The latest Activity Report of the EUROSAI Task Force on Municipality Audit (TFMA) covering the period from April 2019 to May 2020 and future activities has been prepared. The EUROSAI Congress was postponed to the following year and 50 EUROSAI members will meet in Prague in 2021, so this Activity Report was submitted to the EUROSAI Secretariat. We invite you to read the TFMA Activity Report about the work done in the previous period and future plans for the next one.

As an alternative to cooperative audit in 2019, the EUROSAI TFMA Secretariat initiated a new Activity 1.9.3 To publish the EUROSAI TFMA Audit Compendium which was approved by the members of the Task Force. The topic of the first edition of Audit Compendium "Municipality owned companies" was selected by all members. The main idea of the Audit Compendium is to systemise and analyse audit work which already has been done by TFMA members, in order to raise awareness of the recent audit work done by the EUROSAI TFMA countries and make the results of SAIs more widely available.

The Coordination Group consisting of SAIs of Serbia (team leader), Turkey, Ukraine and Italy share the results.

SAI of Finland has decided to step down from the Task Force due to the fact that SAI of Finland will not have a new mandate more linked to municipalities in the near future.

On behalf of all the members the Secretariat expresses a sincere thanks to our Finnish colleagues for spending time together in the Task Force as well as the experience shared.

The National Audit Office of Lithuania, Chair of EUROSAI Task Force on Municipality Audit is pleased to announce that the 4th Annual Meeting of EUROSAI TFMA and the Seminar on Municipality Audit will take place in Bečići, Montenegro on 19-20 November 2020 hosted by the State Audit Institution of Montenegro. The central topic of the Seminar will be “Municipal Real Estate Management”.

We assure you that all information related to the COVID-19 is monitored closely and if the outbreak of the virus will not be stopped by November, the event will be postponed.

For now, please save the dates in your calendars and stay tuned for further information.

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

During February 2020 a new member - the National Audit Office of Malta - joined the Task Force on Municipality Audit!

Therefore, at the moment EUROSAI TFMA unites supreme audit institutions of 28 EUROSAI countries and fosters international cooperation and exchange of experience in municipal audit field.

The SAI of Denmark has decided to step down from the Task Force due to a change in their strategy and approach to the audit of the Danish government accounts and thus also to the audit decentralized funding which made it less relevant for our colleagues to participate.

On behalf of all members of TFMA the Secretariat would like to thank our colleagues for the time spent together in the Task Force as well as the experience shared.

Within the strategic goal 1, which refers to exchanging best practices and experience in reaching quality audit results that have a substantial impact on improving public financial management, SAI of North Macedonia, carried out the activity 1.9.1 which refers to gathering and analyzing information about municipalities' financing focusing on own revenues.

Here are the results of the survey: TFMA Activity 1.9.1

The EUROSAI Task Force on Municipality Audit is proudly presenting its second Newsletter.

The second issue of the Newsletter, which covers the period April 2018 – June 2019, contains the overview of activities carried out during this period:

• TFMA events

• TFMA activities

• Articles from the members on:

The value of municipal audit for the public sector

The value of municipal audit for the providing service

Municipal audit results

• TFMA communication and cooperation

• Information from TFMA members

TFMA NEWS

Arūnas Dulkys, PhD, Auditor General of the Respublic of Lithuania and Chairman of the EUROSAI TFMA presented the activity report in the 50th EUROSAI Governing Board meeting, which took place in Jūrmala (Latvia) on 12-13 June 2019.

The Activity Report of the EUROSAI TFMA covers the period from April 2018 to May 2019.

Activity report 2018

National Audit Office of Lithuania, the Chair of EUROSAI Task Force on Municipality Audit is pleased to announce that the 3rd Annual Meeting of EUROSAI TFMA and the Seminar on Municipality Audit will take place in Portugal on 10-11 October 2019 hosted by the Portuguese Tribunal de Contas. The central topic of the Seminar will be Functions Performed by Municipalities. 

In implementing Activity 1.7.1 under the TFMA Strategic Goal I „Exchanging the best practice and experience to reach audit results that have a substantial impact on improving public financial management“ to ensure the municipality data are as accurate as possible and to encourage the secondary use of the data, representatives of SAI of Austria analysed the information collected from the EUROSAI TFMA members in the field of quality assurance and data collection.

• Short article which summarises the results of the questionnaire: TFMA Activity 1.7.1

• Link to an online tool for tailor made analysis: https://visual-intl.rechnungshof.gv.at/tfma-eurosai/

In implementing Activity 2.4. and Activity 2.5 under the TFMA Strategic goal 2 “Making the external municipal auditing system more efficient”, Overview of methodologies used in local government auditing was carried out by representatives of SAIs of Croatia, Latvia, and Romania.

• The Overview

In February 2019, a new member – the Bulgarian National Audit Office – joined the Task Force on Municipality Audit! With this new addition, now the EUROSAI TFMA unites supreme audit institutions of 28 EUROSAI countries. This wider coverage of EUROSAI will allow us to foster international cooperation and exchange of experience in municipal audit field.

The EUROSAI Task Force on Municipality Audit is proudly presenting its first Newsletter.

The first issue of the Newsletter, which covers the period April 2017-June 2018, includes:

• The overview of the conducted activities during this period;
• TFMA events;
• Activities under the TFMA Strategic Goals;
• TFMA communication in brief;
• Information and news from TFMA members.

The newsletter is an activity planned under the TFMA Strategic Goal I. It is also a result of active contribution from the TFMA members reflecting the efficient and smooth cooperation at the Task Force.

TFMA NEWS

Dr. Arūnas Dulkys, Auditor General of the Republic of Lithuania and Chairman of the EUROSAI TFMA presented the activity report in the 49th EUROSAI Governing Board meeting, which took place in Gdańsk (Poland) on 14-15 March 2018.

The Activity Report of the EUROSAI TFMA covers the period from May 2017 to March 2018 as well as future activities. Dr. Arūnas Dulkys noted that every Supreme Audit Institution exercising its functions supervises the lawfulness and effectiveness of the management of the State property and use of State funds. To continuously monitor changes in the entire public sector and integrating the best practices of municipality audit, the EUROSAI TFMA took its first steps - to create an open platform for sharing the best practice and experience in municipality audit.

Most of the planned activities of EUROSAI TFMA have started, some of them are nearing completion. Dr. Arūnas Dulkys highlighted that we are already able to see that the EUROSAI TFMA is bringing benefit to municipality audit and auditing system as a whole. Common work and joint activities at the EUROSAI TFMA are a further proof that a systematic assessment of the whole public sector may help to identify problems, their causes and formulate proposals for their solution.

During the presentation the video demonstrating results of experiment conducted at the TFMA seminar was shown. The experiment revealed that we are able to take the right decisions only when seeing the complete picture. Municipalities make a fair share of the State, and without them, we will not see the complete picture of the State.

Activity report 2017

Presentation of EUROSAI TFMA activities (including video)

EUROSAI Secretariat informed about EUROSAI Magazine Nº 23, 2017. The Magazine, besides other things, includes most important events of 2017, reports about key results achieved, and the implementation of Strategic Plan 2011-2017 as well as the new Strategic Plan for 2017-2023.

TFMA is also in the Magazine! The article about TFMA activities “Task Force on Municipality Audit: From local to global. Cooperation to bring added value for the whole local government system” can be found on pages 71-73.

The Magazine can be reached at EUROSAI webpage at http://www.eurosai.org/en/magazine/. Enjoy the reading!

Exchanging of best practices among the countries and searching for ways to get the highest added value from municipality audit are the main goals of the 1st Meeting of the EUROSAI Task Force on Municipality Audit (TFMA) held in Riga, Latvia on 5-6 October 2017. The Meeting will also focus on discussing the implementation of the 2017-2020 TFMA working programme as well as panning its activity for 2018.

“To ensure systemic changes not only at the level of self-governance but also at the national level Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) should cooperate, exchange expertise, best practices and look for new ways how municipality audits can bring higher added value to all stakeholders”, – said the Auditor General Arūnas Dulkys.

The Meeting is hosted by the State Audit Office of Latvia and organized together with the National Audit Office of Lithuania. The event is attended by 64 participants from 30 countries among which are representatives not only of TFMA member countries, but also of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions and European Organisation of Regional External Public Finance Audit Institutions (EURORAI).

Auditor General of the State Audit Office of the Republic of Latvia Elita Krūmiņa: “An audit can sometimes be a very steep learning curve for the municipality and its citizens. But mayors have even expressed their gratitude for having a look at their system from a completely unbiased position. The audit process and findings as a result have immense potential for inspiring change and improvement. I hope this event will provide space for discussion to find more ways how to connect points in legislation, circumstances, community, government, the environment etc. to give life to that potential.”

The EUROSAI Task Force on Municipality Audit was set up in June 2016. It unites SAIs from 27 EUROSAI member states. The National Audit Office of Lithuania is the initiator and the Chair of the TFMA. In its capacity as the Chair the NAOL has undertook coordination and communication of the Task Force’s activity. The TFMA proceeds the aim to contribute to the improvement of municipality audit system and the audit process in such a way that the audit results would bring positive changes to municipality residents as well as real use to each of the citizens.