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European Parliament
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2010 discharge: EU general budget, European Data Protection Supervisor

2011/2209(DEC)

The European Parliament adopted by 552 votes 77, with 13 abstentions, a decision to grant discharge to the European Data Protection Supervisor in respect of the implementation of the budget for the financial year 2010.

In its accompanying resolution adopted by 549 votes to 70, with 20 abstentions, the European Parliament welcomes the fact that, on the basis of its audit work, the Court concludes that the payments as a whole for the year ended on 31 December 2010 for administrative and other expenditure of the Institutions and bodies were free from material error. Recalling that the Court of Auditors called on the EDPS to ask his staff to deliver at regular intervals documents proving their personal situation, Members note that in the meantime the EDPS has corrected the errors observed in connection with the Statement of Assurance for 2009 in 2010 and 2011. In addition, Parliament notes that in 2010 the EDPS had a total of EUR 7.1 million in commitment appropriations (EUR 7 million in 2009), and that the implementation rate of these appropriations was 82.73%. It stresses that the budget of the EDPS is purely administrative, the breakdown of expenditure being 65% on persons working with the institution and 35% on buildings, etc. It calls on the EDPS to draft annual budgets which correspond to his needs and implement the budget better.

Administrative and financial management of the EDPS: noting the far-reaching change made to the organisation of the staff in 2010, Parliament asks to be informed of the results of the new establishment plan and calls on the EDPS to include in his annual activity report information on the action taken on Parliament’s recommendations.

Members also note:

  • that the establishment of a secure electronic case management system constitutes progress and wish to be informed of developments in the next annual activity report;
  • that the EDPS intends to establish a system to define key performance indicators in the management plan for 2012 and a scoreboard which will make it possible to measure the service’s efforts by means of a benchmarking system; this plan will be assessed as part of the 2012 annual activity report;
  • that the annual activity report for 2011 will include a chapter on the action taken in response to Parliament’s discharge resolution;
  • that the annual activity report for 2011 will also include an exhaustive table of all the human resources at the Supervisor’s disposal, broken down by category, grade, sex, participation in professional training and nationality.

Recruitment: Parliament notes that, in its 2010 annual report, the Court of Auditors stated that while the specialised nature of the functions performed by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS)’s Office may justify the organisation of an internal competition, this policy should not be considered as the norm. Best practice is to use the services of the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO). It is satisfied that in 2009-2010 the EDPS, in close cooperation with EPSO, organised an open competition concerning data protection in order to recruit highly specialised staff.