External audit as a catalyst for change
Interview with Helga Berger, ECA Member since 1 August 2020
With the confinement rules still in place at the ECA, many people may only have met Helga Berger virtually since she started as ECA Member in August 2020. But virtually or in person, she radiates enthusiasm to make a difference to the ECA. Having a lot of experience in various branches of the public sector in Austria, but also at EU level, she believes that the ECA has several features that favour a contribution to a change for the better in the EU. This relates both to short-term concerns, such as crisis management, and long-term issues, such as contributing to systemic improvements. She considers communication to be key to the ECA contributing successfully.
By Gaston Moonen
Serving the public cause from day one
Starting in a new position in the middle of the summer can be a challenge in normal circumstances, and the arrangements relating to COVID-19 may have made things even more complicated. Helga Berger arrived from Austria on 1 August 2020 to succeed Oskar Herics as ECA Member. ‘Everything was different last year, both in Austria and Luxembourg. August in COVID times may not look like the best period to start, but thanks to the good preparations made by the ECA’s staff, it was actually easy for me to get started, with the right technical means, the IT support.’ She would have preferred personal contact with other Members, her cabinet staff, the audit directorates, etc. ‘But it was fine for me, also giving me time to come on board, to integrate, to read papers.’
For Helga Berger, the public sector is not new, on the contrary. She grew up in Frauenstein, where her father was mayor, and had close encounters with public service activities at a young age. ‘At the municipal level your work in the public sector is directly visible. Citizens demand you take responsibility. The way I grew up comes out in the way I work now: my yardstick is that, with everything I do, I have to be able to explain it quite easily to the public. I think that as long as you are convinced that you can proudly tell anybody what you have done today in the office, it has been a fine day.’
Being a lawyer by training, she confides that initially her professional aspiration was to work as a judge. ‘This independence, based on facts and figures, has always related to core values for me. I finished my law studies in Graz soon after Austria had joined the EU. In 1995, there was this very buoyant mood in Austria and I was interested in what was going on in the world.’ To broaden her horizon she started looking for a job in European institutions, including in Brussels. ‘To experience how the system was working in practice, after having learnt in theory what the EU was.’
An opportunity came up at the European Parliament, as assistant to an MEP, and she explains that it was more curiosity than political ambition that made her go for it. ‘You have to take your chances as they come. I am interested in politics but I prefer to work more in the background. In principle, I am “a detail-loving numbers person” [in German “Detail verliebter Zahlenmensch”].For that reason, a position more in the background, behind the politician, is perfect for me.’
From Brussels, she returned to Austria, to work as deputy head of the Governor’s private office in Carinthia. After working in this position for well over a year, she moved to the national level, working as head of private office of the Austrian Vice-Chancellor, then Susanne Riess. ’A very impressive personality. But after she stepped back it was clear to me I would not stay in this area. The desire for independence had grown while I was close to politics. So I decided to finish my training as a judge, and was appointed as a judge to the Regional Court in Vienna in 2006.’ But she missed the dynamics of being close to politics. ‘After experiencing those days of intensive activity, working as a judge was not that exiting and interesting for me.’
Helga Berger decided to work for the Austrian Court of Audit, to work in communications and relations with parliament and serve as the press spokesperson of the institution. ‘It was a wonderful time, working intensively with a very energetic president, Josef Moser.’ After five years as Director-General at the Austrian Court of Audit, she changed to the Federal Ministry of Finance as Director-General for the budget and public finances in 2016. ‘I was the first woman in this position, the first woman DG in this ministry. Perhaps my gender has been an advantage for me. Fine for me, I have taken the chances offered.’
Performance in the public sector has many aspects
With about ten years of work experience at the Austrian Court of Audit, Helga Berger knows public audit inside out, and how public audit institutions differ in the way they are organised and what they focus on. ‘With one single person as president responsible for the institution, as at the Austrian Court of Audit, I think it is often easier to get changes through an organisation. Another relatively ‘new’ issue for me is the substantial resources the ECA allocates to its annual report with special focus on financial and compliance audit tasks, leading to the Statement of Assurance. At the Austrian Court of Audit, only about 5% of its resources go into this area. There the focus is predominantly on performance audits, but there is not such a clear distinction made between financial, compliance and performance audits as at the ECA. The approach is that everything public entities are doing is based on laws, and for that reason there are almost no audit reports in Austria in which only performance aspects are dealt with. They rather look at a combination of all three aspects.’
She links the issue to the interest of one of the ECA’s key stakeholders, the European Parliament. ‘If you follow the discussions in the European Parliament on our annual report, they do not think in terms of financial audit, compliance issues, etc.’ But in her opinion the situation is similar for performance issues. ‘I am really convinced that you cannot say “What a perfect performance” when there are actually problems with legal aspects.’
She sees potential in moving to a more comprehensive approach. ‘This could be a way to address how stakeholders are thinking, reflected in their questions. It is only one side of the coin when you ask for this legal and formal aspect. At the same time, you should know what the added value, the outcome, the impact, and for EU issues, the European added value is.’ Her experience is that Austria has evolved considerably in terms of reporting on performance and results orientation.
In her view, performance audits should not only be results-oriented but also process savvy. ‘If we just focus on the results and impact and not on whether this is achieved in an efficient way, we lose an opportunity. For me a performance audit ideally also covers efficiency and economy, not only effectiveness.’ She underlines that covering more aspects does not necessarily mean longer audits. ‘We need small and short audits, but also ones which really go into depth and have a wider perspective, touching on systems. Such coverage can produce much more impact.’
Meaningful audit recommendations can come in many forms
Another issue that she finds highly relevant relates to recommendations. ‘In Austria I was used to reports having many recommendations, which were quite detailed. More operative, solution-oriented, with concrete proposals for improvements. The Austrian SAI sometimes presents reports with 100 recommendations.’ These are not necessarily all negative since, she believes, once you look into the system, you report on how tasks were performed. ‘You also have to take the positive aspects and reflect on them.’
Helga Berger is not afraid that giving very specific recommendations might turn against the audit institution when, later on, the public auditor assesses their implementation through a follow-up audit. ‘We should be self-confident in that respect. We have the possibility as the public auditor to look in-depth into the ways EU money is spent and, after the full audit procedure, we should be on the safe side and confident about what we know.’ She believes public auditors should be confident, also about the possible impact of their work. ‘And for that reason, we could be more specific.’
When looking at the follow-up of audit recommendations she is quite firm: ‘At the moment we sometimes focus too much on what is not implemented. But we should also report on what has been implemented, thanks to our recommendations. Then we can clearly speak about impact and also about “non-achievements.” We have to keep in mind that citizens are asking us about these aspects as well: what has been achieved and not necessarily what has not been achieved.’ Helga Berger thinks that the external view offered by auditors also requires willingness to go into details. ‘As auditors we have to look, from the beginning of the audit process, at what we expect, what might need to be changed, not only at what shortcomings we can find. If you start with that idea in mind, early on in the process, then you can come up with meaningful audit recommendations.’
Audit reports as a catalyst for change
Having worked at the ECA for over six months, she likes what she sees. ‘I think the ECA is absolutely on the right track; it sets high standards regarding topic selection, audit approach and how it reports its findings.’
In her public statements to the European Parliament, she has highlighted that an audit institution, in particular its products, can be a catalyst for reform, inspiring action for change. ‘To drive forward reforms you have to look at certain topics from different angles, and not only go for the safest solution. I am convinced that our audit work does not end with publication or discussion in parliament. That is only one part of the process.’ In her view, to elaborate key messages — the key conclusions from different audits and on different topics — and look at them together can be most useful. ‘Such a process can trigger proposals for improvements, for reforms, system-focused. I think this is part of our job as the external auditor as well. Putting the stones of the mosaic together — one after the other, not only after carrying out the audit but also before, in the way you go about covering a certain theme or policy area, having audit building blocks in mind from the outset.’
Helga Berger’s perspective on this is no surprise, in view of research showing that in her home country citizens see the Austrian Court of Audit as a strong ally, providing transparent and impartial information regarding issues they are concerned about. Helga Berger observes that this is easier to achieve at national than EU level. ‘Quality and impartiality are cornerstones of all the ECA’s audit work. What can be more challenging is to select audit topics which are of direct concern to citizens. And that is not always easy with the European agenda. The EU is more distant, it is not that easy to make the link with citizens’ daily lives.’
She thinks it is important to choose topics that interest citizens. ‘I see that at the ECA we are trying to do so. Perhaps a bigger challenge for us is to be visible at national level. Visibility comes through human beings, through a person citizens will recognise as the ECA’s face. I think we are all challenged in this area and we should all play our part. Being an ECA Member also means for me the responsibility of being visible. Showing citizens what we are doing, establishing good contacts with them and their representatives — that is part of my job as an ECA Member. And we can learn from each other, step by step, in doing so, using social media, our contacts with stakeholders, etc. To get our products across, our findings, our assessments — our opinion as the EU’s external audit authority.’
She explains that she is becoming more active on social media. ‘To tell people what we are doing, sending short messages relating to ECA publications and what this means for Austria. Whenever we publish something, I, together with my cabinet staff, try to send it out through my channels.’ She gives examples relating to sending ECA findings to the Ministry of Education, to the Austrian Parliament. ‘Where possible with a brief reflection on the consequences for Austria. And the feedback is quite good, with replies such as “Well done,” “Most interesting,” but also questions on how broad our audit work is.’
Having been the Chair of the Board of Ethics at the Austrian Court of Audit, Helga Berger has an interest and experience in promoting ethics in an organisation. Because of her legal background, as a judge, ethical integrity and its counterpart, fraud and corruption, merit her constant attention. This will not change now that she is a Member of the ECA, on the contrary. ‘Of course the ECA is not a fraud investigating body and this is not our role. And we should be clear in communicating this. But as the public auditor we have a role to play in our audits of systems. Both at the European level, and at the level of the Member States, we have to be attentive to fraud issues and shed light on potentially shadowy areas, because fraud and corruption are growing in these shadows. Spotting such areas, where there is potential for fraud to occur, is our responsibility.’
Responsible for a wide variety of audit tasks
As a member of the ECA’s Financing and administering the Union audit chamber, Helga Berger is responsible for an audit task which touches quite directly on systems to combat fraud and corruption: the audit regarding blacklisting of economic operators. ‘It is a perfect audit project to start with as a Member. It relates to systems to prevent fraud, to digitalisation, and you have a mix of audit questions, probing the system against the legal background, looking at legal aspects and the efficiency and effectiveness of the system. In my view, a very good example of a “comprehensive” audit.’ She explains that in this audit you have to rethink the solutions chosen to deal with national interests, and the European Commission’s interests, including per directorate-general. ‘Because the structure and autonomy of different DGs can hinder common solutions as well. Who takes leadership for this horizontal topic and who is responsible for the outcome?’
Another task she has taken up in her audit chamber is the ECA’s work on budgetary management. Helga Berger finds this a most interesting topic. ‘The structure of a national budget is not comparable with the EU budget.’ But having worked as Director-General in the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance she is quite familiar with several issues that have been raised before in the ECA’s annual reports. ‘I have worked of course with the absorption rate. For the Austrian government, as a net payer, the RAL — Reste à liquider, was important. I always like the boxes in the annual report because you get examples of what is working and what is not.’ She hopes that, in line with the new ECA 2021–25 Strategy, the annual report will feature more country-specific information.
A third audit topic Helga Berger will be specifically working on relates to the area of own resources, an area close to her former responsibilities in the Austrian Ministry of Finance. ‘It will be an audit assessing GNI systems. Perhaps not an immediate concern of EU citizens but of huge importance for the public administration and ministries of finance.’
Sharing best practice information is something she values a lot, also regarding the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic at EU level and by the Member States. ‘To get such examples into the public domain is important. What are the differences in approaches between the Member States? Who has done what? Just to avoid everybody having to find their own solution for the same problem.’ She thinks the ECA, with its overview, can play a role both in describing and assessing such solutions. ‘Besides having an inventory of solutions, particularly during a crisis, it is necessary to eventually arrive at lessons learnt, together with those from previous crisis situations, to contribute to a more resilient Union for the future.’
Communicate clear messages — for the sake of an EU that can deliver
When Helga Berger started work at the ECA, its preparations for the new ECA Strategy were well under way, yet still at a stage where she could provide fresh input. In her work at the Austrian Court of Audit, she had particular responsibilities for strategy development. ‘In the end communicating what you want to do is most important, as is sending clear messages in our products. Communication means that you have to listen, take up key issues and develop your own ideas, present clear messages, both to your own staff and your stakeholders.’
She thinks that such messages are even more important in the times the EU and its citizens are now experiencing. ‘Stability and continuity are important and, as public auditors, we can contribute to that. People should have trust in our work.’ For her, recent developments have shown that sitting and waiting is not the way forward and can easily lead to more disruption. ‘We should be prepared for the coming challenges and take our new strategy as a first step, not the end, a stepping stone to a pro-active stand to contribute to a Union that functions well and delivers to its citizens.’
When asked what she would like to achieve with her mandate as ECA Member, Helga Berger identifies system change — where needed — through ECA audits as a key objective, for the ECA as such, but also for her individually. ‘By means of high quality reports I hope to deliver recommendations to improve the systems in the EU that in the end touch on citizens’ lives.’ As a second point, she refers to the annual report. ’With the digital means now becoming available, and more information becoming available that we as external auditors can build on, I hope that, with less or the same resources, we can provide more information on those countries and areas where things are going well or where improvements are necessary.’ Another issue she underlines is visibility: ‘I would be happy if, in six years from now, many more Austrians — and other Europeans — know what our role is, what our products are, and why they can trust the EU on the basis of our work.’
This article was first published on the 1/2021 issue of the ECA Journal. The contents of the interviews and the articles are the sole responsibility of the interviewees and authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Court of Auditors.
