Brussels, 05/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - It is now the turn of the European Social Fund (ESF) to be in the Court of Auditors sights. The ESF has found that neither the member states nor the Commission are in a position to give clear data regarding the effectiveness of ESF-funding projects in favour of older workers. Nonetheless, from 2007 to the end of 2013, ESF spending will amount to over €75 billion, representing around 8% of the total EU budget.
After criticising the use, in Italy, of EU solidarity funds (see EUROPE 10734), the Court of Auditors this time points a finger of blame at the inadequacies of the European Social Fund, in a report published on 5 March 2013. Lazaros Lazarou, the member of the Court responsible for the report, sought to determine whether tools have been set in place for verifying the effectiveness of ESF spending for older workers. He considers “the Commission is approving programmes without requiring the information to check if they are really working and the member states are not providing” that information. Six programmes were studied in four countries (Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom), worth a total of €222 million. It was found that it was impossible to determine whether ESF financing had allowed older workers to keep their jobs, to find work or to train. In fact, no tools were set in place, either by the Commission or by member states, to determine the effectiveness of the ESF in this respect and the number of final beneficiaries. As Lazarou underlines, this is highly significant, saying: “Not having reliable, verifiable and timely performance data and assessments of the different actions makes it impossible for the policy makers to draw conclusions for current and future policymaking”.
In consequence, the Court recommends that the Commission should require member states to design their operational programmes in such a way that the performance of the ESF funds can be measured. The target populations should be unambiguously defined and relevant quantified operational goals and indicators should be defined. These should be monitored and assessed and, for that, member states should be in possession of coherent and reliable data, the Court recommends. In this way, they would have a better idea of the results obtained by ESF. Generally speaking, member states should, therefore, begin more detailed reflection on ESF performance.
The Commission recognises that, at this stage only, financial data are collected according to priorities and not according to target groups. It considers that the exercise is difficult given the diverse composition of the age groups. Nonetheless, it assures that results are well monitored through assessments made on different subjects. A chapter on the assessment relating to education and life-long learning was, moreover, on older workers. (MD/transl.jl)