Audit of the Government, Government-guaranteed and Municipal Debt Management Information Systems in the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Bulgaria
The main audit question studied during the audit was: Are the government, government-guaranteed (SDMS) and municipal debt management information systems (CMDR) at the Ministry of Finance effective ... ? The audit covered the period from 01.01.2013 to 31.12.2013 and investigated four major areas: IT system strategy and general management; IT security and controls against disasters; Operational controls ... and Documentation; Application Controls. ... ... Even effective and modern IT systems require improvements and updates to ensure their security and accountability ... For the management of the government, government-guaranteed and municipal debt the Ministry of Finance has established an advanced integrated information infrastructure. According to Bulgarian SAI ... the established system is effective and provides updated, complete and correct information. Nevertheless the audit report points out areas of security, application controls as well as documentation as the subjects ... that need further improvement and optimization.
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Submission of data to national databases in municipalities, towns and cities
must be clearly financed from the state budget. It was also assessed whether the measures taken by database managers have been sufficient to guarantee that local authorities submit all required data ... The National Audit Office analysed the activities of the database managers following a ruling made by the Supreme Court in 2010, which stated that the public functions assigned to local authorities ... and that these data are correct. ... ... Funds as basic factor of data processing ... The NAO of Estonia audited the activities of state agencies in the management of the database selected for the audit, to which local authorities are obliged to submit data. It was found that in most ... cases the state does not compensate the costs of data submission for local governments.
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Report to on the user-friendliness and user involvement in the development of e-government services in Denmark
e-government services: - NemID (EasyID – the Danish public sector common digital signature solution), The Danish Agency for Digitisation (the Ministry of Finance); - TastSelv Borger (E-tax self-service ... The e-government user-friendliness requirements are divided into five overall categories: language, design and flow, data and functionality, and accessibility. 1) The objective of the study ... is to provide an assessment of the authorities’ efforts to ensure that e-government services are user-friendly. The report answers the following questions: - Have the authorities involved the users ... ... User-friendliness of public services should be consistenty required and tested ... The Danish Rigsrevisionen is of the opinion that the user-friendliness of the services can be improved if the authorities meet all the requirements of the Danish Agency for Digitisation concerning ... the matter. The audit covered user-friendliness related problems in case of five systems, before and after the launch. The systems take-up was also considered, as well as communicating with citizens who ... are unable to use digital services.
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Evaluation of the effectiveness of implementation and compliance with regulatory enactments and the legal framework of the project “E-government Portfolio”
The objective of the audit is to evaluate the effectiveness of implementation and compliance with regulatory enactments and the legal framework of the project “Egovernment Portfolio” of the national ... programme of the European Regional Development Fund (hereinafter: ERDF) of the European Union (hereinafter: EU), “Development and improvement of the infrastructural foundation for electronic governance”. ... ... Funds to absorb but no efficient project methodology? Be prepared for troubles ... Wide list of problems that can be met when more care is received by 'absorb funds' objective than by clear vision what and how can be improved. SAI Latvia's analysis shows how dangerous it can ... be for both effectiveness and financial management.
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Correlations between the operational risks of companies in the majority ownership of local governments and the financial situation of the local governments
Risks related to local governments-owned companies The Hungarian SAI analysed four risk areas, taking 19 aspects and the specificities of Hungary’s settlement patterns into consideration. The four areas defined were the following: performance of public tasks, exercise of proprietary rights, financial stability of local governments, and short and medium-term stability of the financial management of companies.
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The Annual Municipal Accounts as a basis for comparing municipalities - are the cost indicator reliable?
Municipal accounting: more standardized or more controlled Municipalities report among others, their costs, which cannot be directly attributed to any specific activity, product, or service. Standardized taxonomies exist, but they are not applied uniformly. Swedish NAO traces ramifications: lower ability to compare municipalities' data and need of more central level control.
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Software management assessment in local governments and local government educational institutions
Objective of the audit was to verify compliance of software recording and management with regulatory enactments, as well as to assess the effectiveness of software management in local governments ... and local government educational institutions. ... ... Software management assessment in local governments and local government educational institutions ... Manage your software! Local governments and local government education institution neglect basic safety procedures, use outdated or illegal kinds of software, use two and more different software ... for the same function.
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Open Data Trend Report 2015
How to activate the open data policy The Dutch SAI looks for ways to improve open data practice in the Netherlands. They point at experience of two leading countries: UK and US, and advise to: prepare a concrete action plan, to increase number of mandatory published data, to develop government-wide data inventory and to put open data to work.
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Usability of public digital services directed at businesses
G2B - in search of user friendliness Danish Rigsrevisionen finds that the digital services directed at businesses, examined during this audit, are not sufficiently user-friendly from start to finish, and the authorities need to focus more on ensuring that relevant solutions are interlinked in a userfriendly manner.
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Municipalities’ internal control system – Audit of the establishment and operation of the internal control system of municipalities – on the audit of Rudabánya
Incomplete internal control The SAI Hungary published the compliance audit of the establishment and operation of the internal control system, as well as certain investment decisions, their implementation and accounting at the Local Government of Rudabánya. Apart from positive findings, some accounting irregularities and insufficient controls established to ensure organisational integrity were pointed out.
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