3. Streamlined Implementation
Visibility and Transparency
The Commission intends to raise the visibility of Community
action and of the Union's aims. It will propose a limited number
of objectives and activities corresponding very closely to the
political priorities adopted at EU level.
The Commission also intends to examine carefully how certain
educational products and activities might benefit from the award
of a European label based on criteria of quality and transnational
cooperation.
Partnerships
The approach which we are putting forward is one of partnership,
aiming to achieve consistency and better consultation with different
types of interested parties:
the political authorities at national, regional and local
level in the Member States;
the other (educational, social, economic and voluntary) parties
involved in building the European educational area; and
the operators involved in implementation in close contact
with the beneficiaries.
This partnership should ensure a better continuing political
overview, wide-ranging consultation and appropriate implementation.
The greater spirit of cooperation which should be the hallmark
of the new generation of activities could also lead to bodies
or processes being set up—with the support whenever necessary
of the existing bodies—to enable the main parties involved
at national level to better follow developments in Community action
through national monitoring committees. The object would be to
enable them to achieve a better understanding of the principles
and aims of such action and thus to be in a better position to
use the results for national policies.
Monitoring and Evaluation
In order to enhance the understanding of Community action
and promote greater complementarity and consistency between the
various Community policies affecting human resources, evaluation
procedures will be improved.
The steps taken at the Amsterdam European Council to further
the coordination of employment policies show the considerable
advantages which concerted follow-up at Community level would
bring. The various reports currently provided for the action programmes
will be replaced by regular progress reports from the Commission
and the Member States on the extent to which the objectives of
the programme are being fulfilled and on the obstacles encountered.
Improved and Simplified Procedures
With the implementation of programmes deploying ever greater
resources, management arrangements have evolved. This evolution
took account, notably, of differing situations arising from the
variety of management cultures, diversity in funding arrangements,
multi-annual contract management, and centralised or decentralised
management. An audit policy has been pursued to review and develop
contract rules.
The Commission will make easily accessible points of contact
and decision-making available to the public. For the management
of day-to-day affairs, it will put forward proposals for decentralisation
of decisions to the levels closest to the parties concerned. It
will study the conditions which would allow a greater degree of
management responsibility to be delegated to certain broadly-based
types of projects or networks, or to public-private partnerships.
This greater degree of decentralisation—which will
be all the more necessary in view of the substantial growth in
the number of countries taking part in the future programmes—will
be accompanied by measures to strengthen the Commission's capacity
to carry out not only its responsibilities in terms of management
and supervision of budget execution, but also the crucial functions
of stimulation, coordination of decentralised management structures
and follow-up dissemination of results.
The need is to progress towards an arrangement which favours
a genuine management partnership between all the levels involved
and which improves cofinancing arrangements with public and private
sources, nationally, regionally and locally.
The Commission will propose an improved organisation and
distribution of structures for assistance and operation management.
In particular, the national agencies must step up their role of
assisting promoters, particularly as regards the identification
of partners, counselling applicants and taking a full part in
monitoring and evaluation activities.
Simplification should lead to more user-friendly access to
Community aid, particularly by reducing decision-making time,
simplifying administrative procedures and reducing the number
of single-establishment contracts as part of a global grant approach.
While fully respecting the general rules on accounting, proposals
will be examined to introduce more flexibility, eg by providing
for multi-annual funding procedures or phasing projects to take
account of the different stages of feasibility, preparation, implementation
and dissemination.
