All Member States of the EU and countries from Central and Eastern Europe use agencies of various shapes and sizes as part of their system of public administration. The legal forms vary widely from country to country depending on the legal tradition and the system of administration. Public...

Public expenditure control has become a central element of economic policy in many countries. This report analyses budget practices and some recent innovations from the point of view of senior public servants in the central budget offices of nineteen OECD Member countries. It also summarises the...

Compliance with the European Union’s budgetary, financial control and audit requirements is one of the basic obligations of EU membership. SIGMA examines this in two publications that chronicle the experiences of seven EU Member States, including its three newest adherents, in integrating EU...

Over the past decade, the European Commission, as the institution responsible for implementing the Community Budget, has taken an increasingly active interest in the effectiveness of the control measures applied by Member States to Community funds. Indeed, it is in the common interest of the...

This Test Guideline describes a method to assess the extent and kinetics of primary and ultimate biodegradation of organic chemicals whose route of entry into the environment begins with their discharge to wastewater. It consists of five simulation tests in a) sewer systems, b) activated sludge,...

The purpose of this test is to measure the time course of biodegradation of a test substance at low concentration in aerobic natural water and to quantify the observations in the form of kinetic rate expressions. The test is performed in batch by “pelagic test” or “suspended sediment...

This Test Guideline describes two simulations tests used in the aerobic sewage treatment. Activated Sludge Units are designed to determine the elimination and the primary and/or ultimate biodegradation of water-soluble organic compounds by aerobic micro-organisms in a continuously operated test...

A well-functioning government office acts as a co-ordinator of the decision-making system and as such is crucial for the government’s capacity to define and pursue its collective objectives. The “Government Office” is a generic term that refers to the institution(s) at the centre of...

This paper is the result of a comparison of the audit practices with respect to the audit of secret and politically sensitive subjects by the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI’s) of France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Not only do the practices differ but the mandate and...