15.12.2009   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 304/118

REPORT

on the annual accounts of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training for the financial year 2008, together with the Centre’s replies

2009/C 304/22

CONTENTS

 

Paragraph

Page

INTRODUCTION …

1-2

119

STATEMENT OF ASSURANCE …

3-12

119

COMMENTS ON THE BUDGETARY AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT …

13

120

OTHER MATTERS …

14

120

Table …

121

The Centre’s replies …

123

INTRODUCTION

1.

The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (hereinafter ‘the Centre’), located in Thessaloniki, was established by Council Regulation (EEC) No 337/75 (1). Its core mandate is to serve the development of vocational training at Community level. In order to achieve this objective, it has the task of compiling and disseminating documentation on vocational training systems (2).

2.

The Centre’s 2008 budget amounted to 18,3 million euro compared with 17,4 million euro the previous year.The number of staff employed by the Centre at the end of the year was 128, the same as in the previous year.

STATEMENT OF ASSURANCE

3.

Pursuant to the provisions of Article 248 of the Treaty the Court has audited the annual accounts (3) of the Centre, which comprise the ‘financial statements’ (4) and the ‘reports on implementation of the budget’ (5) for the financial year ended 31 December 2008 and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying those accounts.

4.

This Statement of Assurance is addressed to the European Parliament and the Council in accordance with Article 185(2) of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 (6).

The Director’s responsibility

5.

As authorising officer, the Director implements the revenue and expenditure of the budget in accordance with the financial rules of the Centre under her own responsibility and within the limits of authorised appropriations (7). The Director is responsible for putting in place (8) the organisational structure and the internal management and control systems and procedures relevant for drawing up final accounts (9) that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and for ensuring that the transactions underlying those accounts are legal and regular.

The Court’s responsibility

6.

The Court’s responsibility is to provide, on the basis of its audit, a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the annual accounts of the Centre and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them.

7.

The Court conducted its audit in accordance with the IFAC and ISSAI (10) International Auditing Standards and Codes of Ethics. Those standards require that the Court complies with ethical requirements and plans and performs the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the accounts are free from material misstatement and whether the underlying transactions are legal and regular.

8.

The Court’s audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the accounts and about the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them. The procedures selected depend on its audit judgement including the assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the accounts or of illegal or irregular transactions, whether due to fraud or error. In making those risk assessments internal control relevant to the entity’s preparation and presentation of accounts is considered in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances. The Court’s audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and, the reasonableness of accounting estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the accounts.

9.

The Court believes that the audit evidence obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for the opinions set out below.

Opinion on the reliability of the accounts

10.

In the Court’s opinion, the Centre’s Annual Accounts (11) present fairly, in all material respects, its financial position as of 31 December 2008 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial Regulation.

Opinion on the legality and the regularity of the transactions underlying the accounts

11.

In the Court’s opinion, the transactions underlying the annual accounts of the Centre for the financial year ended 31 December 2008 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.

12.

The comments which follow do not call the Court’s opinions into question.

COMMENTS ON THE BUDGETARY AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

13.

More than 3,5 million euro were carried forward. Although operating activities (title III) were managed through differentiated appropriations, 1,4 million euro (or 25 %) of the payment appropriations were carried forward. This indicated weaknesses in the programming and monitoring of the differentiated appropriations for operating activities.

OTHER MATTERS

14.

For each main activity, the Centre’s 2008 work programme lists operational objectives and actions and links them to performance indicators. Often, objectives and indicators were neither clearly result-oriented nor measurable. In order to have a real activity based management allowing a continuous improvement of resource allocation and performance analysis, the Centre should implement a project time recording system for its agents and foster its orientation towards results being achieved.

This report was adopted by the Court of Auditors in Luxembourg at its meeting of 8 October 2009.

For the Court of Auditors

Vítor Manuel da SILVA CALDEIRA

President

Table

European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Thessaloniki)

Area of Community competence deriving from the Treaty

Competence of the Centre as specified in Articles 2 and 3 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 337/75

Governance

Resources made available to the Centre in 2008

(Data for 2007)

Products and services supplied in 2008

The Community implements a vocational training policy to support and supplement the action of the Member States as regards the content and organisation of vocational training.

Action aims to:

—

facilitate adaptation to industrial changes, in particular through vocational training and retraining,

—

improve initial and continuing vocational training in order to facilitate vocational integration and reintegration into the labour market,

—

facilitate access to vocational training and encourage mobility of instructors and trainees and particularly young people,

—

stimulate cooperation on training between educational or training establishments and firms,

—

develop exchanges of information and experience on issues common to the training systems of the Member States.

(From Article 150 of the Treaty)

The Centre’s mandate

In its capacity as the European Union reference centre for vocational training and education, the Centre provides political decision-makers, researchers and professionals with information aimed at developing a clearer understanding of current trends that will thus enable them to reach more soundly based decisions with a view to future action.

The Centre assists the European Commission in promoting and developing vocational training and education at Community level.

Tasks

—

To compile selected documentation and produce data analysis.

—

To contribute to research development and coordination.

—

To utilise and disseminate relevant information.

—

To encourage and support a concerted approach to matters relating to the development of vocational training.

—

To provide a forum for a broad and diverse public.

1 —   Governing Board (GB)

Composition

For each Member State:

—

one member representing the Government,

—

one member representing the employers′ organisations,

—

one member representing the employees′ organisations and three members representing the European Commission.

2 —   Bureau

Composition

The chairman and the three vice-chairmen of the GB (one from each of the groups), one coordinator per group and one representative of the Commission.

3 —   Director

Appointed by the Commission from a list of candidates submitted by the Governing Board; is responsible for the management of the Centre and implements the decisions of the Governing Board and the Bureau.

4 —   Internal control

Commission’s Internal Audit Service.

5 —   External audit

Court of Auditors.

6 —   Discharge authority

Parliament acting on recommendation from the Council.

Budget

18,38 million euro

(17,40 million euro)

Community contribution: 93 % (96 %)

Staff at 31 December 2008

Number of posts in establishment plan: 99 (97)

 

Posts occupied: 97 (89)

 

Other staff: contract staff, seconded national experts.

Total staff: 128 (128)

 

operational: 87

 

administrative: 41

(in 2007:

 

operational: 89

 

administrative: 39)

The impact of the Centre in providing analysis and research results for evidence based policy-making is best illustrated by the fact that 21 major policy documents (for example Council Conclusions on future priorities for enhanced European cooperation in Vocational Education Training (VET) or Commission Communication on new skills for new jobs) not only reflected the Centre’s work but also requested the Centre to further contribute or monitor, etc. This shows also appreciation for the work done.

The draft policy report contributed greatly to the preparation of the ministerial conference of the French presidency and the Bordeaux communiqué in November. The Centre worked closely with both 2008 presidencies and provided major input (publications, background material, keynote speeches, etc.) to all the major events relating to VET (for example guidance conference in Lyon).

The Centre’s work on skills needs to be further developed. At the request of the EC President, the forecast was extended to 2020. The publication ‘Skill needs in Europe: focus on 2020’ was downloaded over 140 000 times. In November 2008, the Centre’s proposal to introduce future skill needs as a forward looking indicator to analyse employment was adopted by the Employment Committee indicators group.

After the adoption of the European Qualification Framework (EQF), implementation in Member States of the European tools for VET has accelerated. The Centre has contributed substantially towards the development of these tools (EQF, European Credit transfer system, Quality assurance, Guidance, Europass) and continued to support the EC working groups and clusters and to host the Europass website. Its use by European citizens continued to increase; in 2008, over 6 million visits to the website were recorded and more than 2 million European CVs have been completed online. An external evaluation confirmed the positive development.

A revised study visits programme has been successfully implemented.

With more than 65 workshops and conferences, 24 new publications, a newly established press service (19 press releases in 2008), 8 policy briefs the Centre continued to provide a platform for VET stakeholders and provided updated information on VET in the European Union.

More complete information is available in the Annual Report 2008.

Source: Information supplied by the Centre.

THE CENTRE’S REPLIES

13.

The carry over of payment appropriations was partly necessary because of unsuccesful procurement procedures to be relaunched end 2008. The unforeseen delay and the successful completion of the relaunched procurements were the main reasons why the payment appropriations foreseen in the 2009 budget were not enough to meet the 2009 cash flow needs for the increased payment obligations. The Centre has in the meantime further developed its monitoring system for payment appropriations and its planning system in particular for procurement.

14.

Several initiatives have been taken to improve the objective setting and to move towards a result oriented performance measurement system, starting already in 2008. In 2009 a comprehensive performance measurement system consistent with SMART objectives set, including output, outcome and impact indicators will be implemented. This is already reflected in the 2009 work programme. Human resources are currently allocated to the different activities within the framework of the ABB, based on the results of an internal planning and monitoring process for the project needs. The introduction of a pilot time recording system is planned for 2010.

(1)  OJ L 39, 13.2.1975, p. 1.

(2)  The Table summarises the Centre’s competences and activities. It is presented for information purposes.

(3)  These accounts are accompanied by a report on the budgetary and financial management during the year which gives inter alia an account of the rate of implementation of the appropriations with summary information on the transfers of appropriations among the various budget items.

(4)  The financial statements include the balance sheet and the economic outturn account, the cash-flow table, the statement of changes in capital and the annex to the financial statements which includes the description of the significant accounting policies and other explanatory information.

(5)  The budget implementation reports comprise the budget outturn account and its annex.

(6)  OJ L 248, 16.9.2002, p. 1.

(7)  Article 33 of Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002 of 23 December 2002 (OJ L 357, 31.12.2002, p. 72).

(8)  Article 38 of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002.

(9)  The rules concerning the presentation of the accounts and accounting by the Agencies are laid down in chapter 1 of Title VII of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002 as last amended by Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 652/2008 of 9 July 2008 (OJ L 181, 10.7.2008, p. 23) and are integrated as such in the Financial Regulation of the Centre.

(10)  International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAI).

(11)  The Final Annual Accounts were drawn up on 15 June 2009 and received by the Court on 30 June 2009. The Final Annual Accounts, consolidated with those of the Commission are published in the Official Journal of the European Union by 15 November of the following year. These can be found on the following website http://eca.europa.eu or http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/about/budget_discharge.asp