European Structural and Investment Funds

European Structural Funds Summer Newsletter

August 2, 2017 by No Comments | Category Newsletters

Welcome to the Summer 2017 issue of the European Structural & Investment Funds newsletter. We hope that you enjoy reading our content combining an ESF update, lead partner activities and upcoming events keeping you fully up to date on what’s going on in European Structural & Investment Funds. If you are not on our mailing list please contact us so you do not miss out and subscribe to our RSS feeds to receive updates.

Please let us have your feedback on any of the items via europeanstructuralfunds@gov.scot

28 & 30 August – Lead Partner workshop at the Trades Hall, Glasgow and will cover updates on: the review; claims; procurement; and publicity. The ERDF focused session is on the 28 and ESF on the 30 August.

31 August – Claims and N+3. This does not take away from the EC Regulatory requirement to meet N+3 by 31 December 2017. This means receiving, checking and paying claims for expenditure of over £175 million by the end of November.

All lead partners must submit claims for all expenditure to date as soon as possible and certainly before 31 August since first claims can take some time particularly due to procurement checks. The ESF team will be contacting you for the timing and size of claims over the next week

6 September – Managing Authority Approval Panel. MAAP meet to discuss any new operation submissions and review any change requests requiring approval (any with changes to expenditure). After the September MAAP the next MAAP is scheduled for December .

8 September – planned date for our annual publicity event at the Engine Shed in Stirling. More details to be published shortly

Review Update

An early review was agreed by the Joint Programme Monitoring Committee (JPMC) in November 2016 to inform the future management of the Programmes. Analysis and consultation took place from January to April with policy leads, lead partners and stakeholders. A big thank you to all those who contributed to those discussions.

The original intervention logic for both Programmes remains sound although strategic and labour market changes mean that adjustments to both the scope and allocations are required. These are aimed at ensuring full allocation of the programmes, and address the evidence of lower levels of absorption, particularly in the Highlands and Islands. Further changes to the way the Funds are delivered to encourage higher take up and together reduce the risk of the Programmes not meeting expenditure targets but maintain absolute faith with the original strategies.

The JPMC approved the six recommendations from the review:

1. Programme changes including re-allocation of funding between priorities, including the introduction of two new ERDF investment priorities to provide:

• scope for research infrastructure under both LUPS and H&I and support manufacturing and centres of excellence with the focus on smart specialisation sectors;
• support for culture and heritage in H&I through conserving, protecting, promoting and developing natural and cultural heritage for H&I

2. Allocate the additional H&I allocations resulting from a recalculation of transition region finding at a UK level to Priority 5 (Protecting the Environment) for ERDF and to Priority 3 (Investing in Education, Training and Vocational training) for ESF

3. Request an increase in the Programme co-finance rates:

• H&I ERDF and ESF – increase the Programme co-finance rate from current 55% to 70% for all priorities
• LUPS ESF Priorities 1 and 2 – increase the Programme co-finance rate from 45% to 50% (this is the maximum permissible for this region)

4. Change the National Rules to allow apportioned staff costs following confirmation with Audit and EC. The JPMC approved a minimum of 40% time spent within a period. Details of how this will work, including a copy of the mandatory timesheet will be issued shortly. We plan to roll this change out from January 2018.

5. Seek opportunities for interventions that cover digital skills, employability, mental health and financial engineering for social enterprises.

6. Work with Lead Partners on extensions to Strategic Interventions. Details on how these will be sought, evaluated and entered on EUMIS will be issued soon

Recommendations will be implemented as part of either new guidance or form a package of Operational Programme Amendments. Further detail of the changes to the Operational Programmes must be submitted to the EC by end September 2017 to be in place for Jan 2018. We are working hard to meet this date including prior approval by JPMC.

We will issue next steps regarding extensions and operations in light of these changes shortly. This will also be discussed at the lead partner event the end of August.

Uploading claims to EUMIS got easier from 28 June with the introduction of the CSV system. This is a real help to Lead Partners with large volumes of data and CSV upload guidance can be found in the help section of Eumis. We all know the pressure on Lead Partners to be reimbursed for expenditure and CSV will help you with that. It will also help us reach our target for N+3!

Inclusive growth supports both employability and tackling social exclusion and poverty. 30 local authority employability pipelines are now approved and operational across Scotland and alongside these is the National Third Sector Fund administered by SDS which supports national third sector approaches.

Interventions led by Scottish Government and the Big Lottery make up most of the commitment to date under social inclusion and poverty. The SG Social Economy and Aspiring Communities packages have operated their first application rounds with a further social innovation fund round underway with a high level of demand under all routes. BIG Lottery has contracted delivery for their financial inclusion package across five targeted local authority areas (Glasgow, Inverclyde, Argyll and Bute, Dundee and North Ayrshire). To date, 20 local authorities have had social inclusion and poverty packages approved targeting activity including childcare, energy advice and financial advice, as well as more intensive work on health and other barriers.

Only a small number of employability claims have been submitted with most for staff costs. It is important to provide the full evidence required for staff costs from payslips to BACS evidence to help speed up the verification process. Also don’t forget to complete the procurement tab when claiming such costs. Guidance relating to verifications is available at: http://bit.ly/2tm1L1U

The Smart Growth Team has been working closely with Lead Partners to ensure on the spot Stage 1 System Checks have been carried out and completed to allow Lead Partners to create live projects and submit claims on the EUMIS system. All of the Lead Partners that were visited within these priorities were well prepared and the majority of the visits were an immediate success. Lead Partners are now in the process of submitting claims onto Eumis.

To date Smart Growth (ERDF) have paid 12 claims totalling approx £10.7m grant, 11 Business Competitiveness claims and 1 Innovation claim. There are currently 5 ESF claims submitted with a value of £13.8m grant which are currently being verified.

Activity under the Sustainable Growth includes business support and grant awards, through the Low Carbon and Zero Waste as well as the first rounds of approvals under the Green Infrastructure and Low Carbon Transport Challenge Funds. Operations have been approved under the Digital SI and final plans are being developed prior to procurement commencing later this year.

Green Infrastructure

A total of approximately £8.75 million of grant has been approved.

• The Green Infrastructure (LUPS) Challenge Fund received approx. £2.9M of ERDF funding towards 2 separate projects approved in round 1. Another 5 projects were approved under round 2 with grant approved of approx. £3m.
• The Green Infrastructure Challenge Fund (H&I) received no applications in the first two rounds. Allocated funding currently uncommitted.
• Community Engagement Challenge Fund: grant offers are expected to follow shortly. SNH plan to hold a second round later this year

Smart Cities

The Smart Cities SI has begun to see some progress and the first claim has been submitted. There are a number of activity clusters supporting the overall Smart City SI and activity is beginning to gain traction against these.

Transport Scotland

On Thursday 29 June, Transport Minister Humza Yousaf announced that 5 projects had successfully bidded for ERDF funding. Claims will depend on the actual expenditure.

Zero Waste Scotland

Zero Waste Scotland have had 7 operations approved with a total grant of nearly £31m. Two claims have been paid to date and a 3^rd claim has been submitted.

In January 2017, three separate pieces of participant guidance were combined into one document for convenience and consistency and issued on the ESIF website. The accompanying FAQ (http://bit.ly/2upGTpv) provide additional clarification on the changes.

While the general principles remain the same we have expanded some definitions, corrected a couple of minor mistakes and provided clarification on issues including the use of referral forms and statutory registers, and acceptable forms of evidence to demonstrate that the participant meets the eligibility criteria. These changes make it easier for Lead Partners to collect the required documentation and meet eligibility criteria.

The first participant-based claims highlight that not all delivery organisations have recorded all the European Commission Common Indicators set out in the Monitoring and Evaluation guidance. All lead partners have been asked to confirm these indicators are being recorded and to provide registration documents so that the MA can also check this important point. This may result in updating the guidance to highlight these Common Indicators.

ESF email address: we are in the process of changing over to the email address europeanstructuralfunds@gov.scot. Any emails should be sent to this address. Futurefunds2020@scotland.gsi.gov.uk will cease soon with Lead Partners on our mailing list being kept informed when this takes place. Sign up today to ensure you don’t miss out.

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