Implementation of the Presidency Programme: Key Achievements : Turkish Court of Accounts

Transition to new Strategic Plan and Changes in Governance Structure and Modus Operandi

At X^th EUROSAI Congress in İstanbul, following the handover of the Presidency from SAI of Netherlands to the Turkish Court of Accounts (TCA), EUROSAI Strategic Plan (ESP) 2017- 2023 was approved by the Congress and the Governing Board (GB) was entrusted with the mandate of making the necessary arrangements for its implementation.

Following the adoption of the ESP 2017-2023, EUROSAI arrived at an important milestone with changes in the Governance Structure and Modus Operandi since new strategic plan envisaged a shift to a more flexible and agile organization that will surely facilitate greater engagement by members to the operationalization of the Strategic Goals as well as other EUROSAI goals in an innovative way.

Comprehensive Task Allocation

Within the changes introduced by new ESP, allocation of Porfolios among GB members and appointment of non-GB co-leaders to the Strategic Goals were the most dramatic. During TCA’s Presidency carrying also the duty of Overall governance and culture Portfolio, SAI of the Czech Republic and SAI of Poland have been the holders of Strategic Goal 1 “Professional cooperation” and Strategic Goal 2 “Institutional Capacity Development” respectively while SAI of Latvia has worked on Communications, SAI of the Netherlands on Relations with non-SAI stakeholders, Secretariat on Relations with other INTOSAI Regional Organizations and SAI of Finland on Forward thinking and emerging issues Porfolios. Furthermore, SAI of Germany was appointed as the non- GB member Co-leader for SG1 and SAI of Sweden for SG2.

In order to support this new system and enhance the participation of all EUROSAI members in the tasks, establishment of Project Groups was also envisaged in the ESP as agile short-term cooperation initiatives led by the members and set up on a project basis in line with SGs and the envisaged enhancement of EUROSAI governance.

Flexible, Agile and Result-oriented Management

With the new strategic plan, Coordination Team (CT) was also introduced as a new coordination platform, which functions as the Executive Board of EUROSAI in order to make the structure of the organization more flexible, agile and results-oriented leaving more strategic and substantial issues to the GB. When the harmonized and effective works carried out by the CT have been regarded during the period 2017-2021 through close collaboration with SAIs of Czech Republic and Poland (as SG1 and SG2 Co-leaders) as well as the Secretariat (as observer), it would be wise to state that CT has proved to be a well designed mechanism to facilitate the decision making mechanism of the GB, the coordination of the execution of the EUROSAI OP with the aim of achieving progress on the implementation of the Strategic Plan and the maintenance of synergy among different implementing bodies minimizing overlaps.

Since new bodies emerged with the ESP such as the CT, Strategic Goals and Governance Portfolio holders as well as Project Groups, it was time to revise the “General Procedures for the ESP 2017-2023” in order to set clear roles and responsibilities and also proper communication channels among and with other existing bodies and actors such as the Governing Board or WGs/TFs. In the first half-term implementation of the ESP, the General Procedures reflected the enhancements of the governance, structure and modus operandi of EUROSAI foreseen in the ESP and worked alot especially to facilitate the reporting process.