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Eurostat’s grant policy for 2010

Luxembourg, 23/03/2010

Unit A4 – Financial Management

Section 3 – Grant procedures and agreements

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Content of the presentation

Purpose of Eurostat’s grant policy for 2010 Principles for awarding grants in 2010 Use of audit certificates Substantial reduction of the significant number of

small grants

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Purpose

Eurostat’s grant policy for 2010 is an update of Eurostat’s grant policy , as approved in January 2005 and adapted in November 2007, in order to reflect changes in the legal framework occurred during the period 2007-2009:– Revision of the Financial Regulation and Implementing

Rules ( in force since 1st May 2007): impact art 172a 2 (e) regarding eligibility of staff costs of national administration

– the entry into force of the new CSP for 2008-2012 in January 2008

– and finally, the entry into force of the new Regulation on European Statistics (EC) 223/2009 on 1 April 2009.

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Principles

The award of grants, and in fact the launch of a call for proposals, should always be based on what we call a "basic act".

A basic act is a legal act which provides a legal basis for a programme and for the implementation of the corresponding expenditure entered in the budget.

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Principles (continued): grants awarded under CSP 2008-2012

Any action to support the development of statistics and the build-up capacity in the ESS, already foreseen in a legal obligation without financial provisions, should not be subject to co-financing by Eurostat.

Funding of actions to develop/further improve an existing legislation, but not corresponding to the legal obligation itself, could be possible.

The beneficiaries should certify that the action funded under the CSP 2008-2012 corresponds to an additional activity, i.e. they apply to a project they would not carry out if the call for proposal was not launched by the Commission.

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Principles (continued): eligibility of salary costs of personnel of national administrations

Article 172a (2) of the Implementing Rules of Financial Regulations, in force from May 2007 onwards, states that "administrative expenditure, staff and equipment costs, including the salary costs of personnel of national administrations" may be considered as eligible by the authorizing officer responsible "to the extent that they relate to the cost of activities which the relevant public authority would not carry out if the project concerned were not undertaken”.

Compliance with this financial provision means that you apply for a project you would not carry out if the call for proposals was not launched by the Commission (additional activity).

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Use of audit certificates

Principle: the request for an audit certificate on the financial statements and underlying accounts for final payments is mandatory as soon as the 300.000 EUR Community contribution is reached.

The costs of the external audit certificate are eligible.

In case of an agreement linking the Commission and a number of beneficiaries ( Multi-beneficiary grant agreement), the threshold referred above shall apply to each beneficiary.

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Substantial reduction of the significant number of small grants

The analysis of grants awarded during the period 2007-2009 also reflects that a significant number (65%) concern grants below 50.000 Euros

Grants commitments 2007-2009

2009 2008 2007 Period 2007-2009

Number of grant agreements 514 445 474 1.433

Amount committed 43.849.786 29.127.766 51.566.991 124.544.543

Average commitment 85.311 65.456 108.791 86.912

N° commitments < 50 000 € 313 308 308 929

Amount committed < 50 000 € 7.354.572 7.363.726 7.547.920 22.266.218

% commitments < 50 000 € 61% 69% 65% 65%

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Substantial reduction of the significant number of small grants The analysis of grants awarded during the period 2007-2009

also reflects that a significant number (37%) concern grants below 25.000 Euros

Grants commitments 2007-2009

2009 2008 2007 Period 2007-2009

Number of grant agreements 514 445 474 1433

Amount committed 43.849.786 29.127.766 51.566.991 124.544.543

Average commitment 85.311 65.456 108.791 86.912

N° commitments < 25 000 € 183 176 168 527

Amount committed < 25 000 € 2.661.202 2.512.095 2.493.880 7.667.177

% commitments < 25 000 € 36% 40% 35% 37%

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Substantial reduction of the significant number of small grants

Grants below 25 000€ will not be awarded in 2010 except under exceptional circumstances duly motivated.

Grants between 25 and 50 000€ will be avoided in 2010 and will not be awarded from 2011 onwards.

In this respect, with regard to the contents of projects, high priority should be given to broad projects which will contribute to Eurostat's strategy for the "Re-engineering of the Production Systems of European Statistics", i.e. projects aiming at developing common tools (methodology, IT infrastructure, databases) with the ESS and using cooperation between members of the ESS

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Purpose

Community legislation – minimum standards for the production of statistics in particular area.

Use of common tools within the ESS. Common values and the sharing of knowledge trought

the ESS.

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Grants instruments to simplify the awarding

Priority should be given to the following modalities:– Increase the use of Multi-Beneficiary Grant Agreements

(MBGA), whereby several beneficiaries work together in order to conduct an action and share results between them.

– Increase the use of ESSnets, whereby a few members of the ESS, interested in collaborating in the development of specific methodological domains, work together in order to conduct an action and with the objective to disseminate the results to the entire ESS. These ESSnets can be concluded either through a MBGA or through a Framework Partnership Agreements (FPA). It should be noted that FPA is the solution for long term projects of about 4 years. They should however be supplemented by specific grant agreements.

– Use the possibility to award grants for (non recurrent) actions spread throughout more than one year.

– Block grants: Reduction of the number of individual commitments by incorporating some actions awarded for one and the same beneficiary into one single grant agreement

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Grants instruments to simplify the awarding

Block grants:

– all actions are to be covered by a common global objective and the same rules,

– eligibility periods of all covered actions are similar allowing for an unique duration,

– the budget details remain focused on each action individually and savings on one action cannot be used to compensate for possible surpluses on another action,

– the co-financing percentage must be the same for all actions to simplify the calculations afterwards.