The Effectiveness of European Structural Funds in Wales

In a year where public funding in Wales has been in the spotlight like never before, it’s a surprise that the influential cross party Assembly Finance Committee chose to publish their report into effectiveness of European structural funds in Wales in the past and suggestions for the future during the Christmas recess.

They made one primary recommendation  ‘We recommend that the Welsh Government‘s review of arrangements for implementation of European Structural Fund programmes post-2013 gives independent, unfettered and imaginative consideration to the future role, responsibilities and structure of WEFO.'

And 15 other recommendations listed below

Recommendation 1 We recommend that the Welsh Government defines its strategic priorities for the next funding round in a clear and accessible format at the earliest available opportunity, with a particular focus on the intended legacy of spend.

Recommendation 2 We recommend that ahead of the next funding round, the Welsh Government establishes that WEFO will be accountable for the co-ordination and oversight of all projects enabled by European Funding in a regional area, with a responsibility to avoid duplication of services and intended long term outcomes.

Recommendation 3 We recommend that the Welsh Government improves the collection and analysis of procurement and contract data to enable a strategic overview to be taken on a local and regional basis of the delivery and intended long-term outcomes of European structural funded projects.

Recommendation 4 We recommend that the role of the PMC should be encompassed in the Welsh Government‘s ongoing review of WEFO‘s application and management processes, to examine whether the PMC is currently functioning to its full potential as a critical friend to WEFO.

Recommendation 5 We recommend that, ahead of the next European Funding Round, the Welsh Government reviews its processes for applicants applying for funding from WEFO, with a view to ensuring that they are both appropriately robust and that any unnecessary bureaucracy is eliminated. We consider that this review should be performed in consultation with appropriate stakeholders.

Recommendation 6 We recommend that in its review of WEFO‘s application and management processes, the Welsh Government should consider how inconsistencies in advice from WEFO can be minimised.

We anticipate this will incorporate examining how staff turnover within WEFO can be minimised, and how more procurement specialists can be developed within- or recruited into- WEFO.

Recommendation 7 We recommend that the Welsh Government undertakes a detailed analysis of the costs and benefits of using procurement in the delivery of structural funds in Wales, quantifying these where possible. We anticipate the Welsh Government would then report on these findings.

Recommendation 8. We recommend that the Welsh Government enables project sponsors to consider a wide spectrum of funding options when determining the most appropriate and efficient way in which to deliver their project, supported with appropriate guidance.

Recommendation 9 We recommend that the Welsh Government provides third sector and private sector project sponsors with direct access to appropriate procurement experts within Value Wales or any other appropriate organisation (and WEFO, at such time as it has procurement specialists). (Page 54)

Recommendation 10 We recommend that the Welsh Government clarifies Wales‘ position, in relation to other regions of Europe, in terms of its success in engaging the private sector in the use of structural funds.

Recommendation 11 We recommend that, ahead of the next European Funding round, WEFO reviews its guidance on monitoring of financial expenditure by project sponsors. We anticipate that this should result in the development of explicit guidance to enable monitoring of projects ‘ financial expenditure that is not excessive, while still being appropriately robust.

Recommendation 12 We recommend that WEFO takes action to enable, in the next funding round, the introduction of a social and economic impact survey for projects enabled by European structural funds; and programme level indicators to measure both projects‘  social and economic impact. (Page 69)

Recommendation 13 We recommend that in the next funding round WEFO publishes and makes publicly available output and outcome data for live projects.

Recommendation 14 We recommend that the Welsh Government takes action to enable appropriate evaluations of projects during their lifetimes.

Recommendation 15 We recommend that the Welsh Government reviews its current guidance on the application of Article 55. We anticipate that this will include consideration of alternative mechanisms for putting European funding into projects, such as tapered grants, with a view to encouraging long-term profit generation where appropriate.

The full report is HERE

DotCym closes down and blames Minister’s, Political Party’s and lobbyists

I don’t know a lot about the demise of DotCym or whether the new contract for Nominet is good or bad for Wales online domain registration, but DotCym’s statement released last week is unusual in that it names individuals, ministers, political parties and lobbyists it considers responsible for it's deminse in unusually blunt language.

The first part of the statement reads ‘On many occasions we warned Ieuan Wyn Jones, the ex-Minister responsible for a top-level domain for Wales, that the Welsh civil servants and the Labour Party would give the domain to Nominet the second he lost his position if he didn’t take steps to ensure that a Welsh organisation, answerable to the Welsh people, was responsible for the domain.

“After four years of Plaid Cymru with power over us and doing nothing positive to help, Edwina Hart became Minister.” says Maredudd ap Gwyndaf, ex-director of dotCYM, “Nominet were given the nod to move in and we had no hope against a large company that was being helped by many a Welsh person to take such an important resource away from the country. It makes no difference whether Labour or Plaid Cymru are in power, there is no interest in social enterprises, especially if there is talk of benefitting the culture or language as a part of the venture.”

With only two volunteer working in their spare time with dotCYM, it was possible to run the enterprise but impossible to fight against Nominet, the Welsh civil servants, the Welsh Government, Darran Hill and his PR company, and Ieuan Evans and other members of Nominet’s Wales Advisory Group.

According to Maredudd ap Gwyndaf, “We would meet with Welsh politicians in Cardiff and London and Nominet and a member of the Wales Advisory Group had already met with all of them lying about dotCYM by saying that we only wanted to create a domain for Welsh speaker, ignoring the rest of the Welsh people and businesses. This was a complete lie and they knew this, but with only enough time to meet a handful of politicians and no money to fight Nominet with the law it was impossible to stop their lies and PR machine. Every politician which I met supported us after they became aware of the truth but I didn’t have the time to meet enough of them.

It didn’t take Nominet long to show their lack of respect to Wales. They created a website for their .cymru and .wales domains and used Google Translate to tranlate the English content to Wales. The news story can be seen here

In order to try to understand why Welsh civil servants would be so determined to ensure that Wales lost ownership and control of their domain we made a Freedom of Information request for all the communication between Nominet and the civil servants. The request was refused due to the rist that some people would be unhappy with the information would it be released:

“A series of recent campaigns have focused on the role of the Welsh Government in the delivery of the top level domain names. An announcement has recently been made regarding the delivery of an application for top level domains for Wales. It is likely that the release of any further information at this time will give rise to further campaigns which are likely to cause damage to the delivery of a strong top level domain.

The relationship that the Welsh Government has with its stakeholders is central to delivering the outcomes of Digital Wales, such as reducing the impact of digital exclusion. Any publicity surrounding the creation of domain names carries the potential to damage relationships between the Welsh Government and business and community stakeholders. This will result in a situation in which stakeholders will be less likely to engage with the Welsh Government and this will put at risk the Welsh Government’s ability to deliver against the policy aims described in Delivering a Digital Wales.”

“The whole point of Freedom of Information is to have transparency in Government”, said Maredudd ap Gwyndaf, “It’s ridiculous that the government can keep this information from us due to the fact that they’re scared that people would be unhappy with it and may campaign as a result.”

The full statement is HERE