Brussels, 25/04/2000 (Agence Europe) - The internal audit service, the central financial service and the follow-up committee for audits, all new European Commission structures responsible for financial management and control, will be set in place on 1 May. The College last week adopted a communication which fixes the major lines of these services, which will gradually replace the current Directorate General for Audits, responsible for audits and financial control, as announced by the White Paper on reform.
The internal audit service will be responsible for evaluating and controlling the management and control systems to be set in place in each Directorate General (DG). In time, at the end of 2000, it should have 80 officials, 32 of whom should be appointed by May. Pending a full staff, the DG Audit staff will contribute to the work of the internal audit service.
The central financial service will have the task of advising the DGs as well as defining and diffusing the rules and financial procedures. It should be made up of at least 75 officials, of whom 65 will have begun work on 1 May.
The follow-up committee for audits will monitor the quality of the work of audit and the follow-up of the recommendations made by the internal audit service. Assisted by a secretariat of four people from the DG Budget, it will be made up of the Commissioner responsible for budgets, the vice-president responsible for reform, two other Commissioners and an external member.
Furthermore, each DG should gradually set in place its own auditing systems for control of its operations (before and after). Pending amendments to the financial regulation so that the prior visa from the financial inspector is no longer compulsory, the financial controllers will still carry out their work, but they will be posted in different DGs, gradually, from 1 September. In order to begin carrying out a posteriori controls in DGs, 72 officials are expected to be transferred to these posts during the summer.
Taking it all in all, 200 posts will be allocated to the financial control and audit, in 2000 and 2001. They will be in addition to the 253 posts of the current DG Audit. Out of these 253 posts, in May, 32 will be allocated to the internal audit service, 35 to the central financial service (in addition to the 30 from the DG Budget), 30 for the horizontal and administrative support of the internal audit service and ex ante control, 4 for the follow-up committee of the audits, …/…
72 for internal control and the audit of DGs. The 80 remaining posts are assigned to ex-ante control and will be divided up among the DGs once the financial regulation has been modified.
The Commission is expected to decide in May, with the adoption of a new communication, the precise breakdown of the 72 posts in the DGs, as well as the assignment of 150 of the 200 posts newly allocated to financial control and audit. The other 50 posts will be held in reserve and assigned on a case by case basis according to needs.
The Commission will be conducting several parallel training actions: 1) in May, a financial management handbook that includes "concrete examples" is expected to be forwarded by electronic means to all officials. Between July and September, training sessions will be held for officials working in financial units and for all directors and heads of units; 2) starting in October, seminars will be organised, with the aid of an external consultant, to help officials in charge of Community programmes manage them better, with the goal of improving cost-effectiveness; 3) for officials charged with financial management and financial control, current courses will be updated and a new programme will then be set in place.