Guidance for the Commission and Member States on a common methodology for the assessment of management and control systems in the Member States

The objective of this guidance is to provide practical tool to help auditors assess the functioning of MCS set up by the Member States for the ESIF (except for the EAFRD) programmes.

It draws upon the guidance in force for 2007-2013 period and the conclusions of a working group involving staff drawn from the audit services of DG Regional and Urban Policy, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion and DG Maritime Affairs and Fisheries in the Commission, in order to establish a reference framework in terms of:

• explaining key requirements to be used (see the CPR and the CDR);
• explaining the assessment criteria to be used for each key requirement;
• providing guidelines for drawing conclusions for each key requirement and by authority;
• providing guidelines for reaching an overall conclusion on the MCS (or part of system) of a programme or group of programmes, taking into account any existing mitigating factors or compensatory controls

The guidance is thus addressed in the first place to the audit directorates of the above-mentioned Commission services and AAs, in order to ensure objectivity, consistency and transparency in assessing compliance of the management and control systems with the key regulatory requirements. The "steps for assessment" described in this guidance note set out the methodology to be used when carrying out system audits. The AAs are requested to use this guidance note in their system audits on MAs, CAs and IBs or when supervising the work of other involved audit bodies in order to ensure the harmonisation of audit results and that auditors in different parts of the control chain can rely on each other's work.