Committee
Enterprise and Culture Committee, 13 Mar 2007
13 Mar 2007 · S2 · Enterprise and Culture Committee
Item of business
European Structural Funds
Professor Bachtler:
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As Sara Davies said in her presentation, like other parts of the UK, Scotland has allocated structural funds to a much larger number and more diverse range of beneficiaries, particularly at community level, than most other countries have. The shift partly reflects manageability—quite a lot of problems have related to managing structural funds over such a diverse range of projects—and the thematic shifts that Sara Davies talked about to focus more on matters such as innovation and entrepreneurship.At a Scotland level, an argument exists in favour of the shift that you mentioned, if the aim is to follow the EU agenda of promoting a higher economic growth rate. However, the shift could be disadvantageous for smaller organisations, some of whose existence has been predicated on receiving structural funds. If vital projects are going to lose out, a domestic policy response must be made.Your second question was on audit and clawback. That is a problematic area. We did not consider it in our research, but we know that it arose partly because the European Commission now employs a much more stringent approach to audit. In some cases, the Commission was not happy with the way in which structural funds were implemented, even though the delivery system was set up with the Commission's support and previous auditors approved it.Many of the European commissioners' concerns were about small-scale systemic failures, such as a failure to keep the right paperwork. In many cases, there were concerns about the traceability of paperwork. The commissioners were concerned not that monitoring was not done or was not effective but that the paperwork was not always available to demonstrate that it had been done. That does not mean that there is a fundamental problem with corruption or the improper use of funding. My understanding is that there was a combination of systemic problems.
In the same item of business
The Convener:
SNP
For agenda item 2, I welcome Dr Sara Davies, senior research fellow, and Professor John Bachtler, director, of the European policies research centre at the U...
Professor John Bachtler (University of Strathclyde):
Thank you and good afternoon. We are pleased to be here. We cannot quite compete with the glamour of the previous discussion on sport, but we will do our bes...
Dr Sara Davies (University of Strathclyde):
I will outline the research questions that the committee asked us to consider before talking briefly about the methodology and looking at an overview of the ...
Professor Bachtler:
We were asked to identify a few issues for the committee's consideration that might form part of its legacy paper, although they do not form part of the repo...
The Convener:
SNP
That was helpful, and thank you for the report. I invite comments and questions.
Christine May:
Lab
I am getting the blame for the research—I use the word "blame" advisedly. I am sorry if I am an anorak, but I found the report and presentation extremely int...
The Convener:
SNP
We are a wee bit tight for time, so it would be helpful if you could keep your answers reasonably tight.
Professor Bachtler:
Those are good questions. As was said, we have taken a different approach in Scotland. In part, that reflects the fact that the system in Scotland was create...
Dr Davies:
One interesting aspect of the new period, which runs from this year to 2013, is that EU rules are becoming more stringent on themes—on the categories of spen...
The Convener:
SNP
The Executive recently announced that the minimum size of projects will increase to achieve more bang for the buck in the next six years, but small local pro...
Professor Bachtler:
As Sara Davies said in her presentation, like other parts of the UK, Scotland has allocated structural funds to a much larger number and more diverse range o...
Christine May:
Lab
I was part of a local authority that had a clawback from the first round of funding towards the end of the second round. That happened because papers were mi...
Dr Davies:
One reason for the strong focus on community development and voluntary organisations in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK is that, in the early 1990s, no one ...
Susan Deacon:
Lab
I am conscious that Christine May was rather apologetic about raising the matter, so I stress that it is helpful that she did so. There are many issues that ...
The Convener:
SNP
I stress that we are taking the research seriously and that our findings will be passed to our successor committee and to the European and External Relations...
Christine May:
Lab
In addition, the repercussions of changes will be around for a while, not only in managing the changes but in picking up on issues afterwards.I worry that we...
The Convener:
SNP
Professor Bachtler, do you want the last word?
Professor Bachtler:
I do not know whether it will be the last word, but I will try to respond briefly to a couple of the points that have been raised.On complexity, Christine Ma...
The Convener:
SNP
Thank you—that was very helpful. I am sure that we will take these issues forward; as Christine May said, loads of issues will be around for the next six yea...
Meeting closed at 16:41.