Joint report on the results of the coordinated parallel audit on protection of the Black Sea against pollution

Report ID: 268

The initiative of conducting the Coordinated Parallel Audit on Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution was introduced by the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine during the XII INTOSAI Working Group on Environmental Auditing meeting, that was held on January 25-29, 2009 in Doha, State of Qatar.

In May 2010, the SAIs of  Republic of Turkey, Republic of Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russian Federation and Georgia decided to carry out a coordinated audit of Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution.

The audit objective was to assess the implementation of commitments resulting from international agreements and collaborative projects on prevention of disasters and catastrophes and pollution of the Black Sea marine environment as well as to monitor and assess the efficiency while utilizing the public funds allocated to this end.

According to the report the cooperation was based on the rules contained in the official publication by the INTOSAI WGEA titled “Cooperation between SAIs, Tips & Examples for Cooperative Audits”, approved in 2007 at the INTOSAI WGEA Meeting.

Source: 

https://rp.gov.ua/upload-files/IntCooperation/IntAudits/31-12-2011%2010-0000/BlackSeaAudit.pdf

Joint Final Report on II Audit of Implementation of Provisions of the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area ( The Helsinki Convention) Pollution fron Ships in the Baltic Sea

Report ID: 273

In 2000, the SAIs of Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russian and Sweden conducted a parallel audit of implementation of article 6 of the Helsinki Convention concerning pollution from land-based sources.

 2004, a second audit was  promoted by EUROSAI WGEA. and conducted by the Supreme Audit Institutions of  Denmark (coordinator), Estonia, Finland, The German Federal Court of Audit, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and the Russian Federation on preparedness to combat pollution from ships in the Baltic Sea.

The audit was aimed to assess whether the national authorities in the respective countries comply with the provisions of the Helsinki Conventions (articles 8, 13, 14,16 )  and it was performed as a performance and compliance audit.

Source: https://www.riigikontroll.ee/LinkClick.aspx? fileticket=coXnP9jDQso%3D&tabid=220&mid=617&language=ru-RU

Joint Study Main characteristics, findings, messages of the coordinated audit of the Graduates’ Career Tracking Systems

Report ID: 278

In 2015, as one of the subprojects of the Network on Europe 2020 Strategy Audit, the State Audit Office of Hungary (as coordinator), the Bulgarian National Audit Office and the Romanian Court of Accounts decided to carry out a coordinated audit to allow for better use of shared knowledge for competitiveness – revealing the good practices of graduate career tracking systems. 

The objective of the audit was to reveal good practices of career tracking systems, with special regard to tracking the careers of graduates employed in another Member State.

The cooperative audit was a performance audit focusing on effectiveness. The Romanian Court of Accounts also focused on efficiency in its country-specific audit. The State Audit Office of Hungary, besides carrying out the audit, performed an analysis as well.

The final product of the cooperative audit was a joint study with four conclusions and messages supported by the experiences and audit findings of all three SAIs; as well as three good practices that the participating SAIs collected over the course of the audits and which they would like to draw to the attention of other countries.

In addition, all three SAIs have summarized the main characteristics and findings of their national audits with special regard to those which may provide useful lessons for other Member States in developing graduate career tracking systems.

Source: https://www.aszhirportal.hu/en/international-relations/international-experience-about-graduates-career-tracking

Cooperation between the Republic of Slovenia and the Russian Federation in the field of culture, science and education

Report ID: 287

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of their Governments in meeting the objectives set in the Agreements in the Field of Culture, Science and Education, in the period from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2019, the Court of Audit of Slovenia and the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, conducted a parallel audit.

The audit objective was to express an opinion on the effectiveness of the auditees, namely the Government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport, in meeting the objectives set in the Agreement on cooperation and the Agreement on centres (audit field). In order to be able to express the opinion, the key audit question was posed, whether the objectives set in the Agreement on cooperation and the Agreement on centres were met. The answer to the key audit question was given by answering the following sub-questions: ·

• Was planning and monitoring of cooperation in the field of culture, science and education appropriate?
• Were objectives set in Agreements and defined in programmes pertaining to the field of culture met?
• Were objectives set in Agreements and defined in programmes pertaining to the field of science and education met.

Source: http://www.rs-rs.si/en/audits-auditing/audit-archive/audit/cooperation-between-the-republic-of-slovenia-and-the-russian-federation-in-the-field-of-culture-sci/

Parallel audit on Contribution of the Structural Funds to the Europe 2020 Strategy in the areas of Employment and/or Education

Report ID: 288

In 2015, the Contact Committee of the heads of the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of the Member States of the European Union and the European Court of Auditors mandated the Working Group on Structural Funds to continue its review of issues relating to Structural Funds, more specifically, to carry out a parallel audit on the ‘Contribution of Structural Funds to the Europe 2020 Strategy in the areas of education and employment’.

A parallel audit was carried out by the SAIs of the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, and the Slovak Republic. The European Court of Auditors and the SAI of Bulgaria acted as observers. The Core Group was chaired by the German SAI, with Malta and the Netherlands as members.  

The parallel audit was carried out in order to examine whether the Structural Funds’ Operational Programmes (OPs) provide the necessary framework to meet the goals of the Europe 2020 Strategy and whether funding contributes to these goals. It focused on the audited OPs identified by the participating SAIs, as well as a selection of approved projects that were directly related to education and employment. The comparison of the national results was intended to establish similarities or differences across the Member States, as well as to identify good practice examples.

In conclusion, the participating SAIs concur that OPs provide the necessary basis to support the achievement of Europe 2020 Headline Targets in the areas of employment and education. However, at this point it is too early to confirm that the implementation of OPs in projects effectively contributes to these goals as expected. 

Source: https://www.bundesrechnungshof.de/en/veroeffentlichungen/products/sonderberichte/pdf-ab-2015/2017-special-report-parallel-audit-on-contribution-of-the-structural-funds-to-the-europe-2020-strategy-in-the-areas-of-employment-and-or-education-pdf