LP Seminar – Madrid – 20 October 2008 EUROPEAN REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT FUND REPORTING & MONITORING PROCEDURES Lead Partner Seminar Madrid, 20 October 2008

LP Seminar – Madrid – 20 October 2008

EUROPEAN REGIONALDEVELOPMENT FUND

REPORTING & MONITORING PROCEDURES

Lead Partner Seminar

Madrid, 20 October 2008

Elena Ferrario & Silke BrocksProject Officers

2 LP Seminar – Madrid – 20 October 2008

Reporting and monitoring proceduresReporting and monitoring procedures

SUMMARY

1. Main features of the procedures

2. Monitoring activities


1. Main features of the procedures



MAIN FEATURES

• Monitoring based on: Application Form

• Reporting and monitoring documents:

- Progress Report

- Final Report

- Request for changes forms




MAIN FEATURES

• Standard procedure:

- JTS sends a pre-filled Excel file by e-mail to Lead Partner.

Lead Partner returns the filled-in forms at given deadline

by e-mail and by post.

- Each project has two contact persons within the JTS (one

Project Officer and one Finance Officer) which should be

recipient of all communication.



• Reporting timing

The Progress Report:

has to be submitted for the first time:

- on 1 April 2009 (at the latest) covering the reporting period from

19 September 2008 to 31 December 2008

has to be submitted every six-months to the JTS

- on 1 October (at the latest) covering the reporting period from

January to June

- on 1 April (at the latest) covering the reporting period from July

to December

MAIN FEATURES



• Reporting Timing

The Final Report has to be submitted within two months after the end date of the operation.

The Request for changes has to be submitted electronically within the deadline set by the JTS.

MAIN FEATURES

• Timing for ERDF reimbursement

Depends on the quality of the Progress Reports (i.e. number of clarification requests)

From the JTS approval, payment should be executed within one month


Timeframe for reporting + monitoring (example)

Submission of PR by LP

to JTS (confirmed

by LP controller)

31/12

End of reporting

period

01/04

15/02

Submission of PP input to PR to LP (incl. PP

controller’s confirmation)

01/05

Feedback on PR by

JTS to LP, clarification

request

22/05

Approval of PR +

clarification by JTS

22/06

Payment by

Certifying Authority

~ 4 weeks ~ 4 weeks



Only in exceptional cases (e.g. partner or budget’s changes)

Request for changes forms includes:- an ‘Explanation’ form Information on the nature of the change and its justification- an Application Form for changes Specific version of the Application Form facilitating the monitoring of changes

Approval process:Mandate of the JTS/ MA from the Monitoring Committee to approve a certain number of changese.g. withdrawal or replacement of up to 2 partners in a project


MAIN FEATURES

Request for changes


2. Monitoring activities



MONITORING ACTIVITIES

Progress Report (PR) structure

Two main parts:

1. General information on the project’s implementation

- Summary of the activities & summary of the results

- Partners’ involvement

- Problems encountered / solutions found

2. Detailed reporting per Component including possible

deviations

This second part directly refers to the information provided

in the Application Form (work plan and indicators)




Points of attention for filling in the PR

To ensure that the report is self explanatory: annexes are for illustration only

To ensure that the report is understandable - even when the theme tackled is quite specialised, non specialists should be able to understand (‘capitalisation’ programme)

- role of the LP to ‘digest’ and summarise information coming from the whole partnership

To pay a particular attention to the indicators (in IIIC, 80% of the clarification requests for the activities were related to indicators)




Points of attention for filling in the PR

To be as precise as possiblee.g. activities should always be described in detail with dates, location, content, participants, etc.

To provide ‘qualitative’ informationMonitoring of outputs is important but not sufficient. Content related information is also crucial for capitalisation.



Core information to demonstrate the programme’s success

Figures reported should be realistic (better to be over cautious than over ambitious)

Each single indicator should be precisely justified

Meaning of each indicator should be carefully checked (Annex 3 of the Programme Manual)

Points of attention concerning the indicators




Points of attention concerning the indicators

Examples of possible confusion

In principle, N° of interregional events organised to exchange experience does not include the Steering Group meetings

N° of participants in these events (output) ≠ N° of staff members with increased capacity (result)

N° of practices successfully transferred ≠ N° of regional/local policies improved



Their description should include:

Information on the deviation itself

a justification

a clarification on its consequence on the project’s implementation (e.g. on finances)

the solution proposed to face this deviation and avoid similar issues in the future


Points of attention concerning the deviations



Final advice

TTo be proactive: do not wait for the Progress

Report to inform the JTS on important issues



Thank you for your attention!

Documents

LP Seminar – Madrid – 20 October 2008 EUROPEAN REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT FUND REPORTING & MONITORING PROCEDURES Lead Partner Seminar Madrid, 20 October 2008