PURPOSE: presentation of the EU Court of
Auditors’ report on the annual accounts of the European Agency
for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the
area of freedom, security and justice (eu-LISA) for the year 2014,
together with the Agency’s reply.
CONTENT: in accordance with the tasks conferred
on the Court of Auditors by the Treaty on the Functioning of the
European Union, the Court presents to the European Parliament and
to the Council, in the context of the discharge procedure, a
Statement of Assurance as to the reliability of the annual accounts
of each institution, body or agency of the EU, and the legality and
regularity of the transactions underlying them, on the basis of an
independent external audit.
This audit concerned, amongst others, the annual
accounts of the European Agency for the operational management of
large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice
(eu-LISA).
Statement of Assurance:
pursuant to the provisions of Article 287 of the Treaty on the
Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the Court has
audited:
- the annual accounts of the Foundation, which comprise
the financial statements and the reports on the implementation of
the budget for the financial year ended 31 December
2014;
- the legality and regularity of the transactions
underlying those accounts.
Opinion on the reliability of the
accounts: in the Court’s
opinion, the Office’s annual accounts present fairly, in all
material respects, its financial position as at 31 December
2014 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the
year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial
Regulation and the accounting rules adopted by the
Commission’s accounting officer. Without calling into question
this generally favourable opinion, the Court draws attention to the
valuation of the Schengen Information System (SIS II), the Visa
Information System (VIS) and Eurodac (systems) in the Agency’s
accounts. The operational management of these systems is the
Agency’s core task. In the absence of reliable and complete
information in respect of their total development cost, they are
recorded in the Agency’s accounts at their net book values as
per the Commission’s books and updated at year end
(approximately EUR 6.6 million at date of transfer and EUR
2.1 million euro at 31 December 2014). These values
relate mainly to hardware and off-the-shelf software components and
do not include software development costs.
Opinion on the legality and regularity of the
transactions underlying the accounts:
the Court considers that the transactions underlying the annual
accounts for the year ended 31 December 2014 are legal and
regular in all material respects.
The report also makes a series of observations on the
budgetary and financial management of the Agency, accompanied by
the latter’s response. The main observations may be summarised
as follows:
The Court’s observations:
- budgetary management:
the Court notes that out of the EUR 6.6 million committed
appropriations for staff and operational expenditure which were
carried over from 2013 to 2014, EUR 1.7 million euro
(26 %) were cancelled in 2014, showing that budgetary needs
were overestimated at the end of 2013. Furthermore, committed
appropriations carried over to 2015 were very high for
administrative expenditure at 87 %. These carry-overs mainly
resulted from delayed procurements for the extension and
refurbishment of the Agency’s site in Strasbourg. Carry-overs
of committed appropriations were also high for operational
expenditure at EUR 24.5 million (85 %) mainly in relation
to multi-annual contracts for the maintenance of the IT systems.
The court considers that the high levels of cancelled carry-overs
from 2013 and the extent of carry-overs made from 2014 to 2015 is
at odds with the budgetary principle of annuality.
The Agency’s replies:
- budgetary management:
the Agency states it has taken steps to improve its capacity to
plan, monitor and implement available appropriations. Specific
organisational measures, are regular budget implementation
reporting, are being implemented. The Agency closely followed the
Financial Regulation as regards carry-forwards, resulting in both
automatic and non-automatic carry-overs as allowed by the
applicable rules on annuality. As regards non-automatic carry-overs
for the Strasbourg site, the Management Board approved these based
on a duly justified proposal by the Agency in compliance with
applicable rules. The Agency highlights its difficulties regarding
the differentiated nature of appropriations regarding commitments
carried forward following financial independence, and commitments
migrated from DG HOME to the Agency.
Lastly, the Court of Auditors’ report contains a
summary of the Agency’s activities in 2014. This
is focused on the following:
Budget: EUR 59.38
million in commitment appropriations.
Activities:
- operational management and evolution of SISII, VIS and
EURODAC;
- helpdesk: provide first
level support services to users across all systems under the
management of eu-LISA;
- provision of coordination, security and
supervision of relations between
Member States and the network provider for the communication
infrastructure for SIS II, Eurodac and VIS (sTESTA
network);
- participation in preparatory processes
to design, develop and implement new
systems;
- timely and accurate provision of statistics and
information on the performance of the systems as provided for
in the relevant legal bases;
- reporting: fulfilment of
all reporting obligations laid down in the establishing Regulation
and legal bases for the IT systems under the Agency's
management
- monitoring of new technologies and solutions relevant for the operational management
and evolution of SIS II, VIS, Eurodac and other large-scale IT
systems
- training: provision of
bespoke system training plans for national authorities on IT
systems managed by the Agency
- establishment of an informal network of security experts with the Member States for the
exchange of early warnings in cyber areas, best practices and
security incident management.