EUROSAI. Magazine N22 - 2016

Magazine No. 22 - 2016 17 EUROSAI Activities European Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions 5. An amount of 15,000 euros for financing the meeting of the 44 th EUROSAI GB (13-14 June). The grant exceeds the subsidy limit set in the Financial Rules, but the GB used its power to grant a higher amount, after taking into account that the meeting had been originally meant to be hosted by another member of the GB and, thus, ECA had not foreseen this event. The subsidy is meant to cover the interpretation cost, which the ECA had to contract externally. The grant was to be covered by the funds allocated to Strategic Goal 4. • The GB approved the proposed amendment of the EUROSAI Financial Rules, related to the criteria for granting and prioritizing financial requests. • The GB approved the contracting of a total of 120 hours for small developments in the website (at an estimated cost of 5,000 euros, tax excluded). • The GB agreed to launch a project for designing a new brand identity for EUROSAI, consisting of two phases; in the first phase, a competition would be organised within EUROSAI for the design of the logo, while the second phase would entail the use of an external contract to apply the new logo to EUROSAI’s documents, such as reports or regulations (with an estimated cost of around 2,500 euros for this second phase). Items 7 and 8. In the framework of the implementation of the EUROSAI Strategic Plan, Goal Teams 1 (Chair: SAI of Hungary), 2 (Chair: SAI of Germany), 3 (Chair: SAI of the Czech Republic) and 4 (Chair: SAI of The Netherlands) presented the progress made since the last GB meeting and future projects. The decisions of the GB were the following: • The GB took note of the GTs’ annual progress reports, updated OPs and GT4’s overall progress report on the implementation of the Strategic Plan. • The GB approved the amended ToR of GT3, which was updated to include Turkey as a new member. • The GB approved the list of EUROSAI training events. • The GB acknowledged GT4’s report on the results of the survey on the Magazine. • The GB agreed on setting up an editorial board, chaired by the Secretariat, which, among other tasks, would be in charge of implementing the recommendations included in the survey’s report (such as the one to explore creating an online version of the magazine). • The GB acknowledged the note on the collaboration platform for EUROSAI and agreed on testing the INTOSAI KSC-IDI online learning and communication. Items 9 and 10. The GB took note of the activity reports of the EUROSAI Working Group on Information Technology (ITWG; Chair: SAI of Poland), the Working Group on Environmental Auditing (WGEA; Chair: SAI of Estonia), the Working Group on the Audit of Funds Allocated to Disasters and Catastrophes (Chair: SAI of Ukraine) and the Task Force on Audit & Ethics (TFA&E; Chair: SAI of Portugal). After discussion among the GB members on whether and how to launch a competition for the video on Ethics, following the TFA&E’s proposal, the decision supported by the GB (by all members except the SAI of Belgium) was to give the TFA&E the mandate to develop further the idea and make a concrete proposal on the name, price, jury and other issues, which would be endorsed by the GB by written procedure. In addition, the Secretariat encouraged the WGs to adopt the TFA&E’s good practice of organizing informative sessions with the staff of the SAI hosting the annual meetings, as a way to disseminate knowledge within SAIs about EUROSAI and its WGs activities and, thus, strengthen communication. Item 11. Following the proposal of the SAI of Lithuania, the GB agreed to set up a Task Force on Municipality Audit and requested, as a first assignment for it, to submit a note with the specific factors which justify the establishment of the said Task Force and which differentiate the audit of Municipalities from the audit of other public entities, and so demonstrate the added value of the TFMA to EUROSAI members. Item12. With regards to the independent evaluation of EUROSAI, the GB took note of the external scan report and the provisional report on the EUROSAI Self-Assessment and urged GT4 to finalize the self- assessment report as soon as possible, so that its (verified) information, in particular that regarding chapter 4 on “Future development”, may be used as input for the preparation of the 2017-2023 strategic plan.