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Thomas PEGUY – DATAR

Regional Development and European Policies Team

Administrative organisation in France

Decentralisation Regional communities: - 26 regions, - 100 departments, - 36 783 towns - Overseas communities Relocation Government representatives: - Regional prefects - Department prefects - Sub prefects And relocated govt. services

organised into clusters

European Programs 2007/2013

Role of the DATAR

Interface between: - The European Commission - State departments (central and local

levels) - Regional authorities

Coordination for: - the preparation of NSRF and

operational programs - Coordination of the implementation,

Monitoring and evaluation - Support to services

Management of national technical assistance programs and IT programs (presage)

• 3.2 billion euros for the 4 overseas territory in respect of "convergence", • 10.2 billion euros for mainland France in respect of "regional competitiveness and employment" • 0.571billion euros for "Regional cooperation". (in euros 2004)

14 billion euros for France (€ 2007)

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A wide range of evaluations

Breakdown of the 59 midterm regional evaluations conducted by 30 consultancies – No in-house evaluations

CONSULTANCIES

Number of evaluations each

Edater 11

Ernst&Young 5

Euréval, Technopolis Group, IT-DEU Europe, Erdyn Consultants, ACT Consultants, Amnyos Group 3

MC2 Consultants, Argos Consultants 2

ACTeon, Adage, Cap'Europe, CM International, Contrechamp, CREDOC, ECD Antilles, E2I, Energies Demain, Epices, Espitalié Consultants, Factea Durable, GemOrca, ID-ACT, Les développeurs Associés (LDA), LesEnR, Mosaïque, Planète Publique, Strasbourg Conseil 1 5

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OPs remain relevant despite the crisis

Industrial regions severely impacted (compared to regions specialized in service sector)

But variously, depending on their specialization: agro-food and aerospace branches Vs car industry

Industrial leaders over represented among private sector (even when they belong to sectors that are in crisis) offensive strategy of ERDF !

Higher leverage effect on regional economy in regions supporting directly the firms (and no intermediate bodies)

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OPs remain relevant despite the crisis

Designed in a context of growing economy, they search mid/long term strategies, of structural nature

Responses to economic crisis are provided by other plans (« recovery plans »)

These plans have (usually) an accelerating effect on OPs, for projects already identified and managed by public beneficaries less impacted by the crisis

Significant worries relating to the availability of public financing

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OPs remain relevant despite the crisis

Negative effects of the crisis for private beneficiaries: projects delayed or abandonned

Positive effects: innovation sensitivity

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An ERDF/ESF consistance to be improved

Need to orient ESF:

Towards reinforcing high level skills, beyond targeting lower qualification levels

Towards sectors receiving ERDF in order to build regional branchs (renewable energies/ energy efficiency)

ERDF challenged in its capacity to better support human capital in SMEs

The environment is better taken into account thanks to SEA

But room for improvment at the level of criteria :

Not always suited to immaterial projects

A doubt concerning their role: sensibilisation, priorization, eligibility criteria ?

Intervene too late to truly impact the project (as they are often based on self-assessment approaches without support from services)

A need to move forward a real sustainable development approach

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Highly dynamic energy efficiency and renewable energy projects

Solar cell power generation projects overrepresented

Regional structured business set up (beneficiaries call on local firms to install the project)

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Innovation

Priority of grants towards industry (compared to their share in the economy). Commerce, construction, services are underrepresented in relation to their total economic weight)

Territorial or societal innovation hardly represented

Innovation priority axis move forward well, despite some difficulties to support more immaterial projects than material ones, collective than individual actions

Strong involvment of SMEs in public R&D projects

Constraints due to competition rules (cofinancing rate is lower than planned)

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Innovation

Recommandations:

Studying the call for projects approach

Targeting financing

Grouping technological transfer structures

Widening up the concept of innovation to societal, territorial, organizational or service related innovation

Strenghtening the human resources dimension

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Aspects slowing implementation

A more complex policy to implement (especially for immaterial projects making more complex justification and control of expenses (time spent, contribution in kind, net revenue generated …)

Tardy approval of regulation and closure 2000-06

The risk of automatic decomitment that may focus attention of services on spending rather than programming and supporting projects’ design

Aspects slowing implementation

A cofinancing rate sometimes to little to be attractive

A loss of memory with turnover

The need to put cash first before being reimbursed

Monitoring committees unsufficiently dedicated to exchanges of strategic nature and not opened enough to socio-economic partners

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A lack of indicators

Lack of data quality control

Insufficient methodological support

Projects that are less suited to monitoring by indicators than before (because OPs bt on indirect/induced effects that will show up over the long term : R&D, sustainable development)

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Added value

Trigger effect, accelerator effect, effect in initiating larger scale projects

Qualitative effect (thanks to demanding criteria)

Facilitating dialogue between institutions and firms

Leverage effect on private cofinancing (greater than expected)

But also, some deadweight effects

Main recommendations They relate more to OPs’ implementation than strategy

Confirmation of initial strategy

Some financial transfers (linked to environment or regional innovation strategy)

Closing down some measures (solar cells)

Improve communication for measures not spent

Training of beneficiaries, services, intermediate bodies

Call for projects procedure

Setting up a « one stop shop » approach

Increasing of ERDF cofinancing rate

…

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Strengths and weaknesses of 2010 midterm evaluations

in France

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Limitations Relevance is always legitimated despite crisis

Indicators use and usability very limited

Very hard to assess consistence between funds

Some evaluations too wide in relation to the budget (no operational recommendations)

Evaluation sometimes seen as a mandatory exercise

OPs’ revisions sometimes made without considering evaluation findings (guided by automatic decommitment)

Sometimes, evaluation was oriented to justify choices already made

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Improved practices Midterm evaluation is taken seriously by partners for it may

have a stronger influence in terms of decision making

Allows collective thinking, bringing together « sector » based services towards an overall perspective, for a mutual interest

Usefulness of evaluation is also in the process

More benchmark between regions and greater projection towards the future (consistance with EU 2020 objectives)

Working groups at the end of evaluation to validate and ensure a hierarchy in the recommendations and factors of success in their implementation

Compatibility with result oriented approach (getting importance 2013+)

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