# Commission Decision of 29 September 2006 setting out the guidelines laying down criteria for the conduct of audits under Regulation (EC) No 882/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council on official controls to verify compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules (notified under document number C(2006) 4026) (Text with EEA relevance) (2006/677/EC), Division 5.2: Transparency Extent: E+W+S+N.I. In order to demonstrate the audit process is transparent, documented procedures should, in particular, include a clearly defined audit planning process, audit criteria and audit report approval and distribution mechanisms. Management and implementation of the audit process should be transparent to all relevant stakeholders. In particular, there should be full transparency between the audit body and the auditee. Ensuring the audit process is transparent in the eyes of other stakeholders will assist in the dissemination of information, and in particular in the sharing of best practice within and between competent authorities. The Member States should adopt the appropriate measures to ensure their audit systems are transparent, taking national legal and other requirements into account. To that end, the Member States should consider encouraging practices that improve the transparency of the process. Some examples of such practices are listed in the Table below. When deciding on such measures, the Member States should balance the need for transparency against the risk of undermining the audit system's ability to achieve its objectives. In order to optimise the benefits of transparency, it should be combined with balanced reporting, that is a proper mixture of verified compliance (positive findings) and areas for improvement (negative findings). Table Examples of practices improving the transparency of an audit process Note: Member States should select the practices (first column) and the extent to which they are applied (remaining columns) which are appropriate to their particular circumstances. Audit body practices Auditee Within competent authority Across competent authorities (within Member States) Public and other stakeholders Access to documented audit body procedures Consultation on planning of audit programme Publication of audit programme Submission of audit plan Opportunity to comment on draft audit report Distribution of final audit report Publication of auditee’s comments on draft report Publication of final audit report Publication of summaries of final audit reports and of annual report Publication of auditee’s action plan Publication of follow-up results --- Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2006/677/annex/division/5/division/5.2 (the official version) Page: https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2006-677/annex/division-5/division-5.2 Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.