REPORTING & MONITORING PROCEDURES Lead Partner Seminar Madrid, 20 October 2008

1. REPORTING & MONITORING PROCEDURES Lead Partner Seminar Madrid, 20 October 2008 Elena Ferrario & Silke BrocksProject Officers

2. Reporting and monitoring procedures • SUMMARY • Main features of the procedures • Monitoring activities

3. Reporting and monitoring procedures • Main features of the procedures

4. Reporting and monitoring procedures • MAIN FEATURES • Monitoring based on: Application Form • Reporting and monitoring documents: • - Progress Report • - Final Report • - Request for changes forms

5. Reporting and monitoring procedures • MAIN FEATURES • Standard procedure: • - JTS sends a pre-filled Excel file by e-mail to Lead Partner. • Lead Partner returns the filled-in forms at given deadline • by e-mail and by post. • - Each project has two contact persons within the JTS (one • Project Officer and one Finance Officer) which should be • recipient of all communication.

6. Reporting and monitoring procedures MAIN FEATURES • Reporting timing • The Progress Report: • has to be submitted for the first time: - on 1 April 2009 (at the latest) covering the reporting period from 19 September 2008 to 31 December 2008 • has to be submitted every six-months to the JTS - on 1 October (at the latest) covering the reporting period from January to June - on 1 April (at the latest) covering the reporting period from July to December

7. Reporting and monitoring procedures MAIN FEATURES • Reporting Timing • The Final Report has to be submitted within two months after the end date of the operation. • The Request for changes has to be submitted electronically within the deadline set by the JTS. • Timing for ERDF reimbursement • Depends on the quality of the Progress Reports (i.e. number of clarification requests) • From the JTS approval, payment should be executed within one month

8. Reporting and monitoring procedures 01/04 31/12 15/02 22/05 22/06 01/05 ~ 4 weeks ~ 4 weeks Submission of PR by LP to JTS (confirmed by LP controller) End of reporting period Submission of PP input to PR to LP (incl. PP controller’s confirmation) Feedback on PR by JTS to LP, clarification request Approval of PR + clarification by JTS Payment by Certifying Authority Timeframe for reporting + monitoring (example)

9. Reporting and monitoring procedures MAIN FEATURES Request for changes • Only in exceptional cases (e.g. partner or budget’s changes) • Request for changes forms includes:- an ‘Explanation’ form Information on the nature of the change and its justification- an Application Form for changes Specific version of the Application Form facilitating the monitoring of changes • Approval process:Mandate of the JTS/ MA from the Monitoring Committee to approve a certain number of changese.g. withdrawal or replacement of up to 2 partners in a project

10. Reporting and monitoring procedures • Monitoring activities

11. Reporting and monitoring procedures • MONITORING ACTIVITIES • Progress Report (PR) structure Two main parts: General information on the project’s implementation - Summary of the activities & summary of the results - Partners’ involvement - Problems encountered / solutions found Detailed reporting per Component including possible deviations This second part directly refers to the information provided in the Application Form (work plan and indicators)

12. Reporting and monitoring procedures • MONITORING ACTIVITIES • Points of attention for filling in the PR • To ensure that the report is self explanatory: annexes are for illustration only • To ensure that the report is understandable - even when the theme tackled is quite specialised, non specialists should be able to understand (‘capitalisation’ programme) - role of the LP to ‘digest’ and summarise information coming from the whole partnership • To pay a particular attention to the indicators (in IIIC, 80% of the clarification requests for the activities were related to indicators)

13. Reporting and monitoring procedures • MONITORING ACTIVITIES • Points of attention for filling in the PR • To be as precise as possiblee.g. activities should always be described in detail with dates, location, content, participants, etc. • To provide ‘qualitative’ informationMonitoring of outputs is important but not sufficient. Content related information is also crucial for capitalisation.

14. Reporting and monitoring procedures Points of attention concerning the indicators Core information to demonstrate the programme’s success • Figures reported should be realistic (better to be over cautious than over ambitious) • Each single indicator should be precisely justified • Meaning of each indicator should be carefully checked (Annex 3 of the Programme Manual)

15. Reporting and monitoring procedures • MONITORING ACTIVITIES • Points of attention concerning the indicators Examples of possible confusion • In principle, N° of interregional events organised to exchange experience does not include the Steering Group meetings • N° of participants in these events (output) ≠ N° of staff members with increased capacity (result) • N° of practices successfully transferred ≠ N° of regional/local policies improved

16. Reporting and monitoring procedures Points of attention concerning the deviations Their description should include: • Information on the deviation itself • a justification • a clarification on its consequence on the project’s implementation (e.g. on finances) • the solution proposed to face this deviation and avoid similar issues in the future

17. Reporting and monitoring procedures • MONITORING ACTIVITIES • Final advice TTo be proactive: do not wait for the ProgressReport to inform the JTS on important issues

18. Thank you for your attention!