The institution criticizes the dispersion and lack of clarity of budgetary information, calling for better coordination and the creation of a single portal.
The Court of Auditors published a report on Tuesday in which it noted persistent limits in the access of citizens, the media and experts to budgetary information. Despite abundant documentation, the institution believes that current communication does not guarantee an overall vision of public finances.
Abundant but difficult to read budgetary information
State budgetary communication is essentially based on finance bills. The finance bill (PLF) for 2026 is thus accompanied by around a hundred mandatory documents, which total 15,700 pages. The authors of the report deplore that “the intelligibility of this communication remains low for citizens”, in particular due to “the dispersion of information over multiple channels (which) makes its access difficult and compromises the overall vision”. To remedy this, the Court recommends the creation of a single portal providing access to all information and data relating to public finances.
The institution also believes that “the State’s general public financial communication also suffers from poor coordination and the discontinuity of the messages conveyed and the indicators used in recent years”, and calls for more coordination between ministries. Concerning access for experts, she notes that an “action plan” is underway to “improve the information transmitted to the community of experts”, and considers it necessary to enrich multi-annual and in-year information, with “strengthening the robustness of the quarterly national accounts of public administrations”.
Responsible for controlling the State’s accounts, the Court also notes dysfunctions, citing in “certain cases anomalies qualified as significant and in other cases insufficient conclusive evidence”, which leads it “to the formulation of an opinion with reservations on the State’s accounts”.
High cost and sensitive schedule
The cost of the State’s financial communication is “difficult” to estimate, according to the Court. For 2026, the administrations and organizations concerned have been set an objective of “substantial reduction” in their communication expenses, of 300 million euros compared to 2024, out of a total estimated at around 1 billion euros. The publication of the report comes a few days before an alert committee on public finances, and at the start of the discussion on the 2027 budget.
