In Member State, food safety authorities must have audit arrangements in place to assure their top management and stakeholders that: • official feed and food control systems have been set up in compliance with European Union (EU) and national legislation; • official controls are carried out as intended; • the control systems are effective and suitable in achieving the objectives of the legislation; A new overview report based on a series of Commission audits in Member States finds that the vast majority of Competent Authorities had national audit arrangements in place and that the outputs of these audit activities were, for the most part used to improve the consistency and effectiveness of official controls. This was in particular true, when there was strong management commitment to the follow-up of audit recommendations. The overview report describes also some specific areas for improvement to strengthen the credibility, reliability, relevance and impact of national audit systems. It finally highlights useful practices and describes actions taken and planned by both the Member States and the European Commission services in response to the findings of this audit series. To learn more about this topic please click on the "read more" link below.