Rethinking the governance of public grants to turn them into a lever for performance and budgetary control:
In a context of political instability marked by uncertainty surrounding the adoption of the budget, the coordination of public action is taking on increased importance. Departmental prefects are seeing their role strengthened to guarantee the continuity of the State and rationalise expenditure, while local authorities, on the front line, must maintain the quality of public services despite increasingly constrained financial margins. As municipal elections approach, this requirement for stability and cooperation becomes even more critical, as local executives are called upon to reconcile budgetary responsibility with proximity to citizens. Strengthening dialogue between the State and local authorities thus appears to be an essential condition for the sustainability of public action.
The financial situation of local authorities is marked by growing pressure, driven by the combined effect of circumstantial factors (inflation, the national economic context) and structural factors linked to the long-term organisation of public finances. Local authority expenditure is therefore estimated to have increased by 3.6% in volume between 2023 and 2024, mainly driven by rising energy costs and staff expenses (+4.4%). At the same time, tax revenues have slowed (+2.1%) due to the capping of property tax and the gradual abolition of the CVAE, while State grants, including the DGF amounting to €27.2 billion, remain broadly stable in terms of value but are declining in terms of volume, when adjusted for inflation. This trend is durably weakening the financial room for manoeuvre of local authorities.
Reflecting this budgetary constraint, the stability rules imposed by the French State further limit the options available to elected officials. As a result, local authorities are required to improve the efficiency of local public services, provide clear responses to regulatory pressure and optimise the use of resources. While debt levels remain broadly under control, they are now under pressure, further reducing the room for manoeuvre of local authorities.
Several departments placed under prefectural supervision, either for failing to adopt their initial budget within the required timeframe or due to budgetary imbalance, illustrate the need for deep and structural action. In this context, the grants and subsidies paid to satellite entities (associations, partner institutions, third-party operators) represent a strategic area of intervention. Rigorous steering of these funds can help strengthen the sustainability of local finances.
The challenge is no longer just to control, but to intelligently steer the use of public money: through shared criteria, a consolidated reading of risks, and well-equipped governance.
What is at stake is the ability of local authorities to control the financial footprint of their public policies while consolidating their effectiveness. In 2023, departmental expenditure reached €79.1 billion, with a marked increase in intervention spending (+5.7%), largely linked to social action. Subsidies and contributions received amounted to €6.4 billion, up 14.5%, reflecting their growing weight in budgetary balances. This highlights the need to better steer these sources of funding, move away from silo-based approaches, strengthen tool interoperability and establish a genuine culture of management dialogue.1
Source : BIS 186 – Les finances des départements en 2023 V5
A central role in the control and financial monitoring of public subsidies
In this context, Willing was engaged to carry out a transformation assignment focused on external management control within a local authority. Conducted over a year of support, this assignment was structured around a clear objective: to transform financial control activities, often focused on “ex post” checks, into a genuine lever for regulation, anticipation and coordination of intervention policies.
Our approach aims to combine strategic vision and operational support to lay the foundations of a new governance model for public aid. Among the structuring achievements we are able to deliver:
- Formalisation of a consolidated mapping of grant steering processes, integrating all stages, stakeholders and tools involved.
- Design of a new external control service offering for operational departments, clarifying roles, expected deliverables and added value.
- Organisational framing of management dialogue, with streamlined validation circuits, identified points of contact and formalised exchange forums.
- Structuring of the governance of the decision-support information system, including the drafting of a roadmap for steering financial and legal data, in coordination with the DSTI.
This increase in maturity is supported in parallel by the deployment, at scale, of a financial analysis tool used as a lever for harmonisation, transparency and information sharing. However, our added value lies in our ability to articulate technology, organisation and change support in the service of an overall transformation trajectory.
Progressive deployment of a transformation scenario: first milestones towards shared steering
Among three scenarios presented, the local authority selected a progressive deployment based on opening the financial analysis tool in consultation mode to operational departments, enabling them to independently access financial and legal analyses of the satellite entities within their perimeter.
This scenario introduces several major shifts:
- It reduces information asymmetries between operational departments and management control by establishing a shared language and common indicators.
- It makes the directive process more fluid by reducing multiple requests addressed to satellite entities.
- It positions case officers as full-fledged actors in expenditure steering, rather than mere transmitters of files.
The target scope of this scenario covers all departments awarding grants, representing around one hundred agents. A dedicated awareness cycle was designed to support this transition, including collective sessions, pedagogical resources and support from identified referents. The deployment, carried out over a two-month period, helps secure the appropriation of the tool and new practices.
What about tomorrow? A shared and proactive governance of grants
In parallel, our teams supported two pilot departments to test and project the approach of opening tools to operational departments. Indeed, the local authority aims to give managers greater responsibility for controlling and enriching data directly within the tool (legal information, missing documents, indicator updates). This scenario seeks to identify room for manoeuvre and the optimal level of subsidiarity between management activities and control missions, while strengthening the accountability of operational departments for data quality.
The local authority is targeting a structural transformation of the scope through centralised grant management by a dedicated unit, with shared data entry, joint processing and enhanced analytical capability. This would fit within a portfolio steering logic, enabling the authority to gain a consolidated strategic view of its intervention commitments.
These developments are not purely technical: they reflect a political ambition for efficiency, transparency and equity in the allocation of grants, at a time when every public euro counts.
Our approach: transform with method, engage with purpose
Our support is based on a simple triptych: structure, engage, secure. Our conviction is to propose trajectories that take existing realities into account, while creating the conditions for a qualitative leap in practices.
- Strategic diagnosis: a fine-grained understanding of internal constraints, organisational pain points and political issues.
- Clear modelling: formalisation of processes, roles, information flows and interfaces.
- Co-construction: operational workshops, steering committee validations, and hands-on, on-the-ground support working closely with staff.
- Structured deployment: pedagogical deliverables, training materials, skills development plans.
- Systemic vision: each action is designed as a building block within a broader IS / HR / business trajectory.
- Change appropriation: long-term support fostering stakeholder involvement, embedding of new practices and adherence to the transformations undertaken.
What this project reveals about Willing
Our value proposition lies in combining strategic vision, operational pragmatism and the ability to engage stakeholders. We did not simply deploy a tool or revise a process: we supported a local authority in redefining its relationship with the steering and subsidisation of satellite entities (nearly 300 organisations for approximately €100 million in subsidies).
We know how to lay the foundations for renewed grant governance, helping to foster a shared culture of steering and strengthening the role of the performance and management control function as a support to decision-making and a value contributor for operational departments in the assessment and subsidisation of satellite entities.
An exemplary project, demonstrating our ability to make it simple, and to transform with precision.
Better understanding the levers of public grant steering
Working with a large local authority highlights several key levers for turning public grant steering into a genuine tool for financial control and managerial transformation:
- Grant steering is a strategic issue, at the crossroads of financial, legal, political and social challenges. It can no longer be limited to strictly administrative management: it must become a true lever of public performance, serving the general interest, and a strengthened support tool for organisations, particularly the most vulnerable, to meet territorial needs and reinforce social cohesion.
- Information transparency is a prerequisite for accountability: by opening access to data, we create the bases for shared steering based on common indicators and convergent interpretations.
- Change cannot be decreed, it must be supported: appropriation at operational level relies on patient work of awareness, pedagogy and co-construction, without which, tools remain inert.
- Room for manoeuvre exists, even in constrained contexts, if governance is carefully equipped, roles are clarified and an overarching vision of local public action is carried.
- Control can become a partner in decision-making, provided it is repositioned not as an ex post verification force, but as a function of advice, anticipation and structuring.
This return of experience confirms that, in times of budgetary constraint, financial steering is a genuine lever for transformation, when it is designed methodically, supported by stakeholder awareness, effective tools and collective ownership.
For more information, please do not hesitate to contact us.