European Union Cohesion Policy Management verifications Examples of

European Union Cohesion Policy Management verifications Examples of good practice José FERREIRA DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities “Train the trainers” European Commission seminar for managing and certifying authorities 17 June 2010 1

Background § The implementation of OP substantially delayed, in many cases; § The Commission’s audit work concentrated on the work done by AA; § The National auditor’s work concentrated on Systems Audit of programs/systems, that in general, had not yet produced expenditure; 2

Good practices presented in 2008 § Registering, in a structured way, the weaknesses found during the on-the-spot visits (important too for the administrative verifications) allows MA to always be ready for reporting to the CA and the AA, and contributes to a better identification of the risks (and also has other associated benefits). 3

What’s new ? § The Commission selected 3 IT tools, from 3 MAs from 3 MS in order to gain a better understanding and comparison; § By the end of September one opinion about what is a good IT Tool for management may be available; § But, in the meantime……… 4

The content of a good system • Legal framework – compulsory use of the legal account system and project account – Multi-annual projects – expenses declaration and physical data to be submitted by the end of each calendar year; • IT tool – NO PAPER - applications, and expenditure declarations (intermediary and final) input by beneficiaries directly into the system via internet; – financial and physical information on each project; 5

Information requested by the system • Financial • As usual, calculated by action, course, activity, etc • Physical indicators – activities – hours by course – When – Where – Whom • • Name of the trainer (aggregations, number hours planned) Name of participants 6

Expenditure declaration • List of expenses – Ref. of document – Type of document – Provider – Nature of the expense – Total Amount of the doc. – Amount charged to the – – project Apportionment factor Date of payment • Physical indicators – activities – hours by course – When – Where – Who • • Name of the trainer (aggregations, number hours planned) Name of participants It’s possible to establish a link between the expenditure declared and the activities and Evaluate the eligibility of certain types of expenditure, from the point of view of the trainer (not eligible if not in possession of one aggregation) 7

Checking justifications All justifications for a certain number of items should be requested from the beneficiaries (covering not less than 15% of the expenditure and all types of expenditure – participants, personnel, etc. ) 8

THANK YOU 9