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European Parliament
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2010 discharge: EU general budget, European Ombudsman

2011/2208(DEC)

The European Parliament adopted by 562 votes to 73, with 5 abstentions, a decision to grant discharge to the European Ombudsman for budget implementation in the financial year 2010.

In its accompanying resolution, adopted by 562 votes to 66, with 12 abstentions, the European Parliament welcomes that in 2010 annual report the Court of Auditors states that it ‘has no observation to make on the European Ombudsman’. It points out, nonetheless, that the Court of Auditors had asked the European Ombudsman (the Ombudsman) to draft provisions on the procedures for recruitment of temporary staff. The Ombudsman considers that the Court of Auditors should have notified it of the outcome.

Parliament also notes that in 2010 the Ombudsman had available a total of EUR 9 332 275 in commitment appropriations (as against EUR 9 million in 2009) and that the utilisation rate for those appropriations was 89.65%, which was below the average for the other institutions due mainly to a fluctuation in staff numbers. They stress that the Ombudsman has a purely administrative budget, 79% of which is accounted for by expenditure relating to persons working with the institution, 15% by buildings, furniture, equipment and miscellaneous operating expenditure, and 6% by expenditure resulting from general functions carried out by the institution.

  • Administrative and financial management of the Ombudsman: Parliament calls for better financial planning ensuring more efficient budget implementation. It welcomes the audit carried out by the Internal Audit Service in 2010, which took account of observations made in 2009 and concluded that, subject to implementation of the agreed measures, the management and control system is effective. Members call for the annual report on the European Ombudsman’s activities in 2011 to contain a section on any action taken on Parliament’s discharge resolution, together with a comprehensive table of all the human resources available to the Ombudsman.
  • Performance: Parliament welcomes the fact that the Ombudsman included key performance indicators in the 2010 action plan, together with a scoreboard, thus enabling performance to be measured using a benchmarking system. However, it calls for: (i) the number and proportion of cases in which decisions on admissibility are taken within one month to be further increased (the current proportion is 66 %); (ii) the number and proportion of inquiries that are completed within less than 12 months to continue to increase.