EUROSAI. Magazine N18 - 2012

> 17 < EUROSAI ACTIVITIES EUROPEAN ORGANISATION OF SUPREME AUDIT INSTITUTIONS www.eurosai.org No. 18 - 2012 measures, checklists and internal audits have been considered. Following proposals of the Portuguese Presidency, the EUROSAI Governing Board agreed to set up a Task Force to deal with Audit & Ethics, aiming primarily to promote ethical conduct and integrity, both in SAIs and in public organizations. The goal of the EUROSAI Task Force on Audit & Ethics, as ethics in SAIs is concerned, is to reinforce, frame and provide robustness to the management of ethical conduct, with practical and feasible tools that intend to help the institutions in their everyday work. Spanish Court of Audit presented an interesting case showing the positive contribution the SAI can have on the accountability in public sector. In 2003 the Court of Audit reported to the Spanish Parliament that there were problems regarding the accountability of the Local Public Sector and informed about the possible legal and administrative solutions that could be adopted in order for the Local Entities to render their accounts complete and within the legally established deadlines. In response to this the Information and Communication Technology was introduced that significantly improved the reporting and reviewing activities of the local governments. After successfully establishing the electronic reporting system, the Spanish Court of Accounts made the reports and accounts of the local governments publicly available that besides facilitating audit activities, increased transparency and accountability to the citizens. The Turkish Court of Accounts in its presentation emphasized the importance of the high quality of its own work and the need to follow the high moral values for achieving it. Besides the conventional means of achieving the right tone at the top and independence such as broad mandate laid out in the constitution, the TCA recently established audit management software program that enables to organize audit work and gives management the opportunity to monitor the findings and working documents. The Brazilian Court of Accounts presented the recent peer review that has been carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The purpose of peer review is to assess the audit of the annual financial statement of the federal government of Brazil. Potential benefits of such reviews among others are: 1 . Report prepared by a multilateral institution (OECD) with broad knowledge of planning, budget, finances, accounting, governance, transparency, accountability, and so on. 2 . Multidisciplinary team. 3 . Peer review performed by various countries. Session II—Public Finance Management Reform: Trends and Lessons Learned In order to live up to the high expectations of the society and further reinforce the principles of good governance, many governments are embarking on significant modification of their Public Financial Management Systems. The PFM serves as an overarching framework under which many facets of public financial administration are improved. The PFM concerns such vital issues of public financial administration as budget planning and execution, establishment of public internal controls and internal audit, procurement, accounting and IT systems, treasury, etc. These issues constitute the very core of the public financial management and ultimately, the good governance. There are a number of similarities in the implementation of the PFM within the EUROSAI, as countries aspire to fully implement common guidelines and best practice regarding the public financial management. Naturally, countries are on different stages of the process, and potential to gain from each other’s experience is n The goal of the EUROSAI Task Force on Audit & Ethics, as ethics in SAIs is concerned, is to reinforce, frame and provide robustness to the management of ethical conduct, with practical and feasible tools that intend to help the institutions in their everyday work. n n The PFM serves as an overarching framework under which many facets of public financial administration are improved. n