Replacement of European Structural Funds post EU-Exit: consultation

Consultation Questions

A Strategic Aims

Objectives

Scottish Ministers want to take this opportunity to design a flexible source of additional funding that drives inclusive economic growth and makes a measurable and significant difference to the lives of people, businesses and communities across Scotland. With this in mind:

1. What are the main aims that this funding should seek to achieve?

2. How could funding be used most effectively to address spatial inequalities between areas and communities in Scotland?

3. Geographically, at what level would the priorities for funding be best set?

Alignment with Scottish Policy and Other Funding Streams

Scotland has a set of high-level strategic documents that guide the direction of our policy development and spend. These are focussed on inclusive economic growth and include our National Performance Framework, our Economic Strategy, our Programme for Government and our new Enterprise and Skills Strategic Board approach.

4. How could the use of future funding add value to other sources of funding focussed on similar objectives in Scotland?

Alignment with UK and EU Policy

The UK Government has said that the SPF will be aligned with its Industrial Strategy and will focus on increasing productivity. At the same time, the European Union is evolving its Cohesion Policy with a structure of 5 themes: A Smarter Europe; A Greener, carbon free Europe; A Connected Europe; A More Social Europe; and A Europe closer to citizens, to create a more tailored approach to regional development in order to drive EU investments.

5. What practical value would you see in future funding in Scotland being aligned with the UK Industrial Strategy and other spatially-differentiated UK economic policies such as the City and Regional Deals or the Industrial Strategy’s sectoral approach?

6. What practical value would you see in maintaining alignment with EU Cohesion Policy?

Evaluation and Monitoring Progress

In order to ensure that any new fund is achieving its aims and objectives, it is important that an evaluation approach is developed in parallel.

7. How could we best evaluate the success of this new fund?

8. What relevant parts of the National Performance Framework should this funding be targeted towards?

9. Which specific aspects of the monitoring and evaluation framework from European Cohesion Policy do you consider would be beneficial to retain for any new fund?

B Governance Structures Of Future Funding

Allocation and Programme Duration

Whilst funding allocations will largely be determined by our objectives, we must make sure that our approach is developed in an appropriate manner which is sensitive to differing needs across Scotland. We also need to be clear about the timeframes over which any funding programme would operate.

10. What approach should be used to allocate the funding at programme level - including the most effective duration of the programme that would better support the identified priorities?

11. What would be the most appropriate partnership and governance structure to achieve the strategic objectives of the future funding?

12. What would be the most effective delivery model to ensure maximum leverage of funds from public and private sectors to regional investments?

13. What capacity-building or other support is needed to ensure the ability of local partners and communities to participate in the programme?

14. What can be learned from the design and delivery of the current and previous European Structural Fund Programmes in Scotland?