PURPOSE: to present the final annual accounts of the European Communities for the financial year 2008 - Other institutions: section IX - European Data Protection Supervisor.
CONTENT: this document sets out the amount of expenditure and the financial statement of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) for 2008. It presents an analysis of the institution’s financial management as well as its main axes of expenditure.
The figures mentioned hereafter are taken from the following document “Report on budgetary and financial management for 2008”.
Commitment appropriations:
· commitment appropriations authorised: EUR 5 307 753
· commitments made in 2008: EUR 4 571 930 million (86.14% of available commitments).
Payment appropriations:
· payment appropriations authorised: EUR 6 322 458
· payments made in 2008: EUR 4 306 781 (68.12% of payments).
Main axes of expenditure for 2008: the budget of this institution increased by roughly 7.1% compared to 2007. This was due to two main factors: (1) the adjustment to living costs and the indexation of salaries; (2) taking into consideration the considerable increase in activities (the budget increased from EUR 5 million in 2007 to EUR 5.3 million in 2008 and personnel increased from 29 to 33 people).
The budgetary year was also marked by:
· the consolidation of administrative cooperation: this refers to cooperation with the relevant services of the Parliament, the Commission and the Council in areas where duplication of jobs can be avoided. The Agreement concluded in June 2004 with these institutions was extended for a new period of 3 years starting from 16 January 2007. As a reminder, this Agreement enables the EDPS to rely on the expertise of the other institutions in areas of budgetary and technical assistance, among others, and creates large economies of scale. Interinstitutional cooperation was continued with different Commission DGs, the Publications Office of the European Union, the European Parliament (notably for building security, website, inventory of assets, mail, telephone, supplies, etc) and the Council’s translation service;
· continued recruitment: as a new institution, the EDPS is still in its development phase. The EDPS therefore chose to limit the increase in the number of tasks and staff so that there would be a controlled progression of tasks to be dealt with and of newly integrated personnel. That is why the EDPS created 4 additional posts in 2008. Given the increased workload, it was necessary to create the position for a coordinator (7 coordinators were nominated). In addition, 4 trainees were welcomed as well as 3 seconded national experts from Spain, Hungary and Greece.
The other main points concerning the implementation of the EDPS budget can be summarised as follows:
Title I (Expenditure relating to persons working with the Institution): this budgetary Title was not characterised by any notable observation (the expenditure for most of the items was in accordance with the budgetary forecasts): for the Title as a whole, the rate of implementation for appropriations recorded in the budget is 80.54% (EUR 3 028 355). The weak implementation of Article 111 relating to payments to “other agents” – seconded national experts, trainees, contractual agents and agency staff.
Title II (Buildings, equipment and miscellaneous operating expenditure): the utilisation rate for this Title amounts to 100%. Therefore, no specific remarks have been made as regards the budget (total amount of Title II: EUR 1 543 575).