Evaluation of Financial Instruments in Support of European Social Dialogue

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Forum de liaison, 17 October 2005

• Evaluation of Financial Instruments in Support of
  European Social Dialogue
• - Key findings, conclusions and recommendations

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Overview

• Aims of the evaluation
• Key issues and methodology
• Evaluation findings and conclusions
• Main recommendations
• Some questions for discussion
• Draft final report

It should be emphasised that the final report
prepared by CSES is still in draft and the
findings, conclusions and recommendations are
still subject to review by the Commission.
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Evaluation aims
The aims of the evaluation were, in summary, to

• Evaluate the financial instruments in support of
  European Social Dialogue during the 2000-04
  period
• Examine the results achieved and other key issues
  relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, added
  value, sustainability, etc
• Make recommendations on how measures to promote
  European social dialogue might be improved in the
  future
• Place the evaluation findings and policy
  recommendations in the context of EU enlargement.

In addition, there were a number of specific
evaluation issues (discussed later).
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Work plan
The evaluation has been carried out over an
18-month period
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Main inputs to the evaluation

• Analysis of monitoring data desk research on
  the Commissions data.
• Survey work a survey of social partner
  organisations and rejected projects.
• Case studies and interviews 32 case studies and
  a further 58 interviews with social partner
  organisations. 8 interviews with Commission
  officials. Almost all this fieldwork was
  undertaken on a face-to-face basis.

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Key evaluation issues

• Relevance (internal coherence) to promoting
  European social dialogue and wider EU policy
  aims, and the coherence between identified needs,
  project aims and outcomes.
• Effectiveness achievement of aims and
  contribution to overall Community objectives.
• Efficiency - how economically expenditure has
  been converted into outputs, results and impacts,
  and value for money.
• Complementarity (external coherence) synergies
  between different projects and other EU-funded
  activities.
• Financial additionality would projects have
  gone ahead without funding
• Community added value - what has been achieved
  through Community intervention
• Sustainability the extent to which projects are
  likely to achieve lasting outcomes

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Evaluation framework
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Overall conclusions

• Overall, the results are very positive.
• Different sources emphasise the key role played
  by the financial instruments in supporting the
  European social dialogue.
• Worth highlighting in particular are the findings
  in relation to financial additionality, the
  achievement of project aims, and with regard to
  Community added value (these factors are examined
  in more detail in later slides).
• A very broad range of project activities have
  been supported and most have contributed to one
  or more of the priorities.
• More generally, there has been a significant
  enlargement dimension to many projects and
  coherence with other key EU priorities such as
  the Lisbon Strategy and Social Policy Agenda.

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Key findings - projects

• During the 2000-04 period, just over 1,000
  projects received support totalling 141 million
• Projects supported under budget headings 01 and
  02 each received approximately 40 of the total
  funding followed by BH 03 (just under 20)
• The 1,011 projects that received support were
  carried out by a total of 525 different social
  partner organisations
• 27 social partner organisations accounted for 392
  of the projects, i.e. well over a third (39) of
  the total
• In total, there were 1,830 applications with an
  approval rate of 55.

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Project portfolio
Number of projects by budget heading 2000-04
Financial allocations (m) to budget headings
2000-04
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Key findings - procedures
Q How easy did you find the application
criteria/procedures for Community assistance to
follow/understand
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Financial additionality
Q What would have happened to the project
without support from the financial instruments?
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Project activities and beneficiaries

• There were an estimated 185,000 final
  beneficiaries of projects
• Whilst a quantification of project outputs is
  feasible, there is far less information available
  on results and impacts because there were few
  follow-up surveys of project target groups/final
  beneficiaries.
• The scale and diversity of supported project
  activities is considerable but there was
  nevertheless a reasonable degree of coherence
  with examples demonstrating strong linkages
  between projects.
• Sustainability would also appear to be strong.
• However, more emphasis could be placed on the
  dissemination and sharing of information on
  project outcomes.

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Achieving project aims
Q Overall, to what extent did the project
achieve its aims?
Extent to which project achieved aims Number
Completely 161 82.1
Partially 35 17.9
Not at all 0 0.0
Total 196 100.0
Q To what extent would it have been possible to
achieve the same project outcomes if Community
assistance had not been available?
Outcome achievement without Community assistance Number
Would not have achieved any of the outcomes 91 46.0
Would have only achieved some outcomes 103 52.0
Would have achieved the same outcomes without Community assistance 4 2.0
Total 198 100.0
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Synergies with EU priorities

• Many projects have supported objectives relating
  to EU enlargement through capacity building and
  by helping social partner organisations in these
  countries to prepare for adoption of the
  Community acquis.
• The research does, however, support the
  conclusions set out in COM (2002) 341 with regard
  to the inherent weaknesses of social dialogue
  structures in EU10 and candidate countries and
  the need for more emphasis on capacity building
  support.
• The research suggests that the European social
  dialogue financial instruments have been
  extensively used to address specific Social
  Policy Agenda priorities.

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Enlargement dimension
Proportion of European social dialogue financial
instruments grants for projects with a
EU10/candidate country dimension
There was a build-up in project activities
with a EU10/candidate country dimension in the
run-up to enlargement in 2004.
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Sectoral and cross sectoral European social
dialogue

• Examples of support to promote sectoral social
  dialogue
• Many BH 01projects have facilitated the work of
  the sectoral social dialogue committees and laid
  the basis for developing joint agreements/texts,
  for example a joint declaration on CSR in the
  banking sector or a code of conduct for the
  textile and clothing industry
• Another example is joint websites which have been
  established in the postal and sugar sectors and
  the commerce sector have plans to do so.
• Examples of support to promote cross-industry
  social dialogue
• 77 ETUC cross-industry projects have received
  support, generally achieving good outcomes.
• A large Integrated Programme by UNICE and ETUC
  jointly to develop social partners in EU10 and
  candidate countries.
• A UEAPME project to examine European SME
  associations capacity to participate actively in
  European social dialogue.

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Technical assistance and follow up

• Provision of technical assistance to
  cross-industry and sectoral social dialogue
• Survey feedback suggests that in 47 of cases,
  the Financial Instruments have made a very
  important contribution to developing the
  capacity to take part in European social
  dialogue.
• According to the case study material, a third of
  examined projects have contributed directly to
  improving the social dialogue in the sector in
  question and 22 of projects have had major
  effects on the capacity of social partners in
  EU10 or candidate countries.
• Monitoring and following up the implementation of
  agreements and other joint texts
• There is not much evidence of many projects
  supporting the follow-up of social partners
  implementation of joint texts.
• An exception is a project run by the agriculture
  social dialogue committee which reinforced the
  uptake and follow-up by social partners of a
  European agreement from 2002 on vocational
  training in the agriculture sector.

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Financial participation of workers and role in
Community legislation

• Project contribution to promoting financial
  participation of workers
• Relatively few projects have received support
  under BH 01s sub-priority Promoting the
  financial participation of workers.
• In the 2000-2004 period, only 4.1 of total BH 01
  disbursement was granted to projects relating to
  this subject.
• Examples include the Development Prospects of
  employee ownership European initiatives under
  PEPPER II (Swedish Employers Federation),
  Patterns of employee financial participation
  schemes in Europe (PEARLE) and Practices of
  financial participation in Europe (UNI-Europa).
• Assistance to workers representatives in their
  roles under Community legislation
• Research has highlighted a number of good
  examples of successful project activities
  relating to Directives 94/45/EC and 97/74/EC on
  EWCs and Directive 2002/14/EC on Informing and
  consulting employees in several cases with an
  EU10/candidate country dimension.

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Interaction between EU /national levels, gender
issues

• Interaction between EU-level and national level
  of industrial relations
• Our fieldwork shows that interaction between
  national and European levels would in most cases
  not have been possible without support from the
  Financial Instruments.
• Most projects undertaken with BH 03 support have
  involved activities at national level, the
  funding being used to enable project outcomes to
  be discussed and disseminated at European level
  at conferences, workshops and seminars.
• Contribution to the Community objective of
  promoting gender equality
• During the 2000-2004 period an estimated 25
  projects have directly addressed gender equality
  issues (2.5 of total disbursements) as well as
  many of the seminars and research projects
  undertaken by the Training Institutes. In the
  case of EZA 23 of 194 projects dealt with this
  topic.

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Role of training institutes
Contribution of Training Institutes to
strengthening the capacities of workers
organisations

• As an example, ETUCO organised some 35 training
  courses in 2003/04 for a total of 663 trade union
  officers and representatives and a number of
  information measures. In the 1999/04 period, EZA
  has implemented a total of 282 projects,
  averaging 47 projects per year, involving a total
  of 18,000 individuals.
• There has been a pronounced EU10 and candidate
  country dimension to these and other activities.
• Effectiveness of information and training
  measures by the Training Institutes
• The report concludes that the information and
  training measures of the Training Institutes are
  generally effective .
• The combined activities of the Institutes account
  for nearly 20 of the estimated 185,000
  beneficiaries of the Financial Instruments in the
  period 2000/04.

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BH 02 call for proposals
Information and training measures strengthening
workers organisations (calls for proposals)

• During the 2000/04 period, 160 projects were
  awarded BH 02 funding through open calls for
  proposals involving capacity building measures to
  strengthen trade unions role in collective
  bargaining and the European social dialogue .
• Sector specific issues accounted for the largest
  proportion of grants (21.3) followed by projects
  relating to social issues (9.4), collective
  bargaining and codes (8.0) and labour markets
  (7).
• Effectiveness of these information and training
  measures
• The diversity of themes addressed by projects
  supported under the open calls for proposals of
  BH 02 is considerably greater than is the case
  under either BH 01 or BH 03.
• With much fewer projects receiving support from
  BH 02 than from the other lines, the potential
  leverage and overall effectiveness of this
  instrument is likely to be less than for the
  other budget headings.

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Draft recommendations (1)
Strategic recommendations

• In addition to purely employment and social
  goals, the new Communication should stress the
  role of European social dialogue in promoting not
  only the social but also the economic priorities
  of the Lisbon Strategy
• Apart from stressing role of Community assistance
  in promoting capacity building, there should be
  more emphasis on defining desired outcomes in
  terms of European social dialogue policy
  objectives.
• After 20 years of support for European social
  dialogue in the old EU member states, there is
  a strong case for switching the emphasis of
  future support to EU10/candidate countries.

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Draft recommendations (2)
Other recommendations of a strategic nature
include

• A further priority should be a renewed emphasis
  on engaging the representatives of employers in
  the European social dialogue.
• A particular priority applying to both employer
  and employee representatives is to increase the
  engagement of social partner organisations from
  knowledge-intensive growth sectors, and those in
  sectors with a predominance of smaller firms and
  entrepreneurs, in the European social dialogue.
• Linkages with other Community financial
  instruments need to be strengthened and made more
  explicit, e.g. introducing European social
  dialogue, and its national and regional
  counterparts, as a horizontal theme in the
  2007-13 Structural Fund programmes.

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Draft recommendations (3)
Recommendations on programme effectiveness

• The new post 2006 European Social Fund
  regulations include a provision, under the
  Objective 1 convergence priority, whereby 2 of
  allocations will be made available to social
  partners to support capacity building, joint
  actions and other initiatives.
• An alternative classification of budget headings
  could be considered, One possibility is to
  introduce two basic themes competitiveness and
  social cohesion. Existing priorities of a more
  specific nature could be cross-cutting themes.
• Whilst there is a need for rationalisation of
  budget lines to help improve overall coherence
  and visibility, and possibly synergies between
  projects, there should be be a continuing
  emphasis on retaining flexibility and thematic
  diversity.

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Draft recommendations (4)
Recommendations on project effectiveness

• An annual prospectus setting out priorities.
• Place more emphasis on clusters/packages of
  projects.
• Promote the continuity of project activities,
  e.g. by providing funding (on an annual basis)
  that is linked to a work plan and involves
  different stages in the same project.
• A clearer demonstration of financial
  additionality, in particular identification of
  the component of projects involving EU-level
  activities relating to the European social
  dialogue.
• More emphasis in the appraisal of project
  applications on the evaluation of outcomes.

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Draft recommendations (5)
Other recommendations relate more to the
financial instruments management

• Developing a centralised project management and
  information system.
• The format of final activity reports should be
  standardized with common requirements set out for
  social partner organisations (steps have already
  been taken to do this).
• There is a need to ensure improved
  dissemination/replication of project outcomes,
• Last but not least, it is clear from our research
  that the Commission is using a relatively small
  number of officials to manage a large programme.
  To ensure that future interventions are more
  strategically orientated, there is a strong case
  for provisions to be made in future European
  social dialogue budgets for technical assistance.

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Some questions

• Do you feel that the evaluation provides a
  reasonable assessment of the role of the
  financial instruments in support of European
  social dialogue?
• Bearing in mind the evaluations findings and
  conclusions, are the recommendations appropriate?
  
• Looking ahead, what in your view should the key
  priorities be for the financial instruments in
  support of European social dialogue e.g. how
  can the way they operate be improved? What sort
  of projects should be given priority?

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Draft final report

• Part 1 Introduction and background
• 1. Introduction study aims, overview of
  research, structure of the draft final report.
• 2. Background and policy context European
  social dialogue, financial instruments, types of
  European social dialogue, synergies with other
  European programmes, European policy context.
• 3. Key evaluation issues and methodology
  overall approach, rationale and intervention
  logic/objectives, evaluation framework, sources.
• Part 2 Analysis and evaluation findings
• 4. European social dialogue project portfolio and
  funding - overview of projects and funding,
  analysis by BH, project approvals and rejections,
  project clusters and multiple beneficiaries,
  thematic analysis of projects, analysis of
  financial additionality.

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Draft final report

• 5. Management of financial instruments overall
  management, application procedures, appraisal and
  selection criteria, feedback from social partner
  organisations.
• 6. Analysis of project activities and outcomes
  types of project activities, analysis of BH01,
  BH02 and BH03 project activities, financial
  instruments and enlargement, assessment of
  project outcomes.
• 7. Key evaluation issues overview of key
  evaluation issues, conclusions with regard to
  specific issues - Theme 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
• Conclusions and policy recommendations overall
  conclusions, policy recommendations.
• Appendices
• Appendices A to D list of interviews and case
  studies, copy of survey questionnaire (approved
  projects), copy of questionnaire (rejected
  projects), case studies. Appendices E to H -
  project data analysis.

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