15.12.2012   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 388/8

1.

The Office of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), hereinafter "the Office", which is located in Riga, was established by Regulation (EC) No 1211/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council (1). The Office’s task is, under guidance of the Board of Regulators, to collect and analyse information on electronic communications and to disseminate among National Regulatory Authorities regulatory best practices such as common approaches, methodologies or guidelines on the implementation of the EU regulatory framework (2).

2.

The Commission granted financial autonomy to the Office on 12 September 2011. Therefore the audited period for the financial year 2011 runs from 12 September to 31 December 2011.

3.

The audit approach taken by the Court comprises analytical audit procedures, direct testing of transactions and an assessment of key controls of the Office’s supervisory and control systems. This is supplemented by evidence provided by the work of other auditors (where relevant) and an analysis of management representations.

4.

Pursuant to the provisions of Article 287 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Court has audited the annual accounts (3) of the Office, which comprise the “financial statements” (4) and the “reports on the implementation of the budget” (5) for the financial year ended 31 December 2011, and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying those accounts.

5.

As authorising officer, the Director implements the revenue and expenditure of the budget in accordance with the financial rules of the Office, under his own responsibility and within the limits of the authorised appropriations (6). The Director is responsible for putting in place (7) the organisational structure and the internal management and control systems and procedures relevant for drawing up final accounts (8) that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and for ensuring that the transactions underlying those accounts are legal and regular.

6.

The Court’s responsibility is to provide, on the basis of its audit, the European Parliament and the Council (9) with a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the annual accounts of the Office and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them.

7.

The Court conducted its audit in accordance with the IFAC International Standards on Auditing and Codes of Ethics and the INTOSAI International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions. These standards require that the Court plans and performs the audit to obtain reasonable assurance as to whether the annual accounts of the Office are free of material misstatement and the transactions underlying them are legal and regular.

8.

An audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the accounts and the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying them. The procedures are selected based on the auditor’s judgment, including an assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the accounts and of material non-compliance of the underlying transactions with the requirement of the legal framework of the European Union, whether due to fraud or error. In assessing those risks, the auditor considers internal controls relevant to the preparation and fair presentation of the accounts and supervisory and control systems implemented to ensure legality and regularity of underlying transactions, in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances. An audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and reasonableness of accounting estimates made, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the accounts.

9.

The Court considers that the audit evidence obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for the opinions set out below.

10.

In the Court’s opinion, the Office’s Annual Accounts (10) present fairly, in all material respects, its financial position as of 31 December 2011 and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year then ended, in accordance with the provisions of its Financial Regulation and the accounting rules adopted by the Commission’s accounting officer (11).

11.

In the Court’s opinion, the transactions underlying the annual accounts of the Office for the financial year ended 31 December 2011 are legal and regular in all material respects.

12.

The comments which follow do not call the Court’s opinions into question.

13.

The Office’s 2011 budget adopted by the Management Committee disclosed appropriations by Titles and Chapters only and was not subdivided into articles and items. This situation is at odds with the principle of specification.

14.

The Court identified 21 cases with a total value of 94 120 euro in which appropriations carried over to 2012 did not correspond to legal commitments. These carryovers were therefore irregular.

15.

The Office had not yet adopted and implemented all the internal control standards. Notably, no central register of invoices and no register of exceptions was introduced.

16.

The Office needs to improve the transparency of recruitment procedures. Questions for oral and written tests were not set before the applications were examined by the selection board, there was no decision of the Appointing Authority to appoint the selection board and the grade of the members of the selection board was not indicated.