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| About the Executive Agencies Monitoring Unit |
The Financial Secretary in her presentation on 29 July, 1997, to Executive Agency candidates stated that "a Unit will be specifically developed in the Financial Management (FM) Division, which will monitor the financial performance of Executive Agencies to ensure that proper standards and procedures are being followed. This unit will have the power to request and audit of an agency as it sees fit."
Executive Agencies Monitoring Unit (EAMU), has, since been established in the Ministry of Finance & Planning's FM Division. The Unit is headed by a director who reports to the Deputy Financial Secretary (DFS) Financial Management.
Key objectives of the Executive Agencies Unit
We recommend that the overall purpose of the EAMU is to enable the establishment and effective financial management of the Executive Agencies, and to monitor the effectiveness of the Executive Agencies in achieving greater accountability, transparency, control and improved performance. The key objectives are:
- Ensure that appropriate financial delegations and procedures are specified for effective financial management and control by the Executive agencies by:
- Updating the Financial Instructions to Executive Agencies (FIEA), and issuing them to all relevant staff;
- Ensuring that the Regulations for Executive Agencies and FIEA are up-to-date, consistent and complete and identifying if they are consistent with the FAA Act;
- Enable Executive Agency and proposed Executive Agency financial and planning staff to develop an understanding of financial and accounting matters set out in the FIEA;
- Encourage best practice across all Executive Agencies by;
- Providing good practice guides on effective financial management and control (e.g. performance measurement, benchmarking, planning, activity based costing, procurement, total quality management, business process re-engineering);
- Providing or facilitating training and development opportunities to Executive Agencies and MoFP financial and Planning staff on topics of interest (through, for example, newsletters, seminars, peer group meetings, contact groups) to share information, experience and case studies;
- Establish that an adequate audit programme for each Executive Agency is in place to identify compliance with the Instructions, Regulations and Act; and effective financial management and control by;
- Reviewing reports produced by the Auditor-General in relation to the audit of each Executive Agency6 for compliance, weaknesses and recommendations for improvements;
- Reviewing reports produced by Chief Internal Auditors of Executive Agencies for compliance, weaknesses and recommendations for improvements;
- Participating in the audit committees of each Executive Agency (where the Director is an ex officio member of each Executive Agency Audit Committee in accordance with FIEA);
- Requesting an audit on an aspect of the financial systems and procedures for management and control of an Executive Agency, where the director deems appropriate;
- Making recommendations on improvements to the audit programmes;
- Assets the effectiveness of the Executive Agencies and the instructions in achieving greater accountability, transparency, control and performance improvement; and report to the Financial Secretary annually (in the Director's Annual Report), through an annual overview of:
- Annual report and accounts (which includes the audited financial statements) prepared by each Executive Agency and submitted to the Financial Secretary (in accordance with the FIEA);
- The annual achievements against the key performance targets, and net funding requirements for each Executive Agency; and
- Agency financial and planning staff and MoFP views (based on a sample of interviews) on the effectiveness of delegations, the funding regime, planning, budgeting and monitoring mechanisms;
- Propose recommendations to the Financial Secretary on improvements to the FIEA and systems and procedures for the Executive Agencies, based on the annual review; and
- Ensure that any matter which, in the opinion of the director, is of such important and urgent that it cannot be left until the routine annual report is brought to the attention of the Financial Secretary as soon as possible.
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