2019 European Social Fund Annual Implementation Report: FOI release

Information requested

The following extract is from the Scottish Government’s 2019 European Social Fund Annual Implementation Report:

“During 2019 the ESF programme was placed into pre-suspension and later in the year it was into full suspension. As a consequence, the Managing Authority was not able to pay any claims from Lead Partners while it worked to resolve the audit issues identified in the ESF Early Preventative System Audit (EPSA) report from 2018. Lead Partners who had submitted claims on EUMIS system could not progress any further claims as the claims were 'locked'. The urgent priority for both the Managing Authority and Lead Partners to make early progress on the development of the Standard Scale of Unit Costs system resulted in a drastic slowdown in the rate at which claims were submitted, verified and paid. For example, in August 2019 the Managing Authority had to request Lead Partners not to submit further claims on EUMIS and this remained in force until January 2020. In addition, it is important to recognise that Lead Partners had a number of other competiting priorities to balance. These centred around phase two change requests and preparation for Article 125 (b) and Article 127 on the spot checks.”

On 26th June 2024, the Deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes, said this in the Scottish Parliament:

“On the first question, in relation to the minutes that she quotes, I say directly to her that at no point did the Scottish Government pause the payment to our partners of the funding that they had incurred. She is right to quote directly from the minutes, but I say unequivocally that the Scottish Government paid out the funding at our own risk. We recognised the costs that had been incurred, and the Scottish Government ensured that we paid out the funds to the partners.”

The information I am seeking is which of these two stories is true? The story told by the 2019 ESF Annual Implementation Report (particularly the remarks in bold)? Or Kate Forbes’ story, as told to Parliament on 26th June 2024?

Response

Both statements are true at the time of publication.

As referred to in previous requests for information e.g. FoI case reference: 202400420706 and 202400420717, events had developed significantly over this period as a consequence of the Managing Authority working with the European Commission and Lead Partners to address and resolve the issues that caused the suspension.

All claims to the Managing Authority can take several months to fully verify to ensure compliance against the European regulation and to issue the payment. At no time were payments to those Lead Partners who submitted fully compliant and verifiable claims paused. All audit findings were resolved with both programmes being successfully lifted from suspension by the European Commission.

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