Tesa - Project Background

Background to ERDF

The European Regional Development Fund was set up in 1975 to stimulate economic development in the least prosperous regions of the European Union (EU). As EU membership has grown, the ERDF has developed into a major instrument for helping to redress regional imbalances. Under present arrangements for the period 2000 to 2006, England will receive some £3.6 billion of funding.

Within the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), the ERDF and State Aid Division (ESAD) is the managing authority for ERDF in England and has responsibility for the overall financial management of the funds. The Government Offices (GOs) for the nine English Regions have devolved responsibility for the day to day management of Structural Funds and they administer ERDF through regional programmes.

Why TESA?

TESA is aiming to address a number of key issues identified during this round of funding and from lessons learnt during the previous 1994-1999 programme. These are summarised below:

A Best Practice Review highlighted weaknesses in the current Management Information Systems (MIS). For example the existing ERDF2000 application does not adequately support the process of managing financial performance.
The existing ERDF2000 application does not contain data from the project outset (expression of interest) and is mainly used as an administrative tool for claims processing. As a result, ODPM does not have the ability to view the planned take-up of projects and there is a risk of underspend within the overall programme, resulting in lost investment opportunities.
In most regions, additional systems have been developed, resulting in duplication of information and adding to inconsistencies between data sources.
DCLG guidance to GOs predominantly focuses on technical issues such as ERDF policy, financial policy and processes, state aid and eligibility criteria. However the ad hoc responses are not well recorded, leading to duplication of effort in responding to similar questions repeatedly, and to likely inconsistencies in responses over time and between individuals.
The current paper-based application and claims processes in operation at some Government Offices are perceived as cumbersome and bureaucratic. In addition there is little visibility to the user and/or DCLG on how an application and/or payment is progressing through the process.
There is a lack of State aid advice tailored to European programmes and a need to provide dedicated State aid expertise to the programmes. Information is dispersed and inconsistent across various Departments and Agencies, resulting in confusion on where to seek accurate guidance.
It is believed that the combination of a lack of awareness of the scheme, the extensive application process and lengthy review cycles are acting as a barrier to people applying for funds.
There is no consistency in ERDF terminology across the GOs.

Future Systems – The TESA project

TESA will transform the way the European Regional Development Fund is managed by England’s Government Offices (GOs) and Central Government through introducing a new online (e-government) system and a set of streamlined business processes across all programme areas. It will also make more effective use of DCLG’s information resources through the provision of dedicated ERDF and State Aid websites.

The new system and processes will help free up GO staff to focus on more value-added activities such as project and programme management, rather than administration of the fund. It is part of a wider strategy to help bring about improvements to the management of ERDF both in the Government Offices and at DCLG.