PURPOSE: to present
the report of the Court of Auditors on the 2008 accounts of the European
Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
CONTENT: in
the Court’s opinion, the Centre’s Annual Accounts present fairly, in all
material respects, its financial position as of 31 December 2008 and the
results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended. The
transactions underlying the annual accounts of the Centre for the financial
year ended are, in all material respects, legal and regular.
The Court of
Auditor’s report includes a detailed section on the European Centre for
Disease Prevention and Control’s expenditure and an analysis of the
expenditure, as well as the Centre’s replies.
- The
Court’s analysis of the accounts: in its
report, the Court makes a number of observations, particularly with
regard to budgetary and financial management. The Court notes that the
Centre carried forward EUR 16.2 million of which approximately EUR 2.9
million concerned services and works that, although legally contracted
in 2008, were to be fully executed in 2009. This situation is at odds
with the principle of annuality. In addition, the 2008 establishment
plan contained 130 posts. At year-end 2008 only 101 of the 130
authorised posts had been filled. This situation creates a risk of
downsizing the Centre’s activities due to a lack of staff and indicates
weaknesses in the planning of recruitment procedures. Lastly, at 31
December 2008 there was still no seat agreement between the Centre and
the Swedish government as there were still many outstanding issues that
needed further negotiations. One of these issues was that the Centre’s
staff were not issued a Swedish personal identification number
(‘personnummer’). This situation limits their access to various public
and private services. The current situation may affect the Centre’s
capacity to recruit and keep staff.
- The
Centre’s replies: the Centre agrees with the
Court that the level of carry forward is high. Nevertheless it wishes to
highlight that more than 80 % relates to operational activities already
initiated in 2008 and for which implementation goes through 2009. The
management is focusing on concluding most of the procurement and
contracting activities early in the year in order to improve the budget
implementation and lower the level of carry forward. The Centre agrees
that there were delays in the recruitment of temporary agents and this
is partly due to the fact that recruitment in some areas proved to be
longer and more difficult. The Centre has taken measures to improve the
situation through broader dissemination of vacancy notices and a faster
implementation of the recruitment plan with most 2009 posts being
published by April. Discussion on the seat agreement and in particular
the issue of the ‘personnummer’ has been a recurrent item on the agenda
of the Centre’s Management Board. A new legislation was finally adopted
by the Swedish Parliament in March 2009 entering into force in July 2009
and providing for allocation of a personnummer to ECDC staff. The Centre
will closely monitor the outcome of its implementation and it is
expected it should improve and facilitate staff access to services.