Ministers’ Deputies

CM Documents

CM(2006)49-Add   14 November 2006

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980 Meeting, 21-23 November 2006

11 Administration and Logistics

11.1 Council of Europe Budgets

Priorities for 2007 – Revised proposals by the Secretary General

Memorandum from the Secretary General

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1.             This document presents revised Budget Proposals for 2007, taking into account the discussions which have taken place in the CM and relevant Rapporteur Groups since April 2006, and in particular, discussions of the Rapporteur Group on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (GR-AB) on 7 November 2006.

2.             Following discussions within the GR-AB it has become apparent that there is no consensus on the proposals contained within the draft budget concerning the reimbursement of subsistence allowances for Government Experts attending meetings within the Programme of Activities.  According to the original proposal in document CM(2006)49 of  5 April 2006,  Government Experts would not be reimbursed from the Ordinary Budget at cost of € 1 253 200. Since there was no agreement in this respect, the Secretary General was asked to make a proposal to fill this gap.

3.         The proposal can be summarised as follows:

A table of all reductions can be found in Appendix I to this document

Administrative savings resulting from efficiency gains

 

a) Travel

Following efforts to monitor the costs of travel tickets issued by the Travel Agency, recent information on trends suggests that it will be possible to achieve a reduction in travel costs during 2007. Whilst these savings have been generated by the efforts of the Directorate General of Administration and Logistics, the result will be savings spread over the relevant budget lines across the organisation.

Ø  Saving € 220 000

b) Interpretation

The current agreement with the Association of Interpreters (AIIC) expires at the end  of 2006.  Negotiations for a new agreement are currently underway with AIIC, and initial indications in respect of the ongoing discussions indicate that savings can be envisaged during 2007. As with the travel expenditure, the savings will be spread over the relevant interpretation budget lines across the organisation.

Ø  Saving € 100 000

Increases in Income

a) Car Parks

The revenue from car parks will be increased as a result of the coming into service of the covered car park of the New General Building.

Ø  Increase in Income  € 120 000

b) Modulation fund for the effects of the permanentisation of staff

When the decision was taken to make permanent 210 temporary staff  in 2002, the savings (due to the fact that employers social costs are less for permanent staff than for temporary staff) were put aside in a fund to be released to the Ordinary Budget over a period of time in order to smooth out the budgetary effects of the decision.  € 144 500 can be released in 2007 instead of € 13 600 in the draft budget.

Ø  Increase in Income  € 130 900

Reductions in Staff expenditure

Considering the widespread view that any further damage to the Programme of Activities should be avoided as far as possible, an additional reduction in staff expenditure of € 520 900 is proposed.

a) Allowances for Trainees

Allowances will no longer be paid to those trainees paid at present.  These allowances are only paid to trainees from member States which have joined the Council of Europe since 1989. This proposal will therefore put trainees from all member states on the same basis.  The Directorate of Human Resources will continue to cover the employer insurance costs of trainees and manage the files of trainees.

Ø  Saving € 120 000

b) DGIII – Social Cohesion

Responding to numerous appeals to reduce the staff ratio in relation to activities, a cut of € 100 000 in staff expenditure is proposed - leading to a reduced capacity to implement activities in the field of social cohesion.

Ø  Saving € 100 000

c) DGIV – Education, Culture and Heritage, Youth and Sport

Similarly, a cut of € 156 000 in staff expenditure is proposed in the areas of environment, culture and youth, resulting in a weakened implementation capacity in these fields.

Ø  Saving € 156 000

d) Additional reduction in Staff Expenditure

To avoid further cuts in the Programme of Activities, the Secretary General will identify further reductions of

€ 144,900 in staff expenditure. In this context it must be noted that the consequences of these reductions cannot be fully evaluated because a redeployment of staff may not be possible.

Ø  Saving € 144 900

Operational reductions in the Programme of Activities (Vote II)

                                           

a) Chapter 4: Social Cohesion

Responding to reiterated criticism from a number of member States, the project Migrants and North-South Dialogue (DG 3/1138) will be cancelled. The Political Platform of the CoE on migration will therefore not be able to complete its mandate and a meeting of the Steering Committee CDMG will be cancelled. As a consequence, draft recommendations on migration aspects (e.g. unaccompanied migrant children) will be slowed down significantly. On the other hand, following requests by a number of delegations, the operational savings can be used partially to reinforce the CoE Disability Action Plan (DG 3/1218), which will now have an initial budget of € 105 900.

Ø  Saving € 75 800 (plus reduction of € 100 000 in staff expenditure – see above)

b) Chapter 5: Culture and Intercultural Dialogue

Responding to a number of requests to reduce activities in the area of  environment/sustainable development, it is proposed to cut this activity by another € 123 000. As a consequence, environmental and biodiversity aspects will essentially be limited to the Bern Convention; the UN-ECE Ministerial Conference “Environment in Europe” will take place without the input of the CoE; the Environmental Steering Committee (CO-DBP) will cease to exist; the role of the CoE as the implementing agency at european level of the UN Biodiversity Convention will be seriously limited. In particular, the co-ordination capacity of non-EU members of the CoE will suffer; and innovative initiatives, e.g. the Pan-European Ecological Network, will encounter major difficulties without the CoE support.

Ø  Saving € 85 600 (plus reduction of € 156 000 in staff expenditure – see above)