Thank you all again for your comments and e-mails on our continuing negotiations with Brussels. Your input into the new programme is vital if this is to be a truly collaborative process.
Talking of which, the Commission has proposed some new approaches to support local and regional development including Community led local development (CLLD) an option which will be available across all 4 funds and will contunue to be mandatory for rural development and is similar to the LEADER programme .
CLLDs allow funds from various programmes to be combined to support local development strategies which in turn, can be delivered by local action groups consisting of partners from public, private or the third sectors.
What do you think, could this approach work for you?
At what level would a CLLD work, would a local authority be too large or not large enough?
Alternatively there is the provision for a Joint Action Plan (ERDF & ESF only) which offers the opportunity to deliver large scale regional projects and can apply to any area.
Finally there is an Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI) offering the opportunity for the delivery of ERDF & ESF from different thematic objectives – the delivery of which could be delegated to cities.
Do you think the new proposals would be more bureaucratic? (structural funds – bureaucratic – surely not)
As you all know we have used CPPs in this current programme particularly to fund employability projects. In addition, remaining funds have been allocated to the strategic skills pipeline where money is used to match existing local initiatives to further support employment and training opportunities.
Do you see a role for the CPP model in the new programme and if so is this a model which we could widen?
May 10, 2012 at 10:11 am
Hi there,
The LEADER LAG group in this area organised a workshop yesterday to start raising awareness locally about the changes that might be happening, and teasing out what local stakeholders with an interest in European funds think.
Whilst many participants thought this was mind-blowing stuff, many could see the benefit of a LAG-led approach (i.e. local and with strong links with the community – and able to cross more than one CPP area) there was a clear concern that the rural aspects of LEADER might be lost if an approach was followed which involved grouping all the funds together.
There was some discussion about what the structure of this would have to look like, and that this would be important to whether this worked or not. We had lots of questions and discussion, but felt it we didn’t have enought detail yet to design the perfect structure!
May 14, 2012 at 8:13 am
Thank you for this I will pass your comments on to our Future of the Funds team. Please feel free to let your colleagues know about the blog as we would welcome their comments too.
May 17, 2012 at 6:47 am
Response from Lynn Forsyth Future of the Funds Team
I agree that whatever we do needs to preserve rural development, just as we need to preserve urban development. Its about balance accross a wider area and how developments, whether rural or urban work together. We too would like more detail – but we would be very grateful if you could design the perfect structure – which we could then present to the Commission. If you don’t ask – you don’t get!
May 14, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Given the diversity and complexity of the exsiting partnerships involved in economic and social development around Scotland alongside the desire to centralise the entire process of StructuraL Fund assisted investment, how are you proposing to ensure the integrity of local and regional perspectives will be maintained in a meaningful way?
May 17, 2012 at 6:53 am
Response from Lynn Forsyth – Future of the Funds Team
It’s not about centralising the process of Structural Funds – we support and welcome the Commission’s focus on local and regional – led economic development. We welcome your views on how we ensure the integrity of local and regional perspective is maintained. Would any of the proposed instruments (CLLD, Joint Action Plans or Integrated Territorial Investments) be useful?
May 17, 2012 at 9:47 am
The proposed instruments may well be the answer however its not clear how having one’ super fund’ can reflect the subtles of local more marginal ecomomies where the funds previously have had the greatest impact because of issues such as perphierality and investment risk. The funds account for miniscule % of GDP for Scotland in total but have a massive differential effect at the margins. Previosuly with strong partnership involvement in the programme process there was a measure of insurance that the programmes reflect local need and democracy which now appears to more opaque. Is this Scottish Govt, UK Govt or EC desire?
June 23, 2012 at 10:40 pm
I support the CPP model – assuming (and this is key) that the CPP model is improved, in line with recent Scottish Government recommendations about improving partnership, power share and balance. But we have 13 different CPP models. We need to refine what has worked and what is administratively sound so that we have a single best approach.
I would really like to see an adaptation of the JAP to operate at the local levels and that could set out what the core funded outcomes are, and then layer on the outcomes that could be achieved with each regional allocation of funds from ERDF, ESF, agriculture, fisheries – and then this model would also be mature enough to add additional layers with funds from the lifelong learning programme (Erasmus for All), territorial fund ambitions, Horizon 2020 ambitions and so on.