PURPOSE: to present the report of the Court of Auditors on the implementation of the budget for the financial year 2007 (other institutions – Council).
CONTENT: in its annual report for the financial year 2007, the Court focuses on the legality and regularity of the operating expenditure of the institutions. In 2007, the Court notes that all the institutions operated satisfactorily the supervisory and control systems required by the Financial Regulation and the transactions tested were free from material error of legality and regularity.
However, the Court draws attention to a number of findings which should be taken into consideration by the institutions concerned.
In the specific case of the audit of the Council, the Court notes the following issues:
Follow-up to observations from past annual reports: the audit gave rise to remarks on actions taken as a follow-up to observations from past Annual Reports concerning payment of additional annual leave not taken. To recall, at the Council additional annual leave granted before 31 December 1997 as a compensation for overtime is paid on retirement if the official has not taken the additional leave. As staff of the A and B categories are not entitled to compensation for overtime, such payments are not in accordance with the Staff Regulations. The Court called on the Council to discontinue this system. The Court notes that even though the General Secretariat has taken action in order to gradually eliminate the stock of compensatory leave for A and B staff granted before 31 December 1997, payments were still made in 2007 to compensate for additional leave not taken.
Lastly, the audit did not give rise to any other significant observations.