The Committee
on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Véronique MATHIEU (EPP, FR) on
discharge to be granted to the European Centre for the Development of
Vocational Training, calling on the European Parliament to grant the Director
of the Centre discharge in respect of the implementation of its budget for
the financial year 2008.
Noting that
the Agency’s annual accounts for the financial year 2008 are reliable, and
the underlying transactions are legal and regular, MEPs approve the closure
of the Centre’s accounts. However, they make a number of recommendations that
need to be taken into account when the discharge is granted, in addition to
the general recommendations that appear in the draft resolution on financial
management and control of EU agencies (see 2010/2007(INI):
- Performance: Members note that the Centre has made enormous progress
with regard to the inventory procedure for identifying, recording and
capitalising assets, to documentation on internal control processes and
to procurement procedures. However, they also call on the Centre to
consider making a Gantt diagram part of the programming for each of its
operational activities, with a view to indicating in concise form the
amount of time spent by each staff member on a project and encouraging
an approach geared towards achieving results. The committee calls on the
Centre to set out a comparison of operations carried out during the year
for which discharge is to be granted and in the previous financial year
so as to enable the discharge authority to assess more effectively its
performance from one year to the next. Members welcome the close
cooperation and the synergies established between the European Centre
for the Development of Vocational Training and the European Training
Foundation (ETF), given the two agencies' related areas of
responsibility and they call on the two agencies to include a detailed
follow-up report on the cooperation agreement in their 2009 activity
reports.
- Budgetary
and financial management: the committee
draws attention to the fact that the Centre has again carried
appropriations forward (25% of payment appropriations, or EUR 1.4
million. It points out that this reveals weaknesses in the programming
and monitoring of differentiated appropriations for operating
activities.
- Internal audit: congratulating the Centre on being
the first agency voluntarily to undergo a pilot audit on the ethical
framework, MEPs note that a number of recommendations still have not
been implemented. They mainly relate to human resources management.