What is it?
The European Social Fund (ESF) was set up to improve employment opportunities in the European Union and so help raise standards of living. It aims to help people fulfill their potential by giving them better skills and better job prospects.
In 2007, the EU is launching a new round of ESF programmes for the next seven years to 2013. The major focus for new European Programmes is helping to deliver the Lisbon Agenda, which highlights innovation, competitiveness and the development of employment and skills for the European workforce. The Gothenburg Council added a sustainability strand to these issues. Overall, they seek to enable Europe to become "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social inclusion".
The first funding rounds under the 2007-2013 programme are being held in autumn 2007 and project activity will start from early 2008. In the meantime, activity under the 2000-2006 programme will continue until mid-2008.
£134 million is available to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly through the new ESF Convergence programme and £95 million to the rest of the South West through the new ESF Regional Competitiveness and Employment programme, (Competitiveness).
What are the funding priorities?
There are two main priorities in England:
In the South West these two national priorities translate into six regional priorities - three for Convergence and three for Competitiveness.
Priority 5 includes activity to support Higher Education in Cornwall.
There are also two cross cutting themes - equal opportunities & gender equality and sustainable development.
How will the programme be managed?
Nationally, the ESF Programme will be led by the ESF Division of the Department for Work and Pensions. However, most of the delivery will take place regionally, managed by the Government Office for the South West.
The Regional Skills Partnership will have a strategic role within the Programme. Having developed the Frameworks they have a duty to ensure that they are delivered so that ESF provision contributes to regional employment and skills priorities.
How do partners access funding?
The ESF programme will build on and develop the Co-Financing system which was introduced in 2000-6. Co-Financing has enabled public bodies such as the Learning and Skills Councils and Job Centre Plus to manage ESF and public match funding together. It has made it simpler to access ESF by removing the requirement on applicants to supply their own match funding.
In the South West there are two Co-Financing Organisations, (CFOs) - the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
In the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Convergence area there is additional activity to support Higher Education in Cornwall. This will not be Co-Financed at source but supported through direct projects with a call for proposals managed by GOSW. In both areas community grants will be let as discreet tenders Co-Financed by the LSCs as set out in the LSC Plan.
Both the LSC and DWP have recently carried out a tendering exercise to award ESF funded contracts:
Successful DWP Providers (Adobe Acrobat Reader Document - 39.21kb) and a summary of their activity.
Phase One successful LSC contractors (Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet - 35.84kb).
The LSC have just undertaken a second, smaller tendering round (which includes Community Grants) and will be announcing further contracts later in the Summer.
GOSW have just issued a Call for Proposals for the Higher Education Themes in Priority Five. Further information is available on the GOSW website.
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