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Report on parallel audit on the processes of identifying reporting and following-up on irregularities
Report ID: 69

In total the 2000-2006 Structural Funds programme involved an expenditure of 141,5 billion Euro (without Community initiatives, innovative measures and technical assistance) to the nine Member States whose SAIs carried out the parallel audit.

The significance of the value of Structural Funds to all Member States prompted the Contact Committee in 2000 to establish a Working Group to carry out an exploratory survey of EU structural funds. A questionnaire was sent to the SAIs to gain an understanding of how these funds were controlled and managed by the various countries and to identify possible risk areas. Work was planned to coincide with the 2000-2006 funding cycle and revision of the regulations covering the funds.

The Working Group reported its findings from this work to the Contact Committee in November 2002 and recommended to conduct  a parallel audit aimed to identify parts of the controls that need to be improved, and provide an overview of best practice. It was determined that the best way to achieve this was to focus the parallel audit on the application of the regulations, to ensure that all Member States establish appropriate audit trails for transactions and implement independent checks on 5% of transactions. The results of the audit would be used not only for the Member States, but also for the new Member States.

Each SAI produced a Country Report which has been consolidated to provide an overall conclusion, identify good practice, weaknesses and recommendations arising from the work. Issues raised byindividual SAIs are annotated under each Objective where appropriate. The Working Group have then produced the combined report summarising the key findings and recommendations from those Country.

The audit approach was enhanced through the participation of the European Court of Auditors (ECA), in particular, towards the end of the report drafting process the ECA benchmarked the draft report findings and recommendations against those reported by the ECA. The report contains recommendations for  audit trails and 5% checks as well as for  future parallel audits.

Source: https://www.eca.europa.eu/sites/cc/Lists/CCDocuments/1959819/1959819_EN.PDF