International training for the use of the Arachne Risk Assessment Tool for representatives of national control units from Croatia, Austria, Hungary and Slovenia

 

 

Ljubljana, 4 July 2018 – The Government Office of the Republic of Slovenia for Development and European Cohesion Policy, in the role of the Managing Authority and the Joint Secretariats for the cross-border cooperation programmes Interreg V-A Slovenia-Croatia, Slovenia-Austria and Slovenia-Hungary, organized a training for national controllers for the use of the data mining and risk assessment tool Arachne.

More than 40 representatives of the national control units from Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia and the Audit Authority (Budgetary Control Unit of the Republic of Slovenia) attended the workshop. Representatives of the Managing Authority and the Joint Secretariats presented the functionalities of the tool, which, by data mining of publicly available information on companies, persons, contracts and projects, determines the risk level of partners and projects in 7 different categories of indicators. The participants tested the newly acquired knowledge by solving 30 tasks, divided into 7 exercises.

The training will contribute to the enhanced use of the Arachne tool at the level of national controllers and will also increase awareness of the importance of eliminating risks of fraud, conflicts of interest and irregularities.

At the same time, cooperation between the Managing Authority and the national control units was highlighted, which also contributes to the successful implementation of the programmes. With the share of allocated programme funds (more than 90 %) and the amount of payments made, the three programmes are above the average of the European territorial cooperation programmes at EU level.