DS Epsas > Expert groups EN REVAMP

The EPSAS working group was set up in September 2015 to build on the work of the task forces and to establish a more permanent forum for the development, introduction, and operation of EPSAS. The group was renamed the ‘EPSAS expert group’ in 2021 as part of a wider harmonisation of the titles of Commission’s expert groups.

The group is made up of technical experts. Its mission is to advise the European Commission on issues relating to the area concerned. In addition, it establishes close cooperation between the Commission and the authorities responsible for public sector accounting in the EU countries to facilitate the exchange of information, experiences, and good practices.

For more information, please consult the documents of the EPSAS working groups/expert groups.

EPSAS sub-groups

During the first meeting of the working group, held in September 2015, Eurostat proposed minimising the complexity of the EPSAS project by dividing it into smaller topics. These could then be addressed by separate expert groups before being discussed with the working group. The following small expert groups, known as ‘cells’, exist:

Task forces

Prior to the establishment of the working group, 2 task forces were created with specific mandates.

The EPSAS governance task force was established to exchange ideas with the authorities of the EU members on possible future governance arrangements and the underlying key principles of EPSAS. The task force should assist Eurostat identify the key issues for EPSAS governance, discuss how to balance those issues, and thereby assist Eurostat develop an EPSAS governance structure model.

The EPSAS standards task force was created to exchange ideas with the authorities of the EU member on technical aspects of the standards. The task force should assist Eurostat to:

  • analyse the most contentious IPSASs and address the concrete difficulties encountered with some of the IPSASs in practice, and ways to overcome them
  • analyse the possibility to reduce burden, and complexity of the standards for small public entities
  • discuss the implementation of standards via a progressive batched approach

For more information, please consult the documentation for the task forces.