Dec32021

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

#TrainingAVAF

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.

Dec12021

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

#PreventionAVAF

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.

Nov302021

The Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency organizes a Seminar for its 5th anniversary and brings together the political class, experts, civil society and anti-corruption agencies from all over Spain

Valencia, November 29, 2021.- The Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency has organized a seminar to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the approval of Law 11/2016, creating the Agency, which has been followed by more than 150 people from face-to-face and online.

The President of the Valencian Corts, Enric Morera and the director of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency, Joan Llinares have been in charge of the opening of the Seminar.

The first table was entitled “Citizenship against corruption” in which civil society entities that are part of the Agency’s Consell de Participació have participated and that at the time proposed the election of Joan Llinares as director of the Agency before the Valencian Parliament.

Antonio Penadés from Acción Cívica contra la Corrupción; Consuelo Vidal from the Observatori contra la Corrupció, and José María Tomás y Tío from Fundación por la Justicia and has been moderated by Juan Carlos Galindo.

The second table has dealt with “The costs of corruption” and experts in this area have participated such as Francisco Alcalá, professor-researcher at the Valencian Institute of Economic Research (IVIE); Francisco Cardona, OECD consultant and Fabiola Meco, assistant professor Doctor of Civil Law at the University of Valencia. The table was moderated by Teresa Clemente, Director of Legal Affairs of the Agency.

In the afternoon, the day was resumed with two more tables. The first one has dealt with the “Strategies for the prevention and fight against corruption in the Autonomous Communities” in which the directors of the anti-fraud offices and agencies in Spain have participated.

The director of the Anti-fraud Office of Catalonia, Miguel Ángel Gimeno; the director of the Office of the Balearic Islands, Jaime Far; the director of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency, Joan Llinares, and the recently appointed director of the Andalusia Office, Ricardo Vicente Puyol. The table was moderated by the À Punt Ràdio journalist, Clara Castelló.

Next, it was the turn of the political class at a table in which Manolo Mata from the socialist parliamentary group participated; Fernando Pastor, for the popular parliamentary group; Mònica Àlvaro from the Compromís parliamentary group; Ruth Merino from the Ciudadanos parliamentary group and María Pilar Lima from the Unides Podem parliamentary group. The journalist and news director of À Punt Raquel Ejerique has been in charge of moderating the table.

You can see the Seminar on the YouTube channel of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency at this link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkDS5OEUZu3iTEWg7gu8XXQ