefing parliamentarians

On-line tools can be develops to leverage resources (e.g. PBO IMD) Media can be part of the training process

Briefings delivered outside of the sometimes harried context of a report-release can be more conducive to learning

Conclusion

Writing MP friendly reports is difficult Rigor cannot be sacrificed for accessibility There are approaches, both short and long-term in nature, to improve

accessibility and understanding The approaches are about editorial process and dissemination but

anchored in the organizational mandate and the needs of parliamentarians

Change is difficult – ultimately, accessibility of reports is tied to changing the language of your parliament…a process that can take years if not decades

…but striking the right balance means helping parliamentarians to do their jobs without sacrificing quality,

independence and objectivity

Thank-you

Sahir KhanVisiting Senior FellowJean-Luc Pépin Chair on Canadian GovernmentUniversity of Ottawa, Canada+1 613 562 5800 [email protected]