Supply of food and medicinal products
Supply of food and medicinal products Deficiencies in emergency preparedness and weaknesses in governance are still found by the Swedish NAO in the system of safeguarding supply of food and medicinal products. The system is complex and NAO appreciates efforts made by responsible agencies. However, they found also insufficient clarity in division of responsibilities and weaknesses in coordinantion.
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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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Swedish Customs control – an accurate enterprise?
It is better to know your own errors Control activities play an important role in successful work of Customs Service. Lack of thoroughful analysis of own errors can lead to ineffective use of some tools, and as a result, to difficulty in focus identification.
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IT Support in the Judicial Chain
The Swedish National Audit Office has examined how well agencies in the judicial chain have handled known flaws in their IT support and whether the Government’s control mechanisms have provided ... the agencies with sufficient prerequisites to expand and improve IT support. ... ... Needed: good conditions by government, better steering and control by authorities ... Despite many years’ of work to modernize the IT support within the judiciary, there are still many deficiencies. The Government has not given the authorities good conditions enough to lead the work ... . The authorities, in their turn, need to improve their steering and control, as well as interact to a much higher degree.
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Information security work at nine agencies
Difficulties in achieving appropriate IT security Together with the Swedish NAO we assume that the picture that emerges at the agencies audited applies also to most of the other agencies in the public administration. The information security work is not given high enough priority in relation to the risks that exist. This applies to both the Government, which should have been clearer in its directions to agencies on this matter, and to agency managements, which did not give priority to the work of information security to the extent required. Much indicates that it is difficult for many agencies to achieve an appropriate level of information security work.
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The National Government Service Centre – Has administration become more effective?
The purpose of this audit has been to investigate whether the Service Centre has made administrative operational support functions taken over from client agencies more effective, and to find ... explanations for the results so far achieved by the Service Centre. The audit has also aspired to illustrate how agencies that do not subscribe to the services regard their potential for doing so ... . These viewpoints have been analysed with a special focus on the conditions that applied to the Service Centre when it was formed and the measures taken by the Government and the Service Centre in the first years. ... ... Has Swedish public administration become more effective? ... The Service Centre – payroll and financial administration IT system for Swedish public agencies under the government – has achieved the target of a subscription rate of 25 per cent of the total ... number of state employees. However, subscription to the Service Centre was initially slower than the Government had predicted and meant lower revenues than expected in autumn 2013. The Service Centre ... then introduced a rigorous review of its expenditure, for example for some planned development initiatives for internal procedures and support systems.<br/>The Swedish NAO noted that the Government’s steering
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Incorrect payments in social insurance - Control activities of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency
In 2014 the social insurance system accounted for six per cent of GDP. The long-term sustainability of a system of that magnitude requires that the public perceives its purpose to be important ... , that it is well administered and that it is as free of abuse as possible. It must also be financially stable over time, since major fluctuations impact other areas of the central government budget. When ... these things function as they should, the system is perceived to be legitimate and enjoys public confidence.<br/> According to available estimations, almost SEK 20 billion had been paid out incorrectly from ... Balance of priorities needed to reduce incorrect payments ... Role of social insurance in public finance is so substantial that reduction of incorrect payments' volume is matter of huge savings. The Swedish NAO noted positive initiatives by the Social Insurance ... Agency in this regard. However they found also, that serious problems can stem from giving higher priority to the speed of payment and customers satisfaction. They both are undoubtedly important features ... of each system, still, the prevention of incorrect payments needs strategic support to be really effective.
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