General Public Accounting Department of France

Government, France
Focus: performance-management dashboards and data quality

France’s General Public Accounting Department (GPAD) coordinates and directs the country’s public treasury network. The agency collects duties and taxes, controls national and local budgets, and manages fund deposits. As the finance and accounting manager for local authorities and public hospitals, the GPAD also provides financial expertise and consulting services.

Using SAS Business Intelligence, the agency developed a performance management solution that consolidates financial data and provides local public revenue offices with dynamic, real-time information for monitoring established objectives. Initially installed in 100 locations, the solution is now being progressively deployed in all 3,300 of the country’s local public revenue offices to serve the needs of 6,000 users. The dashboard solution will help promote a performance-oriented culture in 2008 and will encourage dialogue about setting management objectives.

The agency set rigorous procedures for designing the customized interface for the public offices, says Pierre Barreaux, BI Manager for the Budget, Public Accounts and Functions Ministry: “Now we’re able to adapt to the specific demands of contracting authorities and can return highly customized results.”

Improving data quality is another important goal for the year. “Information validation is becoming a priority,” says Barreaux. “The SAS Enterprise Data Integration Server will be vitally important in helping us recover, process and distribute information that is demonstrably reliable.”

Ultimately, Barreaux says BI will help the agency meet its objective of providing better advice to local authorities. “Advisers to local authorities will now have reliable tools and documented support for their financial analyses. For the local authorities, that support will enable better management of local budgets.”