Auditing operation No. 03/35
State Budget Funds Expended on the National Plan of Equalizing Opportunities for Citizens with Handicaps
The auditing operation was included in the Annual Audit Plan of the Supreme Audit Office (hereinafter referred to as “SAO”) for the year 2003 under No. 03/35. The auditing operation was managed and audit conclusion drawn up by Mr. Jan Kinšt, the Member of the SAO.
The aim of the audit was to examine the management of the State Budget funds earmarked for the National Plan of Equalising Opportunities for Citizens with Handicaps, the way of the supported projects selection, and their effectiveness.
The audited period covered the years 2002 and 2003.
The audited bodies were the Office of the Czech Republic Government (hereinafter referred to as “OG”), the Ministry of Health (hereinafter referred to as “MH”), the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (hereinafter referred to as “MLSA”) and selected beneficiaries.
The National Plan of Equalising Opportunities for Citizens with Handicaps, as an important conceptual document of Czech policy in relation to the handicapped, reflects the UN recommendations contained in the World Action Programme and the Standard Regulations of Equalising Opportunities for Citizens with Handicaps. Though the National Plan for Equalising Opportunities was approved by a government decree and its fulfilment is checked annually by the government, several measures of this plan are not fulfilled in the long run. These are measures of fundamental importance from the perspective of the handicapped, in many cases system or legislative measures. One of the causes of this state is the insufficient scope and efficiency of the applied measures for enforcing the fulfilment of the plan tasks.
The Report on the Fulfilment of the National Plan submitted to the government is not the result of the analyses carried out by the secretariat of the Government Committee for Handicapped Citizens; it contains the statements of the departments as to how they fulfil the measures designated for inspection for the relevant year. The method of monitoring the fulfilment of the measures of the National Plan for Equalising Opportunities is therefore more passive. The secretariat of the Government Committee does not require the departments to make a statement on the fulfilment of the measures for which the deadline has not expired yet. Thus potential problems are not revealed and they are not reacted to in time. It is not known how many resources from the State Budget are expended on the realisation of the National Plan because the secretariat of the Government Committee does not require the departments to state the amount of resources that are expended on the fulfilment of the National Plan’s measures.
The MLAS is the department with the greatest deficiencies in the fulfilment of the National Plan’s measures. This primarily concerns system measures, the non-fulfilment of which is caused by the delay of legislative work on laws on social services, comprehensive rehabilitation and employment.
The system of deciding on subsidies for the National Plan Programme financed from the MH budget chapter is not transparent, particularly in realisation of the co-financed projects.
When specifying the percentual share of the subsidy for financing a project at most of the nongovernmental non-profit organisations, the MH chose a method where the percentual share of the subsidy on financing a project mentioned in the Decision does not correspond to the actual share of the subsidy in CZK on budgetary expenses but is specified as a “maximum share of 70%.” This approach enables the beneficiary of the subsidy to attain a higher percentual share of the subsidy than the actual share of the subsidy on budgeted expenses amounts to, to an amount of 70%, while lowering project expenses against those budgeted. The subsidy beneficiary may thus be motivated to overestimate the budgeted expenses of a project. The MH has not tended to this risk since it does not monitor the actual total expenses of subsidised projects and does not compare them to the budgeted expenses. The MH’s approach also has a negative impact on the resources of the State Budget since when decreasing project expenses in comparison with those budgeted the beneficiary only returns that part of the subsidy that exceeds 70% of the true total expenses and not the part exceeding the true share of the subsidy in CZK on the budget of the project, which would be much higher.
According to the opinion of the SAO the share of the state subsidy for the project financing should be specified as fixed, as it is common for financing of other projects with the state participation in the Czech Republic and in the European Union. The level of the subsidy share should reflect the quality of the project and its social benefit.
The MH has also supported projects from the National Plan Programme that should have been financed from other resources of its chapter, thus decreasing the volume of this Programme’s available funds.
As a result of the insufficient final reports on the implementation of a project, the low number of inspections they carried out and the fact that the examination of the clients’ satisfaction with the subsidised services provided within the National Plan for Equalising Opportunities is not carried out (or they do not request it to be carried out), the MH does not have the necessary feedback in relation to the subsidised projects. Thus the monitoring of the effectiveness of the projects and therefore the allocation of the subsidy funds in favour of the most effective projects are not ensured.