Having long decided to organise this year’s customary joint annual conference between the European Court of Auditors (ECA) and the Malta National Audit Office we then moved on to find a thematic subject. It took us little time to settle for Responding to COVID-19: the Audit Perspective.
Nothing could be more topical than that from our angle. Particularly having also agreed to convey through such an event the key message that it is through resilience and agility that we can best respond to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As ECA we made the point that the new normal might usually set in following a crisis but that, with COVID-19, the real game changer in working methods happened the moment the pandemic itself broke out.
When adapting to our new modus operandi – that of working for some time completely remotely – we had various challenges ahead to meet and address. That of doing our utmost to keep our annual work programme on track without deviating from the key parameters of our 2018-2020 strategy.
At the same time, we had to finalise our work on the draft of our new five-year strategy. With the COVID-19 pandemic evidently constituting a double crisis for the EU and its citizens, work immediately began on revising our work programme, to shift the focus of our efforts towards COVID-19 related aspects, foremost of which was the adjustment of the scope, approach and timing of a number of ongoing tasks.
Within weeks, as external auditors of the EU we also added two new reviews to the programme: one on the EU’s contribution to public health and another on its economic policy response to the coronavirus pandemic.
We had one primary aim in mind: that of contributing to public discussion on how the EU and its member states have dealt with the effects of the pandemic. In addition, this was meant to contribute to the lessons-learned exercise and the debate on the role of the EU and its bodies during this and any future crises.
We did all this when conscious of the fact that both the European Commission and other EU and national bodies responsible for implementing EU policies and programmes were still operating in crisis mode.
We were all the time conscious that all European institutions simply had to build on past efforts to further improve the EU’s financial management and ensure that the union delivers.
This new game changing scenario calls for us all to think of ecosystems - how all the parts fit together, rather than as separate units- Leo Brincat
Among other initiatives, we set up a hybrid format of meetings, where some EU members were physically present on a voluntary basis while others were present online.
This flexibility was introduced without reneging on our effective public audit service in the EU by delivering timely audit reports, opinions and reviews. Their publication was resumed since as early as mid-April 2020.
Among our deliberations, we gauged how would the new commission’s proposal for a recovery instrument and the new multi-annual financial framework – MFF – 2021-2027 impact on us and our work as the EU’s external auditor.
The Next Generation EU proposal was analysed at our end in much depth. Particularly since the NGEU significantly alters the proportions in EU revenue and expenditure audited by us. One overriding pressing need was and remains that of reconsidering accountability and audit arrangements across all types of financial support at an EU level.
In the light of the increased relevance of our audits on budgetary management and reliability of the accounts, we felt the need to rethink our performance approach in regard to measuring performance and achieving the EU policy objectives.
In recent weeks, we were asked by the commission to issue various opinions concerning a set of proposals for regulations of the European parliament and of the council.
On my part, I was reporting member of a similar proposal on amending the EU’s union civil protection mechanism (UCPM) after the council had invited the commission to make proposals to establish “a more ambitious and wide ranging crisis management system” in the EU. The overall aim of this legislative proposal is to ensure that the EU can provide its citizens in Europe and beyond with better crisis management and emergency support.
These insights highlight the importance that all those engaged in public audit must, under such extraordinary circumstances, accelerate their own best practices around collaboration, flexibility, inclusion and accountability.
Arguably the biggest challenge for all of us was to lock in practices that speed up decision making and execution during the crisis itself. Logic dictated and actually showed that those who moved earliest, faster and more decisively were predestined to do best.
This new game changing scenario calls for us all to think of ecosystems – that is, how all the parts fit together, rather than as separate units.
If I had to pick on two words that came so much to the fore during the corona crisis, these were ‘agility’, which I have just touched upon, and ‘resilience’.
These must be core management and financial priorities for us all.
If the crisis itself that is still raging unabated set us thinking about the new normal when it first started, we must, as of now, start imagining our work as it should be in the next normal.
This explains why foresight and future proofing are today topical more than ever.
I cannot but agree more with the European Commission’s vice president, Maroš Šefčovič, who is responsible for foresight, when he recently stated that, although he does not have a crystal ball to predict the future, what we can do is to be much better in permanent horizon scanning, in better understanding megatrends and how they affect our work and to develop scenarios on what we need to do now to get to the preferred future.
Information on its own and new challenges might be inclined to overwhelm us. That is, unless we are better prepared. And resilient!
Leo Brincat is a member of the European Court of Auditors.