The Committee
on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Georgios STAVRAKAKIS (S&D, EL)
on discharge to be granted to the Director of the European Foundation for
Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) for
implementation of the Foundation's budget for the financial year 2009.
Noting that
the Foundation’s annual accounts for the financial year 2009 are reliable,
and the underlying transactions are legal and regular, MEPs approve the
closure of the Foundation’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 DEC/2010/2271):
- performance: Members note that the Foundation carried out another ex-post assessment
exercise of its 2005-2008 work programme which showed that it had
deployed its financial resources efficiently and achieved the objectives
of its work programme. They encourage it to further develop its performance monitoring
system and to ensure that the results are fed back into management
decision-making and planning. They support the
external evaluator's recommendation to better define the Foundation's
target audiences at a national level and try and reach employer and
employee bodies and set up a network of focal points;
- governing board: Members note
that the same evaluation reported that Eurofound's governing Board was
not an effective decision-making body. They call on the Foundation to
take steps to strengthen the Governing Board's role in providing overall
direction to Eurofound;
- procurement procedures:Members
note the presence of errors and anomalies in the evaluation of one open
procurement procedure which affected its quality. Steps need to be taken
to improve its evaluation and review procedure to avoid repetition of
such errors in the future;
- budgetary management: Members
call on the Foundation to make sure that appropriations are made
available only when the corresponding assigned revenue has been
received. They regret
that the Court of Auditors was compelled to comment on the budgetary and
financial statement of the Foundation, especially to the effect that the
initial provisional accounts presented by the Foundation contained serious
shortcomings;
- human
resources: Members call on the Foundation to
provide evidence of its staff selection decisions in order to guarantee the
transparency of the recruitment procedures. They note that the Court of
Auditors reported irregularities in this respect for seven audited staff
selection procedures. They call for the rectification of all the
shortcomings identified by the Court since 2006 in respect of
Eurofound’s recruitment procedures;
- internal
audit: lastly, Members call on Eurofound to
rapidly implement the recommendations of the Internal Audit Service
(IAS) and, in particular, those considered to be “very important” which,
in particular, relate to the internal control systems and procedures for
communication improprieties.