Contribution of the Structural Funds to the Europe 2020 Strategy in the Areas of Employment and Education

The Auditor General presented to the Hon. Speaker the report titled ‘Contribution of the Structural Funds to the Europe 2020 Strategy in the Areas of Employment and Education’. This was a parallel audit carried out with the Supreme Audit Institutions of ten other European Union (EU) member states. This audit assessed the potential effectiveness of EU funds allocated under operational programmes (OPs) in terms of the Europe 2020 goals on employment and education. In this respect, two OPs were reviewed – OPI and OPII, which address an array of national issues, ranging from efforts at raising employment levels, reskilling of the workforce, reducing early school leaving and increasing the number of persons obtaining tertiary education.

The National Audit Office (NAO) established that OPI and OPII were drawn up following extensive reference to national priorities, risks and challenges. The involvement of all ministries served to identify areas of importance, whereas the role undertaken by the Programming Unit within the Ministry for European Affairs and Implementation of the Electoral Manifesto ensured a coordinated approach in terms of the development of the OPs. Furthermore, the recommendations put forward in the evaluations undertaken prior to the finalisation of the OPs were, in the vast majority of cases, duly assimilated. The NAO considered the setting up of the Inter Ministerial Contact Committee and the subsidiary Sectoral Sub-Committees as a positive development, which served to ensure the maximisation of resources and reduce the risk of overlap or duplication of efforts by providing direction on the demarcation between different funds and programmes.

This Office is of the opinion that the output indicators selected, which represent a means of measuring that achieved, will contribute to the overall achievement of the Europe 2020 targets. For example, an output indicator of improved employability is the number of persons participating in training. On the other hand, the promotion of equal access to quality education is measured in terms of output through the provision of digital technologies to students. With respect to result indicators, that is, the measure of the effect that interventions had on a particular objective, the NAO considered the targets set as realistic and generally ambitious.

The NAO established that the interventions proposed in the OPs were all directly related to their respective specific objectives and result indicators. Although interventions were not always clearly linked to their corresponding output indicators, these instances were infrequent and queries put forward to the Managing Authority were all adequately addressed.

Oversight of the OPs was ensured through the setting up of Monitoring Committees that were duly represented by the pertinent authorities and relevant organisations, bar the Audit Authority. The Managing Authority indicated that the Audit Authority was involved on an ad hoc basis, which explanation was deemed reasonable by the NAO. Furthermore, the mechanisms in place to monitor indicators were adequate and provided for the timely collection and analysis of data.

The implementation of the OPs through the selected projects is at an early stage and therefore, the NAO is unable to comment in this respect.