Brussels, 20/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Court of Auditors said on Tuesday 20th October that EU-funded vocational training and advice programmes in rural areas cost too much to run, often duplicate existing programmes and favour established training providers.
The auditors' report highlights poor management procedures by the member states and insufficient supervision by the European Commission.
The EU supports rural training and advice projects through the European agricultural fund for rural development. For the 2007-2013 period, €1.3 billion was set aside for these activities. Member states' co-financing brought total public support to €2.2 billion. For 2014-2020, the amount may exceed €4 billion.
The auditors assessed whether the Commission and the member states had adequate management and control systems in place. They visited five member states: Spain (Galicia), Austria, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom (England), covering more than 65% of relevant expenditure.
“Training should respond to identified needs and be provided at a reasonable cost by qualified and experienced trainers”, said Jan Kinst, the member of the Court of Auditors responsible for the report, “but too often this is simply not happening”.
The auditors found that the management of the training was not satisfactory. Member states relied too much on trainers' proposals and considered any type of training as “good” and eligible for public funding.
The procedures in place did not always ensure fair and transparent competition that would allow high quality providers to be selected at the best price. Long-standing and well-established providers were recurrently selected and received most of the funding. In Austria, certain providers had privileged access to relevant information when preparing training proposals. In Poland, the grant award system systematically favoured long-standing providers. In Sweden and Spain, much of the training was delivered by the administration without justifying the exclusion of private-sector trainers.
The Court flagged up failings in the checks that countries have to carry out, at both the proposal and payment stages. Countries were paying too much for certain services, the Court noted. Some training supported was ten times more expensive than equivalent courses already available: for example, in Galicia, training for farmers in the handling of phytosanitary products and animal welfare cost more than €2,000 when these courses were available from other providers for less than €200.
The audit also revealed that, often, similar services are funded by different funds, including the European social fund, creating a risk of double funding.
The report recommends that member states: - select training activities that respond to skills needs identified through a recurrent analysis, and avoid the risk of the selection process becoming provider-driven; - improve their assessment of the qualifications and experience of training providers; - assess the need to support activities that are readily available on the market at a reasonable price. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)