The
European Parliament adopted by 553 votes to 32, with 54 abstentions, a
decision on discharge to be granted to the Director of the European Centre for
the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) in respect of the
implementation of its budget for the financial year 2008.
Furthermore,
Parliament adopted a resolution with observations which are an integral part
of the decision to grant discharge.
The main
points are as follows:
- performance: Parliament notes 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, it also calls 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. It 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. It welcomes 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 it
calls on the two agencies to include a detailed follow-up report on the
cooperation agreement in their 2009 activity reports.
- budgetary
and financial management: Parliament 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 to voluntarily undergo a pilot audit on the ethical
framework, Parliament notes that a number of recommendations still have
not been implemented. These mainly relate to human resources management.
Noting that
the Agency’s annual accounts for the financial year 2008 are reliable, and
the underlying transactions are legal and regular, Parliament approves the
closure of the Centre’s accounts. However, it makes 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)
adopted in parallel).