2007 discharge: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control ECDC

PURPOSE: to present the report of the Court of Auditors on the 2007 accounts of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

CONTENT: the Court of Auditor’s report includes a detailed section on the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s expenditure and an analysis of the expenditure, as well as the Centre’s replies.

• Analysis of the accounts by the Court: in its report, the Court makes a number of observations, particularly with regard to the implementation of the Centre’s budget. The budget increase is mainly due to the development of the Centre’s activities in 2007. However, EUR 12 million of the commitment appropriations were carried over as a result of difficulties in implementing the 2007 activities. Moreover, the level of budget amendments reveals weaknesses in the monitoring of the implementation of the budget. The Court notes that his situation was at odds with the principles of annuality and specification. The Court also notes that no exhaustive physical inventory of fixed assets has been made since the Centre was set up. Lastly, the Court notes that the Centre disbursed EUR 500 000 on various renovation works on the building rented for its premises. As in 2006, these works were decided by direct agreement between the Centre and the owner without specifying the nature of the works to be done as well as deadlines and payment conditions. The Court considers that this situation did not comply with the Financial Regulation and was at odds with the principle of economy;
• The Agency’s replies: the Centre notes that it is still in a growth phase, which makes it more challenging to have high payment execution rates. Nevertheless, the management has already increased the payment execution, and has put forward as an objective to approach 70% of payment execution by 2010. Moreover, the Centre notes that it is committed to further improving its monitoring on the basis of acquired experience in order to reduce further the volume of transfers. The Centre also points out that a new asset inventory system has been developed and is expected to be functional at the end of 2008. Lastly, the Centre is currently concluding a framework agreement specifying the conditions for specific works that are to be carried out.