EUROSAI WGEA COOPERATIVE AUDIT ON AIR QUALITY

Report ID: 251

With the aim to assess whether the governments of 16 european countries were taking proper action on air quality, the SAIs of the European Court of Auditors, Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the Netherlands conducted a cooperative audit.

In order to collect and assess comparable information on national government actions, the 15 SAIs
prepared a common audit framework containing the main audit question, the audit topics and the corresponding secondary questions to be addressed by the national audits. The main audit question was: “What is known about the effectiveness and efficiency of measures taken by national and local governments to improve air quality, and are these measures compliant with international and national legislation?”

Two of the main audit findings were that many European countries are failing to comply with international and European standards on air quality. Moreover, many governments have failed to take effective  action to improve air quality and hence to protect their citizens’ health.

Implementation of the Rail Baltica Project Cooperative Audit

Report ID: 252

In 2014, the governments of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania established the Rail Baltica joint venture—an equally-shared endeavor ratified in a 2017 intergovernmental agreement. Rail Baltica, to be delivered by 2026, is the largest railway infrastructure project in the region and aims to integrate the Baltic States with the European railway network.

In 2016, the SAIs of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania signed a Memorandum of Understanding to monitor the development and implementation of this unique and unprecedented project.

The audit focused on project governance, internal control system operations, as well as long term financial resource availability. Because the audit was based on a forward-looking approach, the audit team looked to analyze particular conditions, such as assuring an effective, economic procurement and contract management framework was established, functioning and able to address any deficiencies found during the audit.

Fieldwork began in 2018, and the audit team, consisting of at least two auditors from each SAI, examined the audit questions and criteria and agreed on main conclusions, which became the audit report’s basis. A steering committee (one representative per SAI) was instituted to decide on any significant issues arising during the audit.

Each SAI separately performed a quality control check at the audit’s end but jointly drafted the final report, which was electronically signed by all Auditors General and simultaneously published in all three Baltic States.

The joint audit led to recommendations that will improve the Rail Baltica project’s governance, operations and financial planning, and the SAIs of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania will continue the already established cooperation to jointly monitor audit recommendation implementation.

Source: https://www.eurosai.org/en/databases/audits/Implementation-of-the-Rail-Baltica-project/

Making it easier to start a business - A report on public sector digitalisation by the SAIs of the Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden

Report ID: 264

The co-operation on carrying out a parallel audit on public sector digitalisation was decided by the Auditor Generals of the SAIs of the Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden at the Nordic Supreme Audit Institutions’ meeting in August 2017.

Between 2018 - 2019, the  participating SAIs conducted parallel audits on government agencies’ initiatives for simplifying the process of starting a business using digital tools. The co-operating SAIs wished to highlight an important area for public sector digitalisation. Starting a business was chosen as an audit topic, with focus on the process of starting a restaurant. Simplifying the process of starting a new business using digital tools is an objective in all participating countries, as efficient processes are beneficial for both entrepreneurs and the public sector.

The report presents the findings from the five national audits carried out during 2018–2019, are presented and discussed. The report contains general observations and conclusions but no joint recommendations. The SAIs followed an agreed audit approach, including the same audit questions, audit criteria, methodology and approach, while allowing for a certain flexibility to take national considerations into account in the separate national audits.

Source: https://www.riksrevisjonen.no/globalassets/reports/en-2019-2020/joint-report_start-business.pdf

Report on the Coordinated Audit carried out by NKÚ and BRH on VAT under the mini one-stop shop scheme

Report ID: 283

For many years already, the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of the Czech Republic  and the Federal Republic of Germany have successfully cooperated in the field of VAT and have also carried out two coordinated audits.

The two SAIs decided to address the topic of e-commerce and VAT for the first time,
 taking up current economic developments and carried out a cooperative audit.

The audit subject was the taxation of digital services supplied by EU companies to private
consumers in the European Union. The audit covered the period from 1 January 2015 to 30 June 2017.

The audit objective was to study
• how the tax authorities of the two countries have complied with their EU obligation to
implement MOSS;
• emerging difficulties in implementation; and
• the extent to which the MOSS system is suitable for ensuring VAT revenue collection.
Both SAIs summarised their findings in national reports and jointly drafted the jpint report on that basis.

SOURCE: https://www.nku.cz/assets/publications-documents/other-publications/joint-report-vat-under-moss-scheme-2019-en.pdf

Collaborative Climate Change Audit Project: Process Chronicle and Lessons Learned

Report ID: 294

In order to assess the progress their governments have made on climate change action, from 2015 to 2018, the Auditors General of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan,   partnered with the federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development and the Office of the Auditor General of Canada (Canada, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon), which carried out audit work for the three territories in its role as independent auditor for Canada’s northern legislatures.

This was the first time that so many legislative audit offices in Canada coordinated their work in this way. A project working group was formed in November 2015, consisting of auditors from participating audit offices. Their work culminated in the summary report tabled in Parliament in March 2018 called Perspectives on Climate Change Action in Canada: A Collaborative Report from Auditors General (Available at  https://intosai-cooperativeaudits.org/report/perspectives-con-climate-change-action-in-canada-a-collaborative-report-from-the-auditors-general).

The project team wrote a final report to document the process they used in the collaborative audit in order to assist those planning this kind of work in the future in Canada and elsewhere to assess issues of mutual interest and importance. The Lessons Learned report is divided in three parts.

• The first part chronicles the process developed and used to plan, conduct, report, and communicate during the project.
• The second part summarizes our efforts to identify lessons learned.
• The third part reflects on the above and provides some key perspectives from the Project Manager that could assist others doing similar work in the future.

In the planning of the audits, the report refers that, among others, the following model of cooperative audits were considered:

• The International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) Working Group on Environmental Auditing (WGEA) Coordinated Audit on Climate Change 2010.
• The INTOSAI WGEA document Cooperation Between Supreme Audit Institutions: Tips and Examples for Cooperative Audits, 2007.

Source: https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/oth_201905_e_43380.html