2011 discharge: EU general budget, European Ombudsman

The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Andrea ČEŠKOVÁ (ECR, CZ) in which it calls on the European Parliament to grant the European Ombudsman discharge in respect of the implementation of its budget for the financial year 2011.

Members welcome the fact that, on the basis of its audit work, the Court of Auditors concluded that the payments as a whole for the year ended on 31 December 2011 for administrative and other expenditure of the institutions and bodies were free from material error. They state that no significant weaknesses had been identified in respect to the audited topics related to the human resources and the procurement for the European Ombudsman.

Members also stress that the Ombudsman's budget is purely administrative and amounted in 2011 to EUR 9 427 395 and that of the total appropriations, 92.54% were committed and 85.62% paid. They call for further efforts to improve the utilisation rate and for the changes made to be monitored.

Members invite the Ombudsman to include the following in the next annual activity report:

• the percentage of unused interpretation services requested during the year;
• an exhaustive table of all the human resources at the Ombudsman's disposal, broken down by category, grade, sex, participation in professional training and nationality;

and on an operational level, an improvement of the following:

• handling of complaints received;
• the average duration of proceedings.