Report on the annual accounts of the European Police College for the financial year 2010, together with the College's replies
Date: 2011-09-06
Institutions: European Court of Auditors
Subjects: CEPOL, administration of the Institutions, auditing, budgetary control, financial control, powers of the institutions (EU)








C_2011366EN.01013401.xml










15.12.2011   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 366/134





REPORT
on the annual accounts of the European Police College for the financial year 2010, together with the College's replies
2011/C 366/24

INTRODUCTION







1.


The European Police College (hereinafter ‘the College’), which is located in Bramshill, was established by Council Decision 2000/820/JHA, as repealed in 2005 and replaced by Council Decision 2005/681/JHA (1). The College's task is to function as a network and bring together the national police training institutes in the Member States to provide training sessions, based on common standards, for senior police officers (2).










2.


The College's 2010 budget amounted to 7,8 million euro, compared with 8,8 million euro the previous year. The number of staff employed by the College at the end of the year was 31, compared with 28 the previous year.





STATEMENT OF ASSURANCE







3.


Pursuant to the provisions of Article 287(1), second subparagraph, of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Court has audited the annual accounts (3) of the College, which comprise the ‘financial statements’ (4) and the ‘reports on the implementation of the budget’ (5) for the financial year ended 31 December 2010, and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying those accounts.










4.


This Statement of Assurance is addressed to the European Parliament and the Council in accordance with Article 185(2) of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 (6).





The Director's responsibility







5.


As authorising officer, the Director implements the revenue and expenditure of the budget in accordance with the financial rules of the College, under his own responsibility and within the limits of the authorised appropriations (7). The Director is responsible for putting in place (8) the organisational structure and the internal management and control systems and procedures relevant for drawing up final accounts (9) that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and for ensuring that the transactions underlying those accounts are legal and regular.





The Court's responsibility







6.


The Court's responsibility is to provide, on the basis of its audit, a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the annual accounts of the College and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them.










7.


The Court conducted its audit in accordance with the IFAC and ISSAI (10) International Auditing Standards and Codes of Ethics. Those standards require the Court to comply with ethical requirements and to plan and perform the audit so as to obtain reasonable assurance as to whether the accounts are free of material misstatement and whether the underlying transactions are legal and regular.










8.


The Court's audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence of the amounts and disclosures in the accounts and of the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them. The procedures selected, including its assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the accounts or of illegal or irregular transactions, whether due to fraud or error, depend on its audit judgement. In making those risk assessments, internal controls relevant to the entity's preparation and presentation of accounts are considered in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances. The Court's audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of the accounting policies used and the reasonableness of the accounting estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the accounts.










9.


The Court believes that the audit evidence obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for the opinions set out below.






Opinion on the reliability of the accounts








10.


In the Court's opinion, the College's Annual Accounts (11) fairly present, in all material respects, its financial position as of 31 December 2010 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial Regulation.






Opinion on the legality and the regularity of the transactions underlying the accounts








11.


In the Court's opinion, the transactions underlying the annual accounts of the College for the financial year ended 31 December 2010 are, in all material respects, legal and regular.










12.


The comments which follow do not call the Court's opinions into question.





COMMENTS ON THE BUDGETARY AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT







13.


More than 1,6 million euro, equivalent to 48 % of the appropriations carried over from 2009, had to be cancelled in 2010. This situation is at odds with the budgetary principle of annuality.










14.


Expenditure for organising courses and seminars represents a significant part of the College's budget. There was a lack of rigour in the College's process for approving cost claims related to such activities, particularly with regard to the completeness of supporting evidence.





FOLLOW-UP ON PREVIOUS AUDIT FINDINGS







15.


An external ex-post check on appropriations used to finance private expenditure during 2007 and 2008 has been carried out. The external reviewers considered that no further funds are recoverable in respect of this matter.





This Report was adopted by Chamber IV, headed by Mr Igors LUDBORŽS, Member of the Court of Auditors, in Luxembourg at its meeting of 6 September 2011.


For the Court of Auditors

Vítor Manuel da SILVA CALDEIRA

President





(1)  OJ L 256, 1.10.2005, p. 63.

(2)  The Annex summarises the College's competences and activities. It is presented for information purposes.

(3)  These accounts are accompanied by a report on the budgetary and financial management during the year which gives inter alia an account of the rate of implementation of the appropriations, with summary information on the transfers of appropriations among the various budget items.

(4)  The financial statements include the balance sheet and the economic outturn account, the cash-flow table, the statement of changes in capital and the annex to the financial statements, which includes a description of the main accounting policies and other explanatory information.

(5)  The budget implementation reports comprise the budget outturn account and its annex.

(6)  OJ L 248, 16.9.2002, p. 1.

(7)  Article 33 of Commission Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002 (OJ L 357, 31.12.2002, p. 72).

(8)  Article 38 of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002.

(9)  The rules concerning the presentation of the accounts and accounting by the Agencies are laid down in Chapter 1 of Title VII of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2343/2002 as last amended by Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 652/2008 (OJ L 181, 10.7.2008, p. 23) and are integrated as such in the Financial Regulation of the College.

(10)  International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAI).

(11)  The Final Annual Accounts were drawn up on 8 June 2011 and received by the Court on 22 June 2011 The Final Annual Accounts can be found on the following website http://eca.europa.eu or https://www.cepol.europa.eu/index.php?id=final-accounts


ANNEX

European Police College (Bramshill)


Competences and activities








Areas of Union competence deriving from the Treaty


(Article 87 TFEU)




Approximation of laws









‘1.



The Union shall establish police cooperation involving all the Member States’ competent authorities, including police, customs and other specialised law enforcement services in relation to the prevention, detection and investigation of criminal offences.











2.



For the purposes of paragraph 1, the European Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, may establish measures concerning: (…)











(b)



support for the training of staff, and cooperation on the exchange of staff, on equipment and on research into crime-detection;’










Competences of the College


(Council Decision 2005/681/JHA)




Objectives

The aim of the College shall be to help train senior police officers in the Member States by optimising cooperation between the College’s various components. It shall support and develop a European approach to the main problems facing Member States in the fight against crime, crime prevention and the maintenance of law and order and public security, in particular the cross-border dimensions of those problems.

Tasks







—


To increase knowledge of the national police systems and structures of other Member States and of cross-border police cooperation within the European Union.










—


To improve knowledge of international and European Union instruments, particularly in the following sectors:






(a)


the institutions of the European Union, their functioning and role, as well as the decision-making mechanisms and legal instruments of the European Union, in particular as regards their implications for law-enforcement cooperation;










(b)


Europol’s objectives, structure and functioning, as well as ways to maximise cooperation between Europol and relevant law-enforcement services in the Member States in the fight against organised crime;










(c)


Eurojust’s objectives, structure and functioning.














—


To provide appropriate training with regard to respect for democratic safeguards, with particular reference to the rights of defence.









Governance




1 —   Governing Board


Composition

One delegation from each Member State.
Each delegation shall have one vote. Representatives of the European Commission and of the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union and Europol shall be invited to attend meetings as non-voting observers.

2 —   Director

Manages the College, is appointed and removed by the Governing Board.

3 —   External audit

Court of Auditors.

4 —   Internal Audit

Internal Audit Service of the Commission.

5 —   Discharge authority

Parliament, acting on a recommendation from the Council.





Resources made available to the College in 2010 (2009)





Budget

7,8 (8,8) million euro.

Staff

The Establishment Plan 2010 foresaw: 26 (26) Temporary Agents.
In addition: 10 (13) Contract Agent posts were budgeted.
Member States also seconded a total of: 4 (2) National Experts during the course of the year.





Products and services in 2010 (2009)





1 —   Courses and Seminars

The College organised 91 (88) courses, seminars and conferences. A preliminary assessment of the evaluations shows that the general satisfaction with the College’s activities and its learning outcomes are high. CEPOL has brought together 2 198 law enforcement officials (841 trainers and 1 997 participants) from 36 countries (EU Member States and Third Countries). The College organised 10 activities (7) in support of the network and implemented the system framework partnership agreement, thus enabling grant agreements for the 2011 Programme and onwards. No activities were postponed to the next calendar year.

2 —   External Relations

The College signed Cooperation Agreements with the Turkish National Police Institute and the Croatian police college on 7 December 2010. The College also signed revised Cooperation Agreements with the Icelandic National Police College and Norwegian Police University on 9 December 2010. Ongoing negotiations started with the Russian Federation, Georgia, Albania and Montenegro about future Cooperation Agreements. (One agreement and one memorandum of understanding).

3 —   Common Curricula

In 2010 one Common Curriculum on Money Laundering was added, to the five Common Curricula that had already been launched for implementation within the Member States: Europol, Police Ethics and Prevention of Corruption, Domestic Violence (I & II), Trafficking in Human Beings, Drug Trafficking.

4 —   Evaluation

A five-year evaluation of CEPOL’s activity was completed in 2010.

5 —   Research and Science

The network of National Research and Science Correspondents and the Research and Science Working Group supported the preparations for three dedicated research and science activities in CEPOL’s work programme:






(1)


the Annual CEPOL Police Research and Science Conference,










(2)


the Research Symposium on ‘Policing Diversity’,










(3)


the Implementation Symposium ‘Policing Major Public Events’.




Two further issues of the ‘European Police Science and Research Bulletin’ were published on the website. The report on the ‘Survey on European Police Education and Bologna’ was finalised. CEPOL contributions were presented to the ‘Stockholm Criminology Symposium’ and the Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology. The e-Library continues to grow and is used as a knowledge repository for registered e-Net users.

6 —   Euromed Police II Project

The Euromed project has achieved its operational objectives and been closed on the 30 September 2010.

7 —   Exchange Programme

The College Exchange Programme, a one-year project, started in 2009 and ended in 2010. The first exchange period took place from October until December 2009 and the second exchange period from January until March 2010. The length of an exchange for senior police officers was 12-14 calendar days and for the training staff 18-22 calendar days. 51 participants from 21 Member states took part in the first two exchange periods. The priority topics were Community Policing or Organised Crime (senior police officers) and Learning Environment (trainers). After amendment of the grant, the remaining budget was used for a third exchange period involving 88 senior police officers.

8 —   Electronic Network (e-Net)

The College’s e-Net (Electronic Network) received 102 000 unique visitors (an increase of 34 % compared to 2009) (76 000) and had 6 226 registered users at the end of 2010 (903 ). CEPOL’s LMS (Learning Management System) proved to be highly successful not only by supporting traditional CEPOL activities such as courses and seminars but by offering a platform for information sharing to the CEPOL/ISEC Exchange Programme and several Working Groups. 2010 also saw the DMS (Document Management System) become the primary source for meeting documents for all Governance groups with several groups exclusively using it for document dissemination.





Source: Information supplied by the College.







THE COLLEGE’S REPLIES






13.


To avoid the repetition of the situation described by the Court, the carry-forward of 2010 appropriations has been subjected to strict criteria to minimise cancellations in 2011. In June 2011, all open commitments were reviewed to better monitor the budget consumption and optimise the 2011 budget implementation.










14.


CEPOL has revised the process for approving cost claims and their supporting evidence. In addition, CEPOL has organised a new training course for Course Managers to further improve the controls on courses as well as the quality of the payment files.










15.


CEPOL acknowledges the comment of the Court. However, it will continue to try to recover as much as it is possible the funds not yet completely recovered.