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...

Central and eastern European countries have been and still are adapting their legal framework to the requirements of a Western market economy and the body of EU legislation, the acquis communautaire. As the harmonisation of the national legal framework to EU standards is one of the yardsticks...

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 publication is the product of a multi-country seminar on budgeting and controlling personnel costs which SIGMA organised in March 1996 in Paris. The seminar’s purpose was to provide an opportunity for senior practitioners from central and eastern European countries to examine different...

This SIGMA publication is made up of a general report, six country reports and several appendices, such as relevant regulations and the OECD checklist for regulatory decision–making. The general report on law drafting and regulatory management is designed as a hands-on tool for policymakers...

Before joining the EU in May 2004, Central and Eastern European countries were required to professionalise their civil services. Most were perceived as having made improvements sufficient to be granted EU membership status. But what happened next? Five years after accession, this paper answers...

This publication focuses on the control mechanisms and procedures that need to be built into an organisation’s systems in order to provide reasonable assurance that top management’s objectives will be met, rather than on the design and application of management information systems, which, we...

SIGMA is publishing this report to make more widely available comparative information on administrative law and administrative supervision in central and eastern European countries, and to highlight certain relationships with developments in these areas in Western Europe. Although each country...

Central and eastern European countries conduct public procurement on a highly decentralised basis, at the level of individual spending ministries, local authorities or other public bodies covered by the procurement law. However, in some cases, there may be advantages in mixing this approach with...

This report examines the use of public opinion surveys as tools to advance administrative reforms in western European countries and central and eastern European countries. The aim is to demonstrate to central and eastern European governments and civil servants the utility of public opinion...