The first year of the Programmes implementation by Domagoj Morić

We survived.

2022-04-05 09:40:07 UTC

Beneficiaries have not felt the complications of the changes to harshly.

Accreditations started to work.

2022-04-05 09:40:59 UTC

Teams is more helpful then Jammer

2022-04-05 09:41:09 UTC

We managed with IT tools

2022-04-05 09:41:17 UTC

The accreditation system is still really complex

2022-04-05 09:41:43 UTC

A single platform for IT will be good for the future even though at the moment there is still a lot of problems with it.

2022-04-05 09:41:44 UTC

Maintaining the relationships with beneficiaries moving through all of the challenges from one programme to the next

CSTeam — 2022-04-05 09:41:48 UTC

supportive approach +++

Webinars by commission were helpful

2022-04-05 09:42:11 UTC

Commission as an ally.

PMM might be good but difficult to use

2022-04-05 09:42:28 UTC

Full funds could be contracted despite Corona.

2022-04-05 09:42:58 UTC

We adapted to the external circumstances.

2022-04-05 09:43:10 UTC

2022-04-05 09:43:28 UTC

We finally go on!!!

It is an achievement that the majority of the staff stayed.

2022-04-05 09:43:35 UTC

We've managed to link between previous programme and new one at local and national level.

2022-04-05 09:43:46 UTC

More explicit connection with policy.

2022-04-05 09:44:12 UTC

incredible hard work of dedicated staff in projects, the NAs, and the commission

CSTeam — 2022-04-05 09:44:13 UTC

2022-04-05 09:44:42 UTC

More flexible and easy to understand system

Online, hybrid and face to face events were successfully implemented.

2022-04-05 09:44:44 UTC

Transition period has been challenging and often combined with internal reorganisation, which nevertheless has lead to good results - we managed

2022-04-05 09:45:06 UTC

Programme can quickly adapt to different situations - but it has its limits.

2022-04-05 09:45:49 UTC

Programme started quickly in 2021 and we survived :-)

2022-04-05 09:46:29 UTC

- Quality Label ESC started well (FI, PL)
- Accreditation in E+ was a success (FI), a challenge in PL and DE (still organizations need to learn the scheme, also KA154 excluded from accreditation)
- positive cooperation with the ministry (FI, PL) and permanent representation
- FI - Action 2 new formats proved to be a success but E&T experience was much of help (without this it would be a problem)

Positive move towards supporting organisations rather than projects (accreditation)

2022-04-05 09:46:55 UTC

Using new programme for improving beneficiary support and reached full level of implementation now.

2022-04-05 09:47:36 UTC

Accreditation - still a challenge

2022-04-05 09:47:43 UTC

Organizations were reluctant as not all rules were known (eg. DE, PL, DK). NGOs have to learn the scheme.
Procedures are still unclear. We do not know the details of the "product" that we are selling to the organizations.
Making a long-term strategy for up to 7 years is a problem for some organizations.

Feeling of belonging to a supportive network.

2022-04-05 09:47:50 UTC

Ask your colleagues sessions

According to the new programme, there is a new role of lead which can use for funding This lead role based on a strategic approach which the organizations define their long term objectives and targets for minimum 3 years till to 7 years. And the organizations awarded lead can apply for ESC51 grant applications. On ESC51 they specify their number of activities and number of participants. and the duration of the activity. And NA estimates the grant of the organizations regarding the numbers and information that is given on the application forms. EU Commission provided an estimated grant calculator and budget calculator excel . But the application form of ESC51 changed from 2021 R1 to R2 and also 2022 R2. So in every round we used a different excel calculator system and we changed and adapted to excel calculators according to our conditions.

2022-04-05 09:48:11 UTC

Involvement of newcommers

2022-04-05 09:48:46 UTC

WE spent the European Voluntery Service money. There is even much more demand.

2022-04-05 09:48:51 UTC

We had a lot of newcomers last year.

2022-04-05 09:49:24 UTC

Quality labels

2022-04-05 09:49:37 UTC

Many organisations got their quality label, hugh effort from staff and assessors

Due to the having insufficient budget to the lead organizations it becomes more important to distribute the allocated grant effectively. Moreover due to the some of the organizations put great numbers for their targets this totally change the distribution of the total allocated grant. The organizations which put the numbers more realistically on ESC51 can receive less grant in comparison to the organizations putting high numbers on targets. In old programme the calculation can be done automatically and this doesn’t not give work load to the staff of the NA. But now this new system increase both the workload and the responsibility of the staff .

2022-04-05 09:49:39 UTC

Interest in volunteering of small organisations

2022-04-05 09:49:44 UTC

General problems in PMM. Such as; unsign procedures, retrieving data is a bit complicated (the tool we used in Eplus was much more practical)

2022-04-05 09:50:15 UTC

please introduce unsign at each task level

EC + GR, RO NA group

suntsolidareu — 2022-04-05 09:50:16 UTC

E+
- accrediation and having new funding opportunity
- having back national activities in projects (YPA)

ESC
- putting the volunteering organizations back on track with the new strategic approach
- solidarity project bugdet to be spend (entirely) in the second year

Common
- increase in the number of the newcomers
- survival and to have the programs started in the very unfriendly environment

mapping exercice to identify organisations involved in priority sectors (green, inclusion...) followed by individual contacts to provide information on programmes'opportunities to attract new promoters

2022-04-05 09:50:29 UTC

IT

2022-04-05 09:50:54 UTC

Demotivating every day:
Us, colleagues, beneficiaries.
It is still a huge problem.
PMM is way less intuitive than the old system

Visa refusals from non-EU to EU member countries effect heavily the implementation of the activities.

2022-04-05 09:51:06 UTC

Difficult to find and keep staff, high staff turnover

2022-04-05 09:51:47 UTC

Report forms still missing - but projects are allready finished.

2022-04-05 09:51:49 UTC

Profile of the participants of TCA activities; we need more newcomers

2022-04-05 09:52:54 UTC

Standardised application forms and annexes

2022-04-05 09:53:22 UTC

There should be more user friendly language and structure of the form.
Privacy statements and GDPR/IDPR are inunderstandandable and their translations might be impossible to languages of countries who have rules for understandable languages.

60 000 multiple projects

2022-04-05 09:54:19 UTC

It is a challenge - not to do financial capacity check if organization is doing multiple projects and NA cannot do the financial check. This is risky.

We survived an external audit.

2022-04-05 09:54:34 UTC

Late approvals of work programme and late funding

2022-04-05 09:54:43 UTC

Contracts cannot be signed therefore
Templates for 2022 contracts are missing.

Delays in provision of documents from COM

2022-04-05 09:55:07 UTC

Things cannot be done retrospectively

Check guidlines are still missing

2022-04-05 09:55:23 UTC

SNACs start and implementation is another relevant achievement, international cooperation approach among NA's on relevant topics and, in general, in Europe is something fruitful at every level, reinforcing the quality in the Programmes and the European dimension

trust

CSTeam — 2022-04-05 09:55:32 UTC

its good that we have a lot of trust from our beneficiaries, but it is challenged by the difficulties and lack of clarity on information

Lack of stability

2022-04-05 09:56:11 UTC

Constant change of rules is not manageable

Socieltal changes need to be looked into (policy development

2022-04-05 09:56:52 UTC

Covid:
Sick staff
Beneficiaries are still impacted in implementing
Impacted youth work: Youth workers are very busy in issues related to covid impact in the youth sector and therefore there is no time to invest in YWM)

War in Ucraine:
We cannot pretend that nothing happened.

PMM, BM etc. not working; documents come with delay (eg. Experts guide)

2022-04-05 09:56:59 UTC

NA staff feels frustrated - they are on the first line with organizations and have to handle the dissapointment and frustration from the organizations. There become more and more burnouts and sick leaves due to this too much stress.

Staff burnout / changes

CSTeam — 2022-04-05 09:56:59 UTC

staff are very tired, reached the max of their resilience they leave or go sick and it takes a very long time to build staff

For KA220 Collaborative Partnerships in Youth, the new budget system that BENs can select only one fixed amount is not realistic for youth organisations. 250K and/or 400K EUR is too much and it would be better for NAs to revise the budget. In ongoing we either accept the selected budget or reject which leads us not to manage the budget in an ideal way.

2022-04-05 09:57:43 UTC

Confusing communication with COM

2022-04-05 09:59:09 UTC

NAs ask to put important informations to NAs via NA_Connect, NACO, IMT - and not MS Teams. This should be used more for chatting (like Yammer before).

TCA/SNAC is getting out of control

2022-04-05 10:00:03 UTC

Very much additional work for TCA ppl
Instead of facilitating/simplyfying work, this is producing additional workload.
Not necessarily bad, but it is a challenge and might have bin a bit to ambitious.

Crisis Management response

CSTeam — 2022-04-05 10:00:07 UTC

need to have a proactive approach to managing crisis - there will always be another one

It wouldn't be feasible in KA154 Youth Participation Projects the accreditation system will not work in this spesific sector.

2022-04-05 10:01:04 UTC

Bad quality of documentation by the EC

2022-04-05 10:01:19 UTC

Sometimes we feel like to documents and rules are drafted by people who do not know how the programmes are actually implemented

Focus on smaller projects in ESC

2022-04-05 10:01:21 UTC

The concept needs to be re-thought. Including small organizations to the programme is generally good but big ESC organizations make a greater impact, and the budget for small organizations consumes the allocation for bigger NGOs

Financial capacity before assessment

2022-04-05 10:01:29 UTC

If the org doesn't have the capacity, then it should be known before the assessment of the application

To increase the number of applications keeping in mind that part of the youth sector was and still is impacted by the pandemic. The priority of many organisations is to reconnect with young people and especially with young people with fewer opportunities

2022-04-05 10:02:13 UTC

IT Tools. Are not working. Are more complicated. Staff struggles. IT tools should make work easier - not harder. We do work for the sake ofYouth not for non functioning IT tools. Especially PMM. There is no audit trail in the system. It is not user friendly. PMM does not follow the logic of the Programme Guide: We are having the feeling with every development it is getting worse and worse.

2022-04-05 10:02:34 UTC

PMM should follow the guide and the process

2022-04-05 10:02:52 UTC

Absorption

2022-04-05 10:03:07 UTC

successful, there is a need and beneficiaries are still interested in our programmes

We need more cooperation with French-speaking NAs - important to support inclusion

2022-04-05 10:03:29 UTC

Lack of continuity - new things before the old ones are properly implemented

2022-04-05 10:03:44 UTC

Communication Channels: THere are no clear communication channels between COM -NAs. THere are notes, there is TEAMS, we always have the feeling we miss important info.

2022-04-05 10:04:11 UTC

IT tools to be fully functional (so much time wasted with little issues that make the NA staff life very difficult sometimes.

suntsolidareu — 2022-04-05 10:04:16 UTC

More concretely:
- PMM is the real challenge, the information’s we can download from the data base (ex: contact info’s for QL), the information’s missing in PMM even if those info’s are in the application
- the lack of communication and the short terms for reviewing the guides
- we still don’t have all the informations in BM, there is no link between informations from PASS and Beneficiary Module, CIGNA issues because the dates in volunteering activities can differ because many reasons like visa or travel options and CIGNA is getting the data from PASS not BM as it should be
- many informations that are not aligned between the forms and the Program Guide and we have to contact every beneficiary to clarify (ex: preparatory visits)

IT trainings from COM

2022-04-05 10:04:35 UTC

We need more of them, very often we have to discover the functionalities via working live on the system + from the manuals. They should be explained during trainings with COM

Ticket system: Sometimes it needs very long the receive answers. Answers are ofte not in line with other answerss.

2022-04-05 10:04:57 UTC

Empty/fake applications

2022-04-05 10:05:33 UTC

It is easier to detect them now, but it is a challenge, that now there is much less granted applications.

blended mobilities

CSTeam — 2022-04-05 10:05:34 UTC

still need the reflection on identify the value of building on the learning of blended mobility.

Final reports and beneficiaries modul

2022-04-05 10:06:12 UTC

still not working and making problems to both beneficiaries and NA's

Lack of staff - the fact the management fee rises does not mean we can hire new people - we need the national authorities to cooperate with us (National Authorities should be instructed by the EC)

2022-04-05 10:06:28 UTC

Many NAs have the same number of staff as few years ago and now we even have to manage the DiscoverEU Inclusion, Sport etc.

delays in receiving feedback on workplan and contribution agreements

CSTeam — 2022-04-05 10:06:43 UTC

EGL

2022-04-05 10:06:52 UTC

increase of interest and quality - specially on national level

Dead lines: Seperate deadlines. It makes it harder to shift funds from one key action to the other. It duplicates work.

2022-04-05 10:07:35 UTC

QL process

2022-04-05 10:07:42 UTC

really slow in first year, unclear, changing rules very often...

Continued flexibility (Covid 19)

2022-04-05 10:08:01 UTC

Delegation agreements
Calendar
Use of funds (transfer

Translation of GDPR to an understandable language

2022-04-05 10:08:21 UTC

COM should act on proposals of network

2022-04-05 10:09:12 UTC

Co creation process between COM and NAs got stuck

2022-04-05 10:09:19 UTC

poor communication from EC

2022-04-05 10:09:22 UTC

As for the calculation of budget per NA the performance criteria should include success rates of each NA.

2022-04-05 10:09:40 UTC

More potential fraud situations

2022-04-05 10:09:59 UTC

No legal possibility to exclude organization where we suspect fraud. The system is "project based" instead of "organization based".
Operational capacity check is tricky - it is hard to prove the organization that it does not have operational capacity (there is argument from NA against the argument from the NGO). Financial capacity check was more transparent and easy

Slow down and work on overarching goals

2022-04-05 10:10:27 UTC

- What does the youth sector need now?
- What do we want to achieve with the programmes?
- How do we react on societal changes?

Mobilities

2022-04-05 10:10:40 UTC

prolongation of activites, many amendments still opening...in some countries decrease of interest

Budget for ESC shall be increased

2022-04-05 10:10:47 UTC

Lots of projects were postponed because of COVID. Extra work load. Now all the final reports will come in. It will be struggle.

2022-04-05 10:10:49 UTC

ESC volunteering budget is very limiting considering the program objectives reqirement.

suntsolidareu — 2022-04-05 10:11:12 UTC

The average budget per organization will decrease from one year to another not allowing them to achieve the straregic objectives they are expecte according to the program.

Missing templates. Late delivery of templates and translations.

2022-04-05 10:11:16 UTC

Simplification of Youth Participation projects and solidarity projects

2022-04-05 10:11:45 UTC

Too complicated reporting for little sums of money.

The changes in the Program Guides should be minimum from one year to another

suntsolidareu — 2022-04-05 10:11:50 UTC

This is needed in order to creat less confusions both for the beneficiaries as well as for NA staff.
Eg: in ESC we have to work now with 4 different PG for the years 2018-2020 (ex: the coach can be from organisation and outside organisation, depending on the year of the solidarity project)

War in Ukraine

CSTeam — 2022-04-05 10:11:58 UTC

ongoing support and dialogue needed between comms and NAs as questions and issues arise

National priorities should come back again

2022-04-05 10:12:11 UTC

Virtual mobilities incorporated in the programme

2022-04-05 10:12:34 UTC

There should be proper funding for virtual acctivities - stil with 2 years of COVID it is not clear what the funnding is for, why are there no separate rates for virtual activities etc.
Virtual and/or hybrid activities are sometimes more expensive than traditional mobilities

KA2 small scale

2022-04-05 10:12:40 UTC

please skip the rule of proportionality between 30 000 and 60 000 in order for NA's to fund most quality projects (the same goes for KA220 in the future)

Accreditations: Some organisations feel that they are left out. Still no possibility for Youth Participation Projects to be under the umbrella of accreditation.

2022-04-05 10:13:36 UTC

Increase of managment fees

2022-04-05 10:13:43 UTC

Motivate (Communication by commission) national authorities to invest in sufficient staff for increasingly big and complicated programmes.

Leads to lots of changes in managment and staff.

Technical issues

CSTeam — 2022-04-05 10:13:57 UTC

Still need to have guides on the technical checks and reports, NAs need information for the implementation of checks as do beneficiaries

The flexibility that we earn via the COvid-19 period must stay for the next years

2022-04-05 10:14:19 UTC

IDPR - How to prepare the beneficiaries? How to check them?

2022-04-05 10:14:47 UTC

Force meajur

2022-04-05 10:14:49 UTC

even though it was quite hard period we did achieve a good balance and adequate information how to cope with covid issues and project implementation

Adapting to inflation

2022-04-05 10:14:56 UTC

Approved projects will habe problems implementing now.

Digital cooperation

2022-04-05 10:15:30 UTC

Does not always mean mobility. This should be also thought over. Some organizations cooperate digitally without travelling.

Focus on what we already have and make sure it is well established before adding new things

2022-04-05 10:15:33 UTC

We have so many new things added in last months an they are not yet finalised and established - YPA, Sport, DiscoverEU Inclusion and Learning cycle, ESC QL processes, green travel... we need to STOP ADDING new things until the things we already have are well established and working

War in Ukraine - organisations expect expertise, guidelines how to deal, what to do, how to address...

2022-04-05 10:15:40 UTC

In all that mess we should start something completely new to us: Discover EU. Many NAs are late in preperatory measures.

2022-04-05 10:15:57 UTC

European Year of Youth 2022 and how to promote it better.

suntsolidareu — 2022-04-05 10:16:14 UTC

What are the European opportunities out there for youth sector (not only in E+ and ESC), how to look for complementarities and similarities among them. Now there is a lot of confusion with a lot of opportunities, we miss a compass/map of those and real synergies among the funding programs.

Better SALTO support for content related issues

2022-04-05 10:16:49 UTC

we dont feel enough support

Real simplification

2022-04-05 10:17:01 UTC

still can be done for several things (YPA lump sum approach, skiping the principle of proportionality in KA2, QL and accreditation system...)

Support for volunteering projects

suntsolidareu — 2022-04-05 10:17:05 UTC

The program budget should be increased in order to support the actual needs and that strategic approach laid down in Quality Label

Quality Labels: How to reassess?

2022-04-05 10:18:37 UTC

or add locations???

PG 2023

2022-04-05 10:19:35 UTC

to explain more difference between "regular" volunteering and Humanit. aid volunteering (Volunteers ask this quite often - do they need to have some skills, should they need to be more professional..) - this can be more explained in PG

Monitoring the quality of E+ accredited projects and ESC QL

2022-04-05 10:19:43 UTC

We are still waiting for more guidance from the Commission on what means might be used to monitor the quality of these projects

Testing the application forms

suntsolidareu — 2022-04-05 10:19:56 UTC

Adhoc working groups to test the application forms before their official launch should be exteded to all type of projects (similar to the proces existing in Youth Participations Activities).

More flexibility for budget transfers (mainly of TCA NET budgets)

2022-04-05 10:20:57 UTC

We can transfer only 35% - why? The EC needs to trust us more and give us bigger flexibility. Why do we need to go through such complicated process in order to transfer more than 35%? The TCA/NET budget is too high to be absorped by the activities, we would really appreciate if we could be more flexible with it

Administrative burden, systems not working

2022-04-05 10:21:30 UTC

the administration burden is growing and making a lot of stress in NA staff. Systems that are not working are also making a lot of fuss.

WE have a feeling that within Com there is not really communication between E+ and Solidarity Corps. In ESC everything comes later (sometimes things are ignored), through other communication channels. Less Consultation on ESC matters.

2022-04-05 10:21:42 UTC

consolidation phase

CSTeam — 2022-04-05 10:24:32 UTC

while there are still essential small changes needed - eg repetition informs and simplification of budgets in Youth participation/ Solidarity projects , lets stay focus on what we have

Discover EU is coming: We wait for supporting documents.

2022-04-05 10:24:49 UTC

GDPR

2022-04-05 10:25:06 UTC

Unclear what the role of NAs is to check with Beneficiaries if they follow GDPR rules

IT tool for plagiarism and more monitoring tools to check the programmes

2022-04-05 10:25:11 UTC

We need to check the applications and proposals (not only the summaries). It is so easy to cheat now, professional organisations writing applications for beneficiaries, double submissions... we need more tools to weed these bad seeds out.

Digital dimension within projects

2022-04-05 10:25:13 UTC

do we want to count blended and virtual mobilities or we want to increase digital dimension and digital youth work (this two things are quite different)

Content of e_forms , especially for YE is still an issue/ a lot of repetitive questions, budget part difficult to understand....

2022-04-05 10:25:58 UTC

Deadlines

2022-04-05 10:26:01 UTC

possibility to have optional deadlines for KA220, just one obligatory

Some SNACS did not develop during COVID.

2022-04-05 10:29:38 UTC

Double funding/submission

2022-04-05 10:34:04 UTC

System is detection many more applications at risk, but it is a big time investment to deal with them

funding division in KA2

2022-04-05 10:40:06 UTC

With a limited budget the way budgets have to be divided within KA2 (proportionality principle) does not always makes sense. A consultation on this is needed.

ESC budget increase

2022-04-05 10:46:51 UTC

This is particulary important for volunteering

Inclusion definition

2022-04-07 07:36:10 UTC

According to the ESC PG exceptional costs could be :
Costs incurred by organisations to support the participation of young people with fewer opportunities on equal terms
as others related to reinforced mentorship, i.e. the preparation,
implementation and follow-up of tailor-made activities.

Suggestion to have this defenition for ESC too.

Costs incurred by organisations to support the participation of young people with fewer opportunities on equal terms
as others related to reasonable adjustments or investment in physical
assets.

It is not clear could the salary for accompanuing person be included?

In E+ PG defenition is more wide:
Suggestiona

KA2

2022-04-07 07:37:05 UTC

The sections of other projects state that the project application must be accompanied by a declaration signed by the legal representative, as well as other annexes. For KA220 and KA210 projects, this information is not included in the program guidelines, although a declaration signed by the legal representative must be attached to each project application.
Recommendation: supplement the table of eligibility criteria in the KA210 and KA220 project sections with mandatory documents, including an indication of the need for an annual report if the funding request exceeds € 60,000.

Translations

2022-04-07 07:40:29 UTC

Please consult NAs before translation of PG and grant agreement is published.
we are using different terms than EC using in translations.
At the same time translation of regulation differs from PG, e.g. participants with fewer opportunities.

KA1 - funding rules / flat rates

2022-04-07 07:58:07 UTC

To streamline, and have same system as for E&T i.e. the NAs can choose the level of the flat rate.