3 European Monitoring Centre on Racism
and Xenophobia
| (28126)
16315/06
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| Report on the annual accounts of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia for the financial year 2005, together with the Monitoring Centre's replies.
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| Legal base | — |
| Deposited in Parliament | 8 December 2006
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| Department | Communities and Local Government
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| Basis of consideration | EM of 6 February 2007
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| Previous Committee Report | None
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| To be discussed in Council | —
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| Committee's assessment | Legally and politically important
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| Committee's decision | Not cleared; further information requested
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Background
3.1 The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC)
was established by Council Regulation (EC) No. 1035/97[17]
as a Community body to provide the Community and the Member States
with reliable and comparable information on racism, xenophobia
and anti-Semitism. The European Council decided on 12 and 13 December
2003 to extend the mandate of the EUMC "to make it into a
human rights agency".
3.2 Article 12 of Council Regulation (EC) No. 1035/97
requires the Court of Auditors to examine the Centre's revenue
and expenditure for each financial year and to give its opinion
on the accounts and their reliability.
The document
3.3 In its latest report for the financial year ended
31 December 2005, the Court of Auditors concludes that, in all
material respects, the EUMC's accounts are reliable and that,
in general terms, the transactions underlying the accounts are
legal and regular. The Court has nonetheless chosen to make a
number of additional observations. These can be summarised as
follows:
- Over 50% of commitments for
administrative expenditure were carried over to the next financial
year and there was a high rate of cancellation of the appropriations
carried over, showing a need to improve expenditure planning;
- No activity-based management had been brought
in despite the Centre's financial regulation making provision
for this;
- The Centre had no system for planning and managing
its equipment acquisitions;
- Moreover, there were no cyclical checks on the
Centre's inventory;
- The Centre's internal control system suffered
from various other shortcomings which include the inadequate application
of the principle of segregating duties and ex ante financial
management criteria;
- Selection boards were not always of a grade equivalent
or higher than that of the post to be filled; and
- Invitations to tender contained insufficient
information on the minimum quality of bids and the weighting of
price factors.
The Court's report contains the Centre's replies
to these observations. On the composition of selection boards,
the Centre explains that, with its relatively small workforce,
it was not always possible to constitute boards of a higher grade.
The Court also reports that the Centre had undertaken to improve
the clarity of information provided in calls for tender.
The Government's view
3.4 In his Explanatory Memorandum of 6 February 2007,
the Minster of State in the Department of Communities and Local
Government (Phil Woolas) notes that
"The Government is content that the Court has
found that the Centre's accounts are in all respects reliable
and that the underlying transactions were legal and regular. The
Government has noted the Court's subsequent observations and the
steps that the Centre is taking to address them."
Conclusion
3.5 We thank the Minster for his brief comments
on the Court of Auditors' Report on the accounts of the European
Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia. We ask the Minster
if the Government is confident in the light of the Centre's performance
so far that the future EU human rights agency will be able to
discharge its considerably enhanced and extended functions in
a satisfactory and financially prudent and accountable manner.
We shall hold the document under scrutiny until we have received
the Minister's reply.
17 OJ No. L 151. 10.6.97, page 1. Back
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