The Conclusions of the V meeting of the EUROSAI training committee Paris, 22 June 2001

The EUROSAI training committee (ETC), consisting, according to the decision made in Madrid on 16 February 2000 by the governing board, of 8 members, namely Spain and France for the presidency, Portugal, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland and Denmark, has held a meeting in Paris on 22 June 2001. Due to the agenda, representatives of IDI, SAI’s of Hungary and of the Federation of Russia were also invited to attend this meeting.

The following points were addressed:

1. Training web pages:

The SAI of France, which hosts the training web pages, presented the current structure and information given on the site.

a The NAO will suggest the more convenient location for the items sent regarding their training programme ;

a IDI will give information on its programme;

a A circular letter, sent by the SAI of France, will recall the goals and features of the site and invite all members to provide further information.

2. Newsgroup on IT – discussion forum:

The SAI of Denmark, which hosts this site, presented its possible structure, and the main issues to deal with. The ETC suggested, at this stage of experimentation:

a To create a link on the front page and on the training page of the general EUROSAI website, for access to the newsgroup;

a To consider the newsgroup as a direct staff-to-staff forum, without any institutional channelling;

a To open the forum to other subjects than IT. The SAI of Denmark will submit as soon as possible suggestions for the topics to ETC members, take into account remarks, and launch in September the first version;

a To send to all EUROSAI members, after agreement of the presidency, an information letter to promote the newsgroup forum;

a A follow-up and assessment (regarding, among others, usefulness, adequacy, security issues) will be made during the next ETC meeting in December 2001. Results will be submitted for decision to the next governing board meeting (Copenhagen, March 2002).

3. Training activities:

a) Co-operation EUROSAI-IDI:

Thanks to the strong financial support of the Norwegian Government, the 2nd stage of the LTRTP (Course Design and Development Workshop) may take place for 24 auditors of the SAI’s of CEEC during the autumn, likely in the Czech Republic. Up to now, the funding of the programme is secured up to 50 %. A meeting with the European Commission (DG Enlargement) is to be held in July 2001 for funding end of phase I and phase II (TACIS SAI’s).

b) Training events:

- The second training event (VFM seminar) will be held in Hungary during the second semester 2002.

a SAI of Hungary and UK will be responsible for the technical and professional preparation of the seminar, in association with the presidency of EUROSAI.

a Around 30 auditors may participate in this seminar;

a As the budgetary reform is not achieved, a financial support from the budget of EUROSAI remains unlikely.

- The third training event (evaluation of internal control) will be held in the Czech Republic during the year 2003. The SAI of the Czech Republic confirmed its readiness to host this training event. SAI’s of Germany, Portugal, Poland, France and UK expressed their will to participate in a working group for the preparation of this meeting.

a A final decision regarding the composition of the working group will be made in the next ETC meeting;

a Meanwhile, the SAI of Czech Republic will try to collect among SAI’s already available materials on this topic (for instance SAI’s of Spain and UK, and the SAI of Hungary, chairman of the internal control standards committee of INTOSAI).

- Preliminary discussion raised as to the topic of a fourth training event: the suggestion was made to organise a “professional” seminar, reserved for the presidents of SAI’s, aimed to exchange of experiences on the different models of SAI’s, and common issues concerning the strategy, management and prospects of SAI’s.

a each representative in the ETC will check with his/her president of SAI the relevance and feasibility of this idea

a results on these informal consultations will be reported during the next ETC meeting

4. Budgetary issues

According to the decision of the governing board (Ljubljana meeting, March 2001) to launch a prospective study on the budget of the organisation, the ETC was given the task to make proposals on the evolution of the budget of the organisation, both for incomes and expenses.

The representative of the secretariat general, in agreement with the presidency, presented to the ETC a preliminary report on these issues. The report underlines the necessity to increase in any case the contributions of members for the 2002-2005 budget, but many options as to the level of increase, the repartition of contributions and expenses, and other sources of funding, remain open, depending on decisions on priorities of the organisation to be taken by the Congress.

During the discussion, the following remarks were passed:

-       A substantial part of the budget is devoted to publications (including translation costs) ; the governing board, during its last meeting, decided to keep the paper publications but also expressed a will to shift towards training activities ; 

-       The budget of the organisation is, and will remain modest, even if more room is given for a small funding of training activities; costs borne by the different SAI’s for this purpose are actually and will remain far more important ; 

-       But, even modest, a funding by the organisation of its training activities should be a relevant token of its commitment, specially towards potential donors; 

-       To be acceptable, increase of the contributions should be related to further cuts on spending.

According to these discussions, the following suggestions were made:

a The governing board should be aware of the current publication costs, the latter mainly due to translation spending ; a detailed analysis of these costs, including the translation in each of the five official languages, will be made by the general secretariat, with alternative proposals (publication in one, two or more languages);

a Further exploration of the budgetary reform will be pushed forward, with the aim to present a draft resolution to the next ETC;

a The SAI’s of France and Spain will carry on working on these issues, referring on progress made, till the next meeting, to the ETC members.

5. Information points:

Information were given on the 4 points on the agenda, namely the environmental working group (SAI of Poland), the results of the Madeira Conference (SAI of Portugal), the preparation of the Warsaw Pre-Congress Seminar (SAI of Poland), and the preparation of the Moscow Congress (SAI of Russia).

Besides, the SAI of Hungary reported on co-operation between the SAI’s of candidate countries and the European Court of Auditors, in the frame of a working group on audit activities. To ensure further mutual information, the presidency of EUROSAI expresses the will to be invited to these meetings.

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The SAI of the Czech Republic expresses its readiness to host the next ETC meeting in Prague, December 2001. The date of 7, December 2001 seems convenient (to be confirmed).