The committee adopted the report by Edit HERCZOG (PES, HU) granting discharge to the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training for 2005. In its accompanying resolution, it made a number of general points concerning the majority of the EU agencies:
- the ever-growing number of Community Agencies and the activities of some of them do not seem to form part of an overall policy framework, and "the remits of some Agencies do not always reflect the real needs of the Union or the expectations of its citizens”;
- the Commission should therefore define an overall policy framework and should present a cost-benefit study before the setting up of any new Agency, and the Court of Auditors should give its opinion on this study before Parliament takes its decision;
- every 5 years, the Commission should present a study on the added value of every existing Agency; where the evaluation is negative in the case of a particular Agency the latter’s mandate should be reformulated or the Agency should be closed;
- the Commission should improve administrative and technical support to the Agencies, given the growing complexity of the Community’s administrative rules and technical problems;
- the Agencies should improve their cooperation and benchmarking with actors in the field;
- the Commission should harmonise the format of the annual reporting by the Agencies to develop performance indicators which would allow a comparison of their efficiency.
In its specific remarks concerning the ECDVT, the committee called on the centre to "fine-tune its programming" and improve the monitoring exercise throughout the year. It also demanded the full application of the principle of the segregation of the duties of the authorising officer and accounting officer. The report expressed concern at the "very high rate of irregularities" with regard to contracts and called on the Centre to remedy the weaknesses in its organisation and tender procedures. Lastly, it encouraged the Centre to continue efforts to improve its communications to ensure that the public is better informed about its activities.