Following the Resolution of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, since 2007 the National Audit Office of Lithuania was assigned to conduct functions of audit authority for operational programmes implementing Lithuanian Strategy for the Use of European Union Structural Assistance for 2007-2013 towards Achieving the Convergence Objective pursuant to the Commission Regulation (EC) No 1828/2006 of 8 December 2006.

Implementing provisions of the Resolution of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, on 6 November 2007 Audit Department 8 was established in the National Audit Office of Lithuania. Audit Department 8 was assigned to perform functions of audit authority.

Activities of the newly established Audit Department 8 are financed from the project Audit of Operational Programmes Implementing Lithuanian Strategy for the Use of European Union Structural Assistance for 2007-2013 towards Achieving the Convergence Objective.

The point of the project is to finance expenditure of the audit authority incurred conducting audits of Operational Programmes Implementing Lithuanian Strategy for the Use of European Union Structural Assistance for 2007-2013 towards Achieving the Convergence Objective. Taking into consideration that single management and control system is developed in Lithuania for implementation of convergence objective‘s operational programmes, Audit Department 8 will conduct public audits for 2007-2015 in a way to cover all the management and control system institutions, operational programmes, as well as horizontal areas (e.g., public procurement, environmental requirements, etc.) in order to be able to assess in a reliable way whether the functioning of the system was efficient during all the period, and the incurred expenditure, which was declared to the European Commission, was eligible.

Activities of Audit Department 8, the aim of which is to ensure the efficient management and control of European Union funds allocated to Lithuania for implementation of convergence objective, are financed from the European Social Fund (85 per cent) and the State Budget of Lithuania (15 per cent). These funds are included in Budget appropriations allocated to the National Audit Office. It is planned to allocate up to LTL 34.922.000 to implementation of the project.

The implementation of the project follows the project‘s bilateral Agreement for Financing and Administration signed between the National Audit Office of Lithuania and Central Project Management Agency on 19 March 2009. The project was launched in November 2007 and would be continued until the end 2015.

Implementation of the project:

• Audit Strategy for Operational Programmes Implementing Lithuanian Strategy for the Use of European Union Structural Assistance for 2007-2013 towards Achieving the Convergence Objective is drawn up and approved by the European Commission;

• Financial (regularity) audit of Operational Programmes Implementing Lithuanian Strategy for the Use of European Union Structural Assistance, operation of the management and control system, as well as expenditure for 2007 declared for the European Commission was conducted; Annual Control Report and Annual Opinion were are up. These documents are submitted to the European Commission;

• LTL 2.149.000 are used since the start of the project. 24 work places are established and equipped in the NAOL; staff of the Audit Department 8 are being recruited; the already hired staff are developing their professional qualification.