2008 discharge: Community Fisheries Control Agency CFCA

The Committee on Budgetary Control adopted the report by Véronique MATHIEU (EPP, FR) on discharge to be granted to the Community Fisheries Control Agency, calling on the European Parliament to grant the Executive Director of the Community Fisheries Control Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of its budget for the financial year 2008.

Noting that the Agency’s annual accounts for the financial year 2008 are reliable, and the underlying transactions are legal and regular, MEPs approve the closure of the Agency’s accounts. However, they make a number of recommendations that need to be taken into account when the discharge is granted, in addition to the general recommendations that appear in the draft resolution on financial management and control of EU agencies (see 2010/2007(INI):

• performance: Members underline the importance of drawing up a multiannual work programme so that the Agency can make effective organisational arrangements to implement its strategy and achieve its goals. They also call on the Agency to consider making a Gantt diagram part of the programming for each of its operational activities, with a view to indicating in concise form the amount of time spent by each staff member on a project and encouraging an approach geared towards achieving results;
• budgetary and financial management: Members draw attention to the need for the Agency to remedy the shortcomings in the programming of its activities so that in future the procedures for drafting the budget are sufficiently rigorous and obviate any need to increase and/or decrease the appropriations against its budget headings. They also welcome the fact that the Agency has undertaken to improve its budgetary planning and monitoring and, consequently, to reduce the number of budgetary modifications required;
• internal audit: Members acknowledge that the Internal Audit Service (IAS) has identified 15 recommendations for the Agency, nine of which have been rated as 'very important' and call for the development a set of indicators covering all activities of the Agency and its internal organisation;
• human resources: Members note that, in 2008, the rate of recruitment was so much faster than originally planned that the volume of appropriations required to pay salaries was underestimated by more than 35% (roughly EUR 1 300 000). They, therefore, call on the Agency to improve the monitoring of the implementation of its budget.