The Committee on Budgetary Control unanimously adopted the report adopted at second reading by Véronique MATHIEU (EPP, FR) recommending that the European Parliament refuses to grant the Director of the European Police College discharge in respect of the implementation of the College's budget for the financial year 2008.
The committee has decided that a proposal to close the accounts of the European Police College for the financial year 2008 should be submitted at a subsequent part-session.
The Court of Auditors, in its report on the annual accounts of the College for the financial year 2008, added an emphasis of matter to its opinion on the reliability of the accounts, without expressly qualifying it, and qualified its opinion on the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions. In its decision of 5 May 2010 the Parliament decided to postpone the grant of the discharge for the financial year 2008 based on structural deficiencies as regards the internal management of CEPPOL. Members outline their position to refuse discharge in a series of general and specific considerations as summarised below:
General considerations: Members note the recurrence of the College's major deficits. Since 2006 it has struggled to meet the standards of good administration expected from a regulatory agency. They stress repeated audits have highlighted issues in the College's adherence to the Financial and Staff regulations, to the accounting system as well as the failings in budget management, human resources, procurement procedures and rules governing expenditure on courses. They are aware that the College's improvements are expected to be visible only from 2014 when the College's Multi-Annual Plan is supposed to be fully implemented. The committee is, therefore, not ready to accept that the College needs at least nine years (2006-2014) to reach an acceptable standard of good administration expected from a regulatory agency.
From 2006-2009, the College's Management was marked by a lack of responsibility and professionalism of the former Director (Mr Göransson) as well as mismanagement in connection with the Internal Audit Service findings. The lack of transparency and communication were also highlighted as being problematic.
Members call into question the capability of the College to fully overcome its structural problems with respect to: (i) the small size of the College - which calls into question its capacity to handle effectively the complexities of the EU's financial and staff regulations; (ii) the location of the College's secretariat, in Bramshill, some 70 Kilometres from London, which is a disadvantage, inter alia, as regards recruitment and public transport links; (ii) the College's governance costs which are not insignificant, etc. Members suggest, therefore, examining the possibility of attaching the College to Europol as a concrete solution to the College's structural and chronic problems. In addition, they deplore the fact that the College's Governing Board did not make a proper response to the former Director's managerial failings, out of concern not to harm the agency's image and they consider it unacceptable that the Governing Board decided not to take disciplinary action mainly because of the possibility of legal action by the former Director.
The committee notes that the new Director of the College (Mr Banfi) has delivered on time the Action Plan as requested in the Parliament's resolution of 5 May 2010. It regrets, nevertheless, the lack of accuracy in the description of the specific actions to be taken by the College. It also regrets that most of the indicators proposed by the College are vague and do not always clearly help to assess the implementation of the objectives. Members note that, at the request of the Parliament to adopt an Action Plan, the Director of the College and its Governing Board have estimated a realistic four-year period (i.e. from 2010 to 2014) in which to meet the objectives. They are therefore, not ready to accept that the College needs four more years to reach an acceptable standard of good administration as expected from a regulatory agency. They request that the Director of the College inform the discharge authority on the progress of the implementation of the Action Plan every six months.
Specific remarks: Members have made more technical remarks as regards the internal management of CEPOL which may be summarised as follows:
Members also consider the issue of appropriations used to finance private expenditure. They regret that the external audit on using appropriations to finance private expenditure announced by the College and to be carried out by an external company, has not been launched yet. They also remark that GBP 2 320.77 on transport costs and taxis for 2007 seems not to have been recovered yet. Members note that the amount of expenditure for the use of mobile phones and cars by staff is still not clear. They stress the fact that, in its specific annual report for the year 2007, the Court of Auditors had already signalled that it was not feasible for the auditors to review all payments made during the year 2007 as it was not possible to quantify either the amount that was irregularly spent on private use or all the different types of private expenditure incurred.