Paul TaylorHead of Strategy & Operations

EU Funding – Get the latest

Thursday 19th March 2015

European Funding

• Quick introduction to the Local Enterprise Partnership

• How will European funding be managed and delivered

• The role of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise

Partnership and other agencies

• Likely priorities for funding and for what areas

• Likely timing and processes for seeking funding

• Any questions?

The Heart of the South West

Our priorities in a nutshellCreating the Conditions for

Growth

Maximising Productivity and

Employment Opportunities

Building on our

Distinctiveness

Pla

ce

Infrastructure for growth:

Transport and accessibility

Digital infrastructure

Sustainable solutions for

flood management

Energy Infrastructure

The infrastructure and facilities

to create more and better

employment:

Enterprise infrastructure

Strategic employment sites

Unlocking housing growth

The infrastructure and facilities

needed to support higher value

growth:

Specialist marine sites

Innovation infrastructure

Our environmental assets

Bu

sin

ess

Creating a favourable business

environment

A simpler, more accessible,

business support system

Achieving more sustainable and

broadly based business growth:

Reaching new markets

Globalisation

Supporting higher value growth:

Innovation through Smart

Specialisation

Building innovation

capacity

Peo

ple

Businesses and individuals can

reach their potential:

Skills infrastructure

Accessibility to

education/employment

Employer engagement and

ownership

Increasing employment,

progression and workforce skills.

Moving people into

employment

Supporting people to

progress to better jobs

Improving workforce skills

Creating a world class workforce

to support higher value growth:

Enterprise and business

skills

Technical and higher level

Skills for our

transformational

opportunities.

How can the LEP help?

What the LEP is not:

An agency of Government like the RDA designed to as a delivery arm of central

government, nor are we simply a funding body.

What the LEP is:

A genuinely local platform for collaboration across public and private sectors, to

achieve mutual economic aims.

We support:

• Funding bids for national Government – e.g. Growth Deal & support for Exeter

Science Park

• Devising strategies for directing European funds to where they’re needed most

• Influencing national Government strategy – e.g. road and rail investment

• Strategic partnerships – e.g. with neighbouring LEPs or other national partners

• Economic policy development

European Structural & Investment

Funds (ESIF)

Eu

rop

eU

KH

eart

of

the S

W

“The Commission”

“The Managing

Authorities” (x3)

Five funds designed to deliver

the Europe 2020 Strategy.

Three national ‘Operational

Programmes’ for three funds.

EUROPEAN COMISSION

UK GOVERNMENT

LOCAL SUB-COMMITTEE:

Delivery

One ESIF Strategy for the

Heart of the South WestLEP: Strategy

ESIF Local Implementation Plan

The Heart of the South West ESIF

Strategy – 3 goes in to 5

HotSWESIF

Strategy

ERDF: Economic

growth

ESF: Skills, employment & inclusion

EARDF: Rural Development

Reaching New Markets

Social & Economic Inclusion

Digital

Innovation through high

growth sectors

Enterprise & SME

Competitive-ness

Integrated Activity A: Maximising innovation through smart specialisation

ESF

£4.9m

Employer led solutions to address higher level skills. Demand led and focused primarily on higher level skills needs of our Smart Specialisation sectors. Examples include:- Skills for innovation- Increasing participation in areas with higher level skills shortages- Promoting and increasing higher level apprenticeships- Boosting demand for STEM subjects

Integrated Activity B: Enterprise & SME competitiveness

ESF

£16.9m

- Start-up support and leadership and management skills – linking to ERDF start-up support activities, focus on leadership, management and entrepreneurial skills

- Linking students and graduates to industry and retaining higher level skills – Creating opportunities for students and graduates to engage with SMEs and supporting capacity of SMEs to innovate.

- Improving workforce skills – Investing in Level 2, intermediate technical and higher level skills.

Areas of activity likely to

be of interest?

Integrated Activity D: Digital

ESF

£4.8m

- Digital inclusion – addressing a key barrier to social and economic inclusion

- Intermediate, technical and Higher level digital skills – for users, ICT professionals and leaders and managers.

Integrated Activity E: Addressing social & economic inclusion

ERDF

£4.8m

- SME Competiveness - Social Enterprise Support and Development (including Local Impact Fund)

- Social Inclusion - Enterprise as a route out of worklessness

ESF

£16.5m

- Social Inclusion - Supporting the hardest to reach access economic opportunities.

- Supported approaches for young people – such as personalised case workers, engagement and employability.

- Tackling ‘in work poverty’ – helping people in poorly paid, seasonable, part-time, self employed into better paid positions.

Areas of activity likely to

be of interest?

Some additional complexity

• Transitional and more developed areas

All of Europe is organised into more developed, less developed, or

transitional areas. This affects the amount of funding available for different

activities and the ‘intervention rate’ (i.e. how much co-funding you’re

expected to find to be able to bid for EU funds). Read the ESIF Strategy for

more.

• Open calls, national calls and opt-ins

Funding is ‘normally’ accessed through open calls where the activity the

managing authority wants to ‘buy’ is specified in detail. In some cases

arrangements have been made where the match funding has been pre-

agreed with organisations, like the Big Lottery Fund, meaning the match is

already there and projects can bid without the co-funding already lined up.

Hear from Catherine for more.

Accessing funding

• Familiarise yourself with the parts of the ESIF Strategy that look most

relevant to what your organisation wants to deliver.

• Keep your eye on the website where calls will be published. Register to

LOGASNET as soon as possible – it can take 10 days to register!

• Small number of calls to go live before the end of this month – possibly

tomorrow!

• Give South West Forum and me any feedback you have on the

provision of information and/or support you feel you need. We will try

and help where we can.

• Where there are important priorities that you collectively, as a sector,

feel need to be addressed, engage with your representative on the

Committee.

Further information• European Commission – Structural Funding page (for the real swots):

http://ec.europa.eu/contracts_grants/funds_en.htm

• Gov.uk – ESIF page (slightly more plain English and about UK delivery

arrangements – you’re keen but not a swot):

https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/making-european-funding-work-better-for-

the-uk-economy

• Heart of the South West LEP – ESIF funding page (top notch succinct and clear

information, of course!):

http://heartofswlep.co.uk/news/european-structural-and-investment-funds-strategy

• LOGASNET (forget the bureaucracy – just show me where to sign up to bid for

cash):

https://logasnet.communities.gov.uk/logasnet/(S(zvrgci2ij3ghyqsj32z1o3xc))/PlainDi

alogController.aspx?STATE=LOGON-DETAILS

Questions

paul.taylor@heartofswlep.co.uk

07525 806334