With the new Programming Period 2014-2020 a number of changes have been introduced that are aimed to simplify procedures and to increase efficiency and effectiveness. According to the IISAI Guidelines performance audit is an independent examination of the efficiency and effectiveness of government undertakings, programmes or organisations, with due regard to economy, aiming to achieve improvements. This requires a stronger focus for managing and audit authorities to adapt their strategies accordingly.
The EU budget is complex and audits are implemented to check that accounting processes work properly and the resulting accounting data are complete, correctly recorded and properly presented.
Performance audit plays a significant role in evaluating performance and management, and gives recommendations on how to improve the EU budget’s potential by reducing errors, paying correct claims more quickly, investing in projects and measuring the returns on those investments to ensure they deliver and add value.

We will discuss the following topics during the workshop:

• Regulatory framework and management systems
• Changes between the 2007-13 and 2014-20 programming periods
• Guidelines from the European Commission
• Requirements for financial, compliance and performance audits
• Different roles and responsibilities in performance audit
• Evaluation, ex-post evaluation of ESIF programmes and projects
• Evaluations by Commission vs Member States’ authorities
• Performance audit from the view of European Court of Auditors
• Performance audit in practice
  • Case study
  • Group work
• A 'real life' performance audit

By the end of the workshop participants will have gained a detailed understanding of the aim of performance audit and will be able to identify and implement the steps and tools of performance audit.