Anti-fraud plans in the key of public integrity. The contribution of the AVAF in the conference on anti-fraud plans of the UJI of Castellón

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On December 3, the head of the Prevention Service of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency, Irene Bravo, participated in the Conference “Anti-fraud plans in the management of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan”.

Training is one of the fundamental components of the strategy to prevent corruption and improve integrity in the public sector and among citizens. In this framework, the Agency participates and collaborates in training actions to offer knowledge and sensitize personnel at the service of public administrations about the importance of including institutional integrity in the organizational culture.

In her presentation, “Anti-fraud plans in terms of public integrity”, Irene Bravo explained the opportunity that the current situation represents to improve the culture of public integrity.

Regarding the need to have anti-fraud measures plans to ensure that European funds are used in accordance with the applicable regulations, the head of the AVAF Prevention service drew several strong ideas:

  • They are measures to reinforce the mechanisms that the organization already has for the prevention, detection and correction of fraud; such as, for example, ethical codes, abstention mechanisms or risk assessments.
  • Few measures are mandatory (institutional anti-fraud declaration or declarations of absence of conflicts of interest, among others). Most are voluntary, at the choice of each organization based on their previous self-diagnosis.
  • They are only specifically required in relation to European funds and not to other funds of the organizations.

Irene Bravo has shown that it is an opportunity to change the paradigm in the culture of institutional public integrity. The good administration of public affairs and the principles of objectivity, impartiality, effectiveness, efficiency or legality are at stake.

The AVAF Guide. Public Integrity Plan: Roadmap and Facilitating Annexes of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency, aims to accompany the work that exists in the preparation of anti-fraud plans and help in the gradual implementation of the public integrity system in each organization.

Available for download: https://www.antifraucv.es/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Guia_avaf_plan_de_integridad_publica.pdf

AVAF presentation for download: https://www.antifraucv.es/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Ponencia-planes-antifraude-en-clave-de-integridad-publica-AVAF.pdf3dic.pdf

Video of the presentation “Anti-fraud plans in the key of public integrity”:  

 

The Valencian Antifraud Agency participates in the teaching of the Master of Cultural Management of the Polytechnic University of València

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The Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency (AVAF) formalized in 2021 a framework collaboration agreement with the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) for cultural, educational and scientific collaboration. The central and priority objective of the Agency’s training activity is the ethical and civic training of Valencian citizens.

Within the framework of this collaboration, on December 2, the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency (AVAF) participated with a conference addressed to students of the subject of Assessment Systems and Quality and Budget Management of the Master of Cultural Management of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), with the collaboration of Professor Antonia Ferrer Sapena. The objective of the conference was to continue in the task of raising awareness about the importance of public integrity and ethics to prevent fraud and corruption.

The UPV’s Master in Cultural Management is the only one in Spain that serves key sectors in cultural management such as Performing Arts, Cultural Tourism, and Ethnological Heritage and Popular Culture.

In this Master, a plural training is offered capable of covering the different social, political, institutional and economic sectors that constitute the framework where cultural management is inscribed. Its purpose is applied research to the cultural sector and training for professional development in cultural occupation and companies and in public cultural management.

The conference was structured in three parts: the functions and general activities of the AVAF, the particularities of cultural administrative management, and the main risks of fraud and corruption that can occur in cultural management.

The head of the Training service, Anselm Bodoque, began contextualizing the anti-corruption policies in international changes since the 1990s, to follow the regulatory framework in relation to corruption and focus on the development of functions and actions of the Agency, especially those focused on the training and prevention of fraud and corruption in any professional field, and also explaining the activities of investigation and protection of whistleblowers of corruption.

The students showed interest in the Agency’s activities, as well as in fraud prevention training, since it is not included in the training plans, both in regulated studies and in the content of the competitive examinations.

For his part, the director of the AVAF, Joan Llinares, based on his experience in cultural management, focused his intervention on the public model of museums and museum collections, underlining different aspects such as cultural employment and the impact of culture on the the whole of the Spanish economy, to arrive at the deontological framework and focus on aspects of the ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums.

The final part of the conference focused on the main risks of fraud and corruption that can occur in cultural management, emphasizing different situations of conflicts of interest, illustrating his presentation with various examples of malpractice that have ended up being prosecuted.

The director of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency ended his speech by thanking the Polytechnic University of Valencia for the invitation and wishing all the students much success in their professional future as cultural managers.

Participation in the “III Congress on Compliance in the Public Sector”

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The Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency participated, on November 30, in the “III Congress on Compliance in the Public Sector” held in Madrid and organized by the World Compliance Association. The celebration of this Congress coincided in time with the entry into force of Order HFP / 1030/2021, of September 29, which configures the management system of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and the approval requirement of an Anti-Fraud Measures Plan by any decision-making or executing entity of projects or sub-projects as a condition to receive the European “Next Generation” funds linked to it.

The Congress addressed the different regulatory elements that make up the prevention and fight against corruption, within the framework of European requirements in terms of institutional integrity, focusing on the importance of anti-fraud plans in the management and control of funds Europe, as well as various issues related to conflicts of interest, the anti-fraud cycle (detection, prevention, prosecution and correction), the importance of whistleblower channels as detection tools and the growing role of new technologies throughout the cycle anti fraud.

The event, directed by Concepción Campos Acuña, Secretary of the Vigo City Council, was attended by speakers with extensive knowledge on the subject and who are part of organizations such as: the University of Castilla la Mancha, the National Institute of Aerospace Technology, the Anti-fraud Office of Catalonia, the Office for the prevention and fight against corruption of the Balearic Islands, the Consello de Contas de Galicia, the Transparency Agency of the Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona, ​​the Legal Services of the Community Board of Castilla-La Mancha , the Mollet del Vallés City Council, the National Anti-Fraud Coordination Service, or the National Court, among others.

The representative of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency, Irene Bravo Rey, Head of Prevention, focused attention on the control of the anti-fraud plan, explaining the different instances and control mechanisms, and emphasizing the necessary separation between the functions of management of the plans and their control, the confusion of both constituting one of the main vulnerabilities of the systems linked to European funds analyzed by OLAF, among other entities. Likewise, Irene Bravo focused on the need for every public entity to have an integrity plan that protects all types of public funds (not only European ones) and covers irregularities of an administrative nature, beyond risks of criminal corruption.