The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report
by Bart STAES (Greens/EFA, BE) calling on the European Parliament
to give discharge to the Committee of the Regions in respect
of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union
for the financial year 2015, Section VII Committee of the
Regions.
It welcomed the fact that the Court of Auditors
observed that no significant weaknesses had been identified
in respect of the audited topics relating to human resources and
procurement for the Committee. The Court concluded that the
payments as a whole for the year ended on 31 December 2015 for
administrative and other expenditure of the institutions and bodies
were free from material error.
Budgetary and financial management: Members observed that, in 2015, the Committee had an
approved budget of EUR 88 900 000 (compared with EUR 87 600 000 in
2014), of which EUR 87 200 000 comprised commitment appropriations
with a utilisation rate of 98.2 %, a slight
decrease.
Members welcomed the Committees interest in
having a more systematic approach to the cooperation with
Parliament, particularly in political areas and with
Parliaments research service (EPRS). They reiterated their
request for a joint assessment of the budgetary savings resulting
from the Agreement to be included in the next follow-up report of
the Agreement.
They noted with concern that none of the targets set
by the Committee in 2015 to increase involvement of Parliament and
Council in activities related to the Committee opinions were
achieved.
CoR actions: Members
made a series of observations and recommendations on the management
of the Committee:
- implementing the concept of performance-based
budgeting (PBB) and good governance of human resources: this
concept should also include the setting of specific, measurable,
attainable, realistic and time-based (SMART) targets to individual
departments, units and the annual plans of members of
staff;
- improve its performance to ensure that the consistent
decrease in the payment execution rate in 2015 in some budgetary
items does not impact the budgetary management;
- improve the transparency of its operations and include
all the data available on the missions undertaken by its Members in
its annual activity report, with detailed expenses;
- join the future Inter-Institutional Agreement on a
mandatory transparency register;
- improve its gender balance and report back to the
discharge authority on the measures taken to tackle this issue, and
the results achieved;
- assess the reasons, focus its human resources
governance to improve the situation and target its well-being
activities to include as many staff members as possible to help
prevent this kind of absenteeism;
- implement the audit recommendations on performance of
IT projects for internal applications;
- ensure the Committee immediately follow up on the two
Union Civil Service Tribunals rulings and the European
Anti-Fraud Offices (OLAF) case report, and Parliaments
resolutions and brings the whistleblower case of the former
internal auditor of the Committee to a just, honourable and
equitable settlement before the end of 2017;
- work together with the EESC to follow-up immediately
the ruling of the Union Civil Service Tribunal in a harassment case
involving officials from both institutions, that it reports to
Parliament on the progress and that it review its procedures for
handling future allegations of harassment to ensure that they are
in line with the case-law of the Civil Service
Tribunal.
Lastly, Members welcomed the information on the
Committees building policy in its annual activity
report.