WORKSHOP ON SIMPLIFICATION - HORIZONTAL ISSUES

Heber McMahonPrincipal Officer

Finance Division, Ireland

I Regulation No 907/2014 Annex I Accreditation Criteria

II Regulation No 908/2014 European Commission Audits

III Control Statistics and X-Table

IV The Table of Undue Payments

V De Minimis Threshold for Correction of Payments

VI Other Questions

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Discussed Issues in Workshop

Information systems’ security should be certified in accordance with ISO standards, delegated bodies must comply with these accreditation criteria.

Results and Conclusions:•European Commission’s guidelines/methodologies to facilitate Member States work on delegated tasks defining scope or area of assurance, transitional period or as ongoing process without specific period•Policy makers have to look after a balance between flexibility and simplification•The issue could be discussed in the certification expert group in June 2015.

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I Regulation No 907/2014 Annex I Accreditation Criteria

Member States are not aware of the European Commission’s audit concept, approach and methodology at the different levels of control. Administrative burden and financial costs for Member States.

Results and Conclusions:•More detailed agenda of audit missions.

•Published EC’s auditing guidelines/methodology.

•Reliability on Certification bodies work done, EC’s audits reduction.

•Video conference for the bilateral meetings.

•Harmonization of the calculation procedure of the error rate on the CAP expenditures.

•Final guidelines 2015 for certification bodies in national languages are requested.

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II Regulation No 908/2014European Commission Audits

The reports sent to the European Commission are complex, time consuming and voluminous. Control Statistics and X-Tables reported data overlaps, administrative burden and different time periods are applicable (financial year and calendar year).

Results and Conclusions:

•General simplification of the reports submitted to the Commission.

•Align timetable for EAFRD non-IACS statistics with the financial year

•Control statistics are resource-intensive. Overlap between X-Table and control statistics. EC should collect the information they need from the X-table and consider whether the control statistics are required from the MS. Paying Agencies should submit one report on 15 February.

•Review and if possible reduce the number of fields in the X-Table. X-Table data requirements could be reduced, for example excluding fields: F502, F503, F508A, F508B, F509A, F600, F601, F602, F603.

•Auditors can request transactional data on an ad hoc basis if necessary.

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III Control Statistics and X-Table

The reporting requirements in Regulation No 908/2014 Article 29 (f) and Annex II are complex and costly.

Results and Conclusions:•Simplify the information requested in the Annex II, e.g. V1 and V2 not necessary and should be deleted.•Adopt a risk-based approach to reporting and audit of debtors; focus on year-end balances. Debtor balance as a percentage of expenditure is small. Do not need detailed reporting of in-year movements – most debts are raised and collected within the year; focus on debts at start and end of year (c.f. pre-2005 Table 105).

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IV The Table of Undue Payments

The Regulation No 1307/2013 Article 10 contains a provision on minimum payments that require Member States to set minimum thresholds for payment of direct aid. There is no threshold for correction of payments which lead to administrative burden. The paying agencies are sometimes in a situation where the correction amount is very small.

Results and Conclusions:•MS should give consideration to setting a de minimis threshold for paying amounts due to beneficiaries.•Financial discipline – as long-term idea, change regulation to avoid repaying small amounts to beneficiaries

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V De Minimis Threshold for Correction of Payments

Introduce a specific threshold for rate of interest in Regulation No 908/2014 Article 27.

Introduce a de minimis threshold below which one would not enforce collection of interest.

Administratively costly to pursue small amounts.

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VI Other Questions

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THANK YOU FOR THE ATTENTION!