The 55^th Governing Board (GB) meeting took place in London, on 16 November 2021, kindly hosted by the National Audit Office of the United Kingdom, being the first in-person meeting since the 49^th meeting held in Jūrmala in 2019. The meeting, chaired by the SAI of the Czech Republic (EUROSAI Presidency) was attended also by the observers (SAI of Russian Federation, Portugal and Norway together with IDI) and other guests (SAIs of Germany and Sweden as co-leaders of the Strategic Goals). The host of the meeting made the needed arrangements to hold a safe meeting offering also on-line connection.

The summary of the main discussions and agreements (SoA) of the 55^th GB is the following:

• The GB approved the Governance Portfolios’ descriptions and the overall consolidated Operational Plan for the implementation of the 2017-2024 EUROSAI Strategic Plan (ESP).
• Decisions pertaining the Overall Governance and Culture Portfolio:
  • Regarding the proposal to develop a mechanism similar to IDI’s SAI Independence Rapid Advocacy Mechanism (SIRAM) in order to support those members whose independence is being threatened, the GB highlighted the importance of independence advocacy and, instead of creating a new mechanism within EUROSAI, which would entail duplication with the SIRAM, the GB agreed to help SAIs facing independence issues to activate SIRAM.
  • The GB entrusted the Presidency with the drafting of a procedure for answering enquiries from media, including those related to individual member SAIs, under the overall Governance Portfolio. The abovementioned proposal will be prepared in close coordination with the Secretariat, and it will be submitted to the GB for approval. This aims to assist EUROSAI’s Presidency (the Organisation’s official representative) to swiftly address these information requests and provide an official statement and/or comment on behalf of EUROSAI.
• The GB took note of the projects to be carried forward by the Strategic Goal 1 (Professional Cooperation), distinguishing closed projects (Quality Management, Follow up of Implementation of Audit recommendations, Reactive Rapid Audit reporting, Steering Committee to Support the 4^th YES conference or Coordinated Audit on E-commerce), continued activities (Task Force on Municipality Audit, WG on Environmental, ITWG or WG on the Audit of Funds Allocated to Disasters and Catastrophes), ongoing Project Groups (Workforce 2030, COVID-19 Workstream, BIEP, Investigations, EUROSAI Database, Innovations in EUROSAI o Ethics Network) and some new ideas (Traveling Webinars, Auditing in New Normal, Raising the awareness of the SAIs on ERM or the Club of Experts).
• The GB took note of the initiatives planned by the Strategic Goal 2 (Capacity Development), including six completed projects (Enhanced Institutional Capacity for Peer- to – Peer support, MOOC, E-course on Performance Audit, Non- Financial and Integrated Reporting, Social Utilisation and Transparency in Public Auditing and Role of SAI’s in Spreading Integrity Culture) and six ongoing projects (Audit Methodology Meetings, Communication on INTOSAI Professional Pronouncements, Translation Professional Pronouncements to Russian, Internship and Secondment Programme, EUROSAI Interaction with INTOSAI Committees and EUROSAI Interaction with INTOSAI Bodies), with another six new projects under development in 2021 (Data Envelopment Analysis, Digital University of INTOSAI, Civil Society, Cooperation with the UN in relation to SDG audits, Audit English and SAIs Evaluation tools and methods).
• Decisions pertaining the Communication Portfolio:
  • The GB agreed that from the 55^th GB meeting onwards and with the aim of streamlining the communication process after GB meetings, a piece of news containing the summary of agreements of the respective GB meeting will be drafted and distributed, with no additional separate SoA document.
  • The GB supported the proposal for a new website presented by the Project Group for the relaunch of the EUROSAI website. In connection to this project, the GB entrusted the Secretariat to take the necessary steps to relaunch the website.
  • The GB supported the proposal submitted by the EUROSAI Presidency to be in charge of managing the EUROSAI Presidency Twitter account during the Czech Presidency period, while SAI Israel will be in charge of launching a EUROSAI YouTube channel. If there is a SAI willing to manage it, a EUROSAI LinkedIn account could also be launched in the future. The EUROSAI Presidency website will be integrated in the new EUROSAI website.
• The GB took note of the information provided regarding the Forward Thinking and Emerging Issues Portfolio, including that about the continuity of the PG on Auditing the Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, maintaining the working procedures used so far and the Project Group on Preparing for Future Risks and Climate Crisis: Time for Audit to Take a Long-term View? Regarding “the COVID-19 Pandemic”, the UK is looking for SAIs interested in co-chairing the PG. Following a discussion on COVID-19 and Cybersecurity, the GB welcomed the initiative presented by SAI Israel of launching a new project group to outline the methodology for auditing cybersecurity issues, develop relevant tools, initiate professional specific training for auditors and discuss and formulate the optimal way to present audit findings in this matter. The Terms of Reference of the Project Group will be drafted by the project leader and submitted to the Coordination Team for approval, in coordination with the ITWG.
• The GB took note of the information provided regarding the Relations with non-SAI Stakeholders Portfolio, including the information on the successful EUROSAI-ECA panel discussion “Translating climate ambition into delivery” that was held on 4 November 2021 as part of the United National Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow, UK, attended by more than 200 participants. Information was also presented on the civil society activity which will be interlinked with SG2 and be implemented under this Portfolio. Currently SAI Latvia is in discussions with SAI Netherlands for possible co-lead of this activity together with SAI Latvia.
• The GB took note of the information provided under the Relations with INTOSAI and Other Regional Organisations Portfolio, in particular the one related with the status of preparations of the next EUROSAI-ARABOSAI Joint Conference, to be hosted by SAI of Ukraine in Kyiv, 17-19 May 2022.
• The GB supported the new initiatives proposed by Turkey related to connecting technology to Audit Processes, Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), under SG1, and exploring cooperation areas with UN Agencies in SDG Audits; and invite to other EUROSAI members to join to these initiatives.
• The GB took note of the information provided by the Presidency on the technical part of the XI EUROSAI Congress, to be held in Prague, on 22- 26 May 2022.
• The GB agreed that the 56^th GB meeting would take place in the sidelines of the technical part of the XI EUROSAI Congress, in September 2022 in Portugal.