Report on the annual accounts of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control for the financial year 2010, together with the Centre's replies
Date: 2011-09-20
Institutions: European Court of Auditors
Subjects: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, administration of the Institutions, auditing, budgetary control, financial control, powers of the institutions (EU)








C_2011366EN.01012201.xml










15.12.2011   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 366/122





REPORT
on the annual accounts of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control for the financial year 2010, together with the Centre's replies
2011/C 366/22

INTRODUCTION







1.


The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (hereinafter ‘the Centre’), which is located in Stockholm, was set up by Regulation (EC) No 851/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council (1). Its main tasks are to collect and disseminate data on the prevention and control of human diseases and to provide scientific opinions on this subject. It is also required to coordinate the European network of bodies operating in this field (2).










2.


The Centre's 2010 budget amounted to 57,8 million euro, compared with 51 million euro the previous year. The number of staff employed by the Centre at the end of the year was 254, compared with 199 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 Centre, 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 Centre, 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 Centre 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 Centre'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 Centre 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.


In 2010, an amount of 15,6 million euro, equivalent to 27 % of the total budget including 50 % of the Title III — Operational expenditure, was carried forward to 2011. This high level of carry-forward, matched by a low level of accrued expenditure (5,5 million euro), is excessive and at odds with the budgetary principle of annuality.





OTHER MATTERS







14.


With regard to staff selection procedures, neither the thresholds that candidates had to meet in order to be invited to the interview nor those necessary to be put on the reserve list were fixed in advance. Written tests were not consistently taken into account when assessing candidates. These practices put at risk the transparency of the recruitment procedures.





This Report was adopted by Chamber IV, headed by Mr Igors LUDBORŽS, Member of the Court of Auditors, in Luxembourg at its meeting of 20 September 2011.


For the Court of Auditors

Vítor Manuel da SILVA CALDEIRA

President





(1)  OJ L 142, 30.4.2004, p. 1.

(2)  The Annex summarises the Centre'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 Centre.

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

(11)  The Final Annual Accounts were drawn up on 10 June 2011 and received by the Court on 28 June 2011. The Final Annual Accounts can be found on the following website: http://eca.europa.eu or http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/aboutus/Pages/AboutUs_KeyDocuments.aspx.


ANNEX

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (Stockholm)


Competences and activities








Areas of Union competence deriving from the Treaty


(Article 168 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union)



A high level of human health protection shall be ensured in the definition and implementation of all Union policies and activities.
Union action, which shall complement national policies, shall be directed towards improving public health, preventing physical and mental illness and diseases, and obviating sources of danger to physical and mental health. Such action shall cover the fight against the major health scourges, by promoting research into their causes, their transmission and their prevention, as well as health information and education, and monitoring, early warning of and combating serious cross-border threats to health.





Competences of the Centre


(Council Regulation (EC) No 851/2004)




Objectives







—


Strengthen Europe’s defences against infectious diseases; specifically, to identify, assess and communicate current and emerging threats to human health from communicable diseases.










—


Therefore the Centre shall operate dedicated surveillance networks, provide scientific opinions, operate the early warning and response system (EWRS) and provide scientific and technical assistance and training.





Tasks







—


Operate dedicated disease surveillance networks and enhance networking activities. The Centre has a specific role in data collection, validation, analysis and dissemination,










—


provide authoritative expert advice and scientific opinions and studies on communicable diseases,










—


operate the early warning and response system. Develop procedures for identifying emerging health threats,










—


strengthen Member States’ capacity in preparedness planning and in training,










—


inform the general public and interested parties of its work.









Governance




1 —   Management Board


Composition:

One member designated by each Member State, two members designated by the European Parliament and three representatives of the Commission.

Tasks:

The Board adopts the Centre’s annual programme and budget and monitors their implementation.

2 —   Director

Appointed by the Management Board on the basis of a list of candidates proposed by the Commission.

3 —   Advisory Forum


Composition:

A representative of each Member State and three non-voting representatives of the Commission.

Tasks:

The Forum is to assure the scientific excellence of the work and the independence of the activities and opinions of the Centre.

4 —   External audit

Court of Auditors.

5 —   Discharge Authority

Parliament, acting on recommendation from the Council.





Resources made available to the Centre in 2010 (2009)





Final budget

57,8 (51) million euro

Staff as at 31 December 2010

Authorised: 200 (170)

Occupied: 175 (129)

Other posts: 79 (70)

Total: 254 (199),assigned to the following duties:

Allocated to:







—


operational tasks: 169 (120)











—


administrative and support tasks: 85 (79)










Products and services in 2010 (2009)




93 (1)
(191) threats monitored using the threat tracking tool (TTT)
52 (52) weekly threat reports on communicable diseases sent to 431 recipients
Provision of support to epidemic intelligence for 5 (5) large mass-gathering events; in addition, 5 events of exceptional nature/public importance were also monitored
Preparation of 32 (25) original threat assessments and 10(6) threat updates
Conducted 3 (2) simulation exercises for testing and improving preparedness and response to communicable diseases, in addition support was given to 4 external exercises (Commission, Member States)
80 (78) fellows coached in the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET)
6 fellows coached in the European Public Health Microbiology Training (EUPHEM)
106 (2)
(346) public health experts from 30 EU-EEA countries participated in ECDC short training modules
495 000 visitors on ECDC web portal (launched in 2009) and 70 000 files downloaded
34 (3)
(43) scientific publications published
Third European Antibiotic Awareness Day organised, with the participation of 36 (34) countries
Enhanced surveillance; integration into ECDC of 11 of the 17 dedicated surveillance networks at the end of 2010
Annual Epidemiological Report published
Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and anti-microbioresistance annual reports published
38 (28) weekly influenza bulletins/weekly influenza surveillance overviews for 2010
20 (4)
(50) scientific opinions produced, based on stakeholders requests
Organisation of the fourth European Scientific Conference on Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology (Escaide) in November 2010 in Lisbon, with more than 600 (500) participants
Organisation of the second Eurovaccine conference with 600 (400) participants
Weekly publication of the Eurosurveillance scientific journal, with 12 665 online subscribers (4 300 recipients of printed copies in 2009)

1 618 ECDC related articles published across 49 countries worldwide





Source: Information supplied by the Centre.






(1)  The decrease in 2010 is partly related to a change in procedures relating to monitoring of travel-associated legionellosis clusters and partly related to the 2009 influenza pandemic, which triggered a large worldwide response.

(2)  Short-term courses were no longer a priority in 2010; money has been reallocated to long-term fellowship training programmes.

(3)  The decrease in the number of publications is due to the fact that many reports in 2009 were a direct consequence of the influenza pandemic.

(4)  The scientific opinions, based on stakeholder requests, increased in 2009 due to the influenza pandemic.



THE CENTRE’S REPLIES






13.


The Centre has reduced the carry-forward of Title III — Operational expenditure by 10 %, compared to 2009. Nevertheless, the Centre acknowledges the necessity to further reduce the rate of carry-forward as much as it is possible.










14.


The Centre has taken note of the Court’s observations and is reviewing its selection procedure to increase its transparency. It decided in 2011 as a general rule to interview the candidates with the highest number of matches against the requirements for the vacant posts; the candidates having at the interview a minimum score of 70 % will be put on the short and the reserve lists. The Centre is also reviewing its selection procedure in view to better take into account the result of the written test.