SAO to host the EUROSAI Training Event
Press Release – November 10, 2008
With the financial support from the EUROSAI, the Supreme Audit Office (SAO) has organized an international seminar entitled Auditing of Social Security Systems, which will be held in the Angelo Hotel in Prague from November 10 to 12, 2008. Among the topics to be discussed during the event are following: the European Social Fund, Fraud and Abuse in Social Security Systems, and Social Services Support. Main presentations are to be given in the mornings while in the afternoons, the participants will be divided into three working groups to discuss the chosen topics.
80 representatives from 32 supreme audit institutions (SAI), the European Court of Auditors (ECA), and from the European Commission (EC) have accepted the invitation to the seminar, including Anthony Mifsud, Auditor General of the SAI of Malta, Kevin Brady, Auditor General of the SAI of New Zealand, and Sylvain Ricard, Assistant Auditor General of the Canadian SAI. Representatives from the University of Economy and from the Czech National Disability Council (CNDC) will be among the participants from the Czech Republic.
Presentations concerning the European Social Fund will be given on the first day of the seminar by representatives from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the Czech Republic (MLSA), the ECA, and from the SAO. Other experience will be shared by the participants from the SAI of Malta, Denmark, Slovakia, the Netherlands, and from the ECA.
The second part of the seminar will focus on analyzing the risks, enlarging the internal auditing systems, and rising the transparency of the resources’ distribution to reduce the abuse and fraud of the social security systems. At the beginning of this part of the seminar, representatives from the SAI of New Zealand and Canada are to present their experience and the SAI of Latvia, Turkey, France, and Great Britain will follow.
The third topic, which focused on supporting of the social services, will take heed of state budget funds spent on ensuring the social support services within the fields of families, the elderly, and the disabled. Demographic processes in the Czech Republic will be also spoken of. Representatives from the EC, the MLSA, the University of Economy, and the CNDC will exchange experience with auditors from the SAI of Bulgaria, Macedonia, Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, France, Lithuania, Slovenia, Finland, and the Czech Republic.
The SAO performed an audit focused on the family support in 2008 (audit No. 08/34 – State budget funds earmarked for the family bonuses). Till the end of 2008, the audit operation No. 08/06 – Financial resources from the Operational Programme Human Resources and Employment earmarked for the active policy is being performed focusing on the drawings from the European Social Fund.
Radka Burketová
Press Speaker
Supreme Audit Office