LESSONS FROM THE THEMATIC EVALUATION OF THE TERRITORIAL EMPLOYMENT PACTS

1. LESSONS FROM THE THEMATIC EVALUATION OF THE TERRITORIAL EMPLOYMENT PACTS Veronica Gaffey, DG Regional Policy, Evaluation Unit

2. INFORMATION ABOUT THE EVALUATION • Evaluation undertaken by Ecotec Research and Consulting (November 2001 - October 2002) • Available on Inforegio: http://europa.eu.int/comm/regional_policy/

3. WHAT WERE THE TERRITORIAL EMPLOYMENT PACTS (TEPs)? • Multi stakeholder partnerships at local level. • Objective: to tackle unemployment and promote job creation. • 89 Pacts in 15 Member States between 1996 and 2001. • €300,000 Funding from Structural Funds

4. ATTRIBUTES OF TERRITORIAL EMPLOYMENT PACTS • Territorial Partnerships with an employment focus:- bottom up- broadly based- pursuing an integrated strategy- innovative

5. TASKS OF THE EVALUATION • Strategic Evaluation of Territorial Employment Pacts (TEPs) as a policy instrument • Relevance of the Approach • Cohesion of instruments and objectives • Catalytic effects achieved • Cost effectiveness and added value

6. METHOD • Documentation and monitoring data review and analysis of all 89 Pacts • National and European key informant interviews • 30 Case Studies in all Member States representing the diversity of contexts

7. WIDE DIVERSITY • Scale: part of municipality to whole region - 16,000 to 3 million people • Territory: sparsely populated, remote rural to world cities; high and low unemployment • Partnerships: 5 to 50+ partners; diversity of sectors • Objectives/actions: high level strategic planning to delivery of local projects

8. ASSESSING RESULTS 1. Were Territorial Employment Pacts as envisaged actually created? 2. What did they achieve? 3. What factors explain the observed performance? 4. What can be concluded?

9. Yes, up to a point: 62% (55) demonstrated at least partial conformity with the model. WERE PACTS CREATED, AS FORESEEN?

10. WHAT DID THEY ACHIEVE? Pacts’ own view focused on partnership formation and co-operative benefits: • increased mutual trust & understanding • better resource deployment & leverage • planning, funding & delivery of local actions • increased coherence in policy • better articulation of supply and demand

11. ACHIEVEMENTS 2 • Direct employment effects partial & small scale, but not a primary objective of programme • Indirect employment effects difficult to isolate - best seen in:- innovative ideas & practices,- targeting of resources on agreed priorities- greater responsiveness to change- greater co-ordination

12. ACHIEVEMENTS 3 • Costs/benefits impossible to assess • Wide variations in “levered” funds, some achieved considerable influence, others none • Mainstreaming and wider dissemination limited

13. WHAT EXPLAINS PERFORMANCE? • NOT decisive:- nature of labour market- spatial/administrative scale- human geography • Good and bad examples in all • Successful responses varied but hinged on adapting role to circumstances

14. EXPLANATIONS 2 • Decisive factor: governance context and the ways in which Pacts were able to interact with it • Closely associated with Member State institutional context

15. Governance Context • Most positive results in “receptive” contexts, where there is an accepted and legally determined role for devolved governance powers at local level, but not systematically combined with extensive multi-stakeholder partnership working. • Italy and Ireland - particularly successful examples. Also Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany and Spain.

16. Governance Context 2 • In countries with a limited history of local level activity in relation to the labour market, Pacts were least successful. • Little appreciation of the merits of the bottom-up partnership and not enough competence or institutional capacity in place. • Portugal, Greece and Luxembourg

17. Governance Context 3 • In countries with a long history of governmental intervention in the labour market and territorial development, and where partnership working is common, Pacts struggled to find a role. • Wide variety of performance with examples of both successful and weak Pacts in same country. • Denmark, France, Netherlands, Sweden, UK

18. Conclusions • Allowing for variability in context and performance, the basis Pact model has considerable potential: • co-ordination of actors and building positive relationships • development of coherent and streamlined strategy • stimulation and delivery of innovative approaches

19. Conclusions 2 • Value of the “ Pact model” is best achieved with a combination of: • receptive space in the policy and practice environment • positive attitude from superior authorities (good vertical links) • enough bodies able and willing to be co- ordinated and whose joint working is genuinely additional to existing structures • good internal management • strategic vision to identify opportunities for new approaches

20. Conclusions 3 • If these circumstances exist, the model has applicability to, for example: • employment • territorial development, e.g., competitiveness, local economic development • business support • integration of education, training, lifelong learning and skills demand

21. Relevance to Future Structural Policies • For existing Objective 2 and 3 regions, where there is a tradition and capacity for partnership working, the model offers an opportunity to add value in different areas (not only employment) in the context of reduced resources. • Existing partnerships should be the starting point.

22. Relevance to Future Structural Policies 2 • For current Objective 1 regions without such capacity and the new Member States, the development of multi-stakeholder partnership capacity is a longer-term objective, to be stimulated through small scale pilot actions leading to longer term capacity building • In all cases, clear guidance on design, selection procedures, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and dissemination is essential