The contract will be awarded at a fixed price of EUR 840,000 including statutory value added tax at the applicable rate and all ancillary costs. EUR 700,000 is allocated to the comparative audit, payment in five instalments and EUR 140,000 to the overall report (final invoice).
The 250th Comparative Audit "Resilience and Sustainability: Districts" is based on the Act Regulating the Supra-Local Audit of Municipal Corporations in Hesse (ÜPKKG) of 22 December 1993 (GVBl. I p. 708).
The audit is intended to show how the districts are prepared for the challenges of the present and future (resilience). Particular emphasis is placed on the sustainability of the measures and the budget used.
The contents of the exam are precautions for special dangerous and crisis situations (e.g. cyber attacks/IT security, heavy rain with flooding, drought with risk of forest fires, terrorist attacks). It will also be considered how the critical infrastructures (according to the BSI Critical Infrastructure Ordinance, e.g. energy suppliers, hospitals, information technology and telecommunications) of the districts are protected.
The contractor will shed light on the concepts for dealing with special hazard and crisis situations, assess the IT security of the critical infrastructure and evaluate the planned measures for avoidance and risk reduction in the event of special hazards.
The organisation and operational readiness of the disaster and civil protection (alarm and deployment plans, camps, staffing, NBC precautions/bunkers, cooperation between aid organisations), costs associated with precautionary measures and any potential for improving results will also be determined.
At the end of the process, there is a comparative assessment of whether the municipalities are prepared for the particular danger situations and how much resources they use for them. The aim should be to examine whether a high level of provision can be achieved with comparatively little investment. In addition to the company's own use of funds, the adequacy of federal and state funds must also be assessed.
Furthermore, it is necessary to consider the role of the districts in the integration of refugees and migrants, how the interaction with the other institutions and state levels works, what resources have been used and to what extent the immigration authorities are adequately staffed and financially equipped.
Here, too, recommendations must be made and potential for improving results must be derived.
The contractor will also make findings on budgetary stability, examine the formal treatment of the financial statements, examine the risk prevention of the corporations to avoid fraudulent acts and carry out the review. Details can be found in the leaflet. In doing so, the budget, the reporting system during the year and the annual financial statements are to be examined for the existence and suitability of sustainability goals and key figures. Special aspects of the budget analysis with regard to sustainability are also receivables management, reserve management and asset control as well as a tax compliance management system. In the case of risk prevention by corporations to avoid fraudulent acts, it must also be examined whether the districts have set up a control system for the granting of subsidies (especially to independent sponsors) and how the allocation of subsidies is managed and controlled.
Subject of the audit: 8 districts to be examined comparatively. These are selected in a negotiated procedure from the following 9 districts: Groß-Gerau district, Hersfeld-Rotenburg district, Lahn-Dill district, Main-Kinzig district, Marburg-Biedenkopf district, Offenbach district, Rheingau-Taunus district, Werra-Meißner district, Wetterau district
The examination period is from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2023.