2015 discharge: EU general budget, European Ombudsman

The European Parliament decided to grant discharge to the European Ombudsman in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Ombudsman for the financial year 2015.

In its resolution accompanying the decision on discharge, adopted by 529 votes to 91 with 12 abstentions, Parliament welcomed the fact that the Court of Auditors observed that no significant weaknesses had been identified in respect of the audited topics relating to human resources and procurement for the Ombudsman. 

The payments as a whole for the year ended on 31 December 2015 for administrative expenditure were free from material error.

Financial and budgetary management: the Ombudsman’s budget amounted in 2015 to EUR 10 346 105 (EUR 9 857 002 in 2014). The total appropriations, 92.32 % were committed (compared to 97.87 % in 2014) and 86.19 % paid (compared to 93.96 % in 2014).

The utilisation rate continued to decrease in 2015. The lowering of the utilisation rate in 2015 influenced the Ombudsman’s decision to reduce several budget lines, namely, those for missions, representation expenses and publications, and translations.

Ombudsman’s actions: Members welcomed the efficient implementation of the annual management plan in 2015 within the strategy towards 2019. The large majority of the targets settled by the Ombudsman to assess its performance through key performance indicators were reached.

Members made a series of observations and recommendations on the management of the Ombudsman:

• extend the scope of the concept of performance-based budgeting (PBB) in its daily activities: this concept should not apply only to the Ombudsman’s budget as a whole but should also include the setting of specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based (SMART) targets to individual departments, units and staffs’ annual plans;
• improve the transparency of recruitment conditions and processes;
• ensure that an updated version of its organisational chart is available on its website;
• analyse the situation and to work out rules in order to avoid conflicts of interests if it considers it to be necessary;
• monitor the implementation of internal rules for the protection of whistleblowers on an ongoing basis and to evaluate whether they provide appropriate protection for Parliament’s accredited parliamentary assistants;
• inform the discharge authority regularly about the impact of its inquiries;
• interpret maladministration as widely as possible when performing its duties and to develop closer cooperation with Parliament’s Committee on budgetary control in its strategic work.

As regards the handling of complaints, Parliament welcomed the fact that the Union institutions complied with the Ombudsman's proposals at a rate of 90 %. The Ombudsman is called upon to provide a breakdown of compliance of the Union institutions with its proposals in its annual activity reports.

While welcoming the fact that gender balance was achieved at management level in 2015, Members called on the Ombudsman to correct the geographic imbalance at middle and senior management level, and, in particular, the overrepresentation of managers emanating from the Member State of which the Ombudsman is a national.

Lastly, Members welcomed the provision of exhaustive information on all the human resources at the Ombudsman’s disposal, broken down according to grade, sex and nationality. That information be automatically included in the Ombudsman’s annual activity report.