Materials and Documents
This section contains information and documents that you will find useful in managing your ESF contract for the 2007-13 programme.
This area is under construction.
Is there any other information you would find useful here? Please let us know and we’ll put it up.
Contract Compliance Induction
At the end of May/early June 08 the LSC held a series of provider induction sessions in each sub-region to go over the contractual responsibilities of delivering LSC ESF contracts for the round 1a contracts. Please click here to find the presentation that was delivered, including the extensive notes on the relevant contract clauses and where to look for further information.
If you have any questions about contract compliance, please contact your LSC contact in the first instance.
Please remember that the contract is made up of two aspects: the delivery (eg NVQs, or jobs) and the contract compliance (i.e. requirements on how you manage the contract). You must do both to ensure your funding is not at risk.
Please click here to view and download an example of the LSC’s Terms and Conditions and the schedules that are specific to ESF. These are subject to change and you must read and agree the contract you are issued with
Key Dates
You need to be aware of these key dates each month when managing your contract:
Delivery Statement submission 5th working day
ILR submission 10th working day
System close for new contracts and reprofiles 10th working day
Payments 18th working day
Note: ILR data submission date may change to 5th working day
State Aid
Contracts under Priority 2 will be subject to State Aid requirements.
State Aid is the use of any Public Funding (in this case European Social Fund through Co-Financing) to provide support to an organisation. This support could be in the form of free or subsidised training courses, assistance such as training needs assessments or funded travel. The financial value of the help provided is the State Aid.
The European Commission want all companies to have equal opportunities in the market place and so set a maximum limit of €200,000 in a three year period, that an organisation may receive, before a contribution on their part is required.
As the European Competition Law and the State Aid rules govern these limits, we must comply.
In practice this means that any support you give to enterprises that could be construed as giving them a competitive advantage over other enterprises in the European Union, will fall under the European rules regarding state aid.
To determine if your contract will be affected by State Aid rules, please see the table below:
|
Providers are working with individuals. (Priority 1) |
No State Aid issue |
|
Providers are working with Individuals from SME’s. (Priority 2) |
State Aid Issue
|
|
Providers are working with SME’s. (Priority 2) |
State Aid Issue |
Providers under ESF Co-financing identified with possible State Aid implications will need to follow the De-Minimis requirements in the attached form.
De-Minimis is a rule under State Aid rules that allows us to monitor the support we are providing to Small to Medium Enterprises (SME’s) without having to notify the European Commission or use a Block Exemption.
This rule allows companies to receive up to €200,000 of aid over a three-year rolling period. All De Minimis State Aid, from whatever source must be taken into account and potentially, any assistance from a public body might be an “aid”.
Therefore, in order to comply with this rule the supported enterprises must complete a declaration confirming how much aid they have had over the last three years. This needs to be regularly updated and monitored to ensure that no single enterprise breaches the €200,000 limit over a three-year rolling period.
Unfortunately, De Minimis rules cannot be applied to enterprises engaged in the following:
- In the transport sector for the purchase of road freight transport vehicles
- Where ESF funds are supporting activities linked to the primary production of agricultural goods (but not processing or marketing)
- Fisheries and aquaculture
- Undertakings in difficulties
This restriction means, for example, that farm businesses cannot benefit from the De Minimis rule. If you feel that your contract is not covered under De-Minimis, please contact you contract manager at the LSC for further guidance.
De Minimis aid has the advantage of being able to be offered at 100% (the company does not need to contribute to their training); as long as the company has not breached the €200,000 they are not required to make a contribution towards the assistance.
Once completed, please keep the original for audit. Your local Learning and Skills Council may need the information on the forms to report State Aid information to the local Government Office. You will also need to inform the employer of the aid they have received.
Please click here to view and download the State Aid Form
Open and Competitive Tendering Guidelines
If you have to add new partners to your consortium, this must be agreed by the LSC and done through Open and Competitive Tendering.
All activity funded publicly must be procured in a fair, open and transparent in the way. This applies to when the LSC selects providers, but also to providers selecting partners. If a provider were to choose a partner without any form of competition, they would be open to claims that this was unfair and did not provide value for money.
The LSC contract has the following clause:
Where THE CONTRACTOR is the lead partner in a consortium where the other partners are not named or where new partners are required, THE CONTRACTOR should secure the partners through open and competitive tendering. All tendering processes should be fully documented and should be in accordance with the guidance set out in [ESF Division guidance]. THE COUNCIL reserves the right to review the CONTRACTOR’S tendering processes.
When the LSC tenders for activity, we use the Restricted tendering (Pre-Qualification Questionnaires and Invitation To Tender), however if you need to select new partners you will only need to use Open and Competitive Tendering procedures with a single application form.
ESF Division guidance on tendering can be found on the www.esf.gov.uk website, under Guidance. You do not need to have a tendering process that is as large as the LSC’s, however you do need to go through similar steps, as below.
| Publicity |
You must make sure that you make potential organisations aware of the opportunity. You must at least (1) publicise the details on your website and (2) advertise in the local press or relevant trade magazine.
The ESF logo must be on any adverts and your website. |
| Specification |
You must have a specification of what is to be delivered by the new partner. This will be inline with the LSC specification. It is worth making any potential partners aware of the ‘contract compliance’ side of any Service Level Agreement you will have with them that backs off the clauses in the LSC contract. I.e. evidence, eligibility and data. |
| Application Form |
You will need to have an application form that people will fill in. The form should be fit for purpose, so 20 questions may not be appropriate, but it must allow you to choose a partner and evidence why that decision has been made.
The questions in the application form need to have a maximum score associated with them. You also need to define what lower scores mean, e.g if 5 is the max score, what do you give for a good answer, an OK answer or a poor answer. |
| Timing |
It is good practice to give applicants enough time to write an application. This should be 3 or 4 weeks from when you made the specification and application available on your web site. |
| Scoring |
You must have at least two people to score the applications that come in. You should also have a third person to moderate between the two scores. The moderator does not third score, but chooses the appropriate score when the two scorers do not agree.
Each scorer should complete a scoring sheet for each application.
You must still score the applications if you only get one application. |
| Sign off |
Once the applications have been scored, the applicants should be ranked in order of score and presented to panel of senior members of your organisation for sign off. They are signing off the results and also confirming that the procurement process has been followed. The organisation with the top score should be chosen as the new partner. |
| Documentation |
You must keep evidence of the selection process for audit. This will include any publicity, the specification, completed application forms, scoring sheets and senior management sign off. |
Qualification Equivalence
The qualifications that are delivered on the contract must be full level qualifications which are NVQs or their equivalent, as per Train to Gain. You can search for equivalent level 2 and 3 qualifications on the Learning Aim Database by using the Full Qualification filter on the search screen.
Information on qualifications at different levels can be found at the links below:
DirectGov - click here
QCA - click here
ESF Learner Data
The LSC contract contains clauses on the collection of learner data and these include:
- All learners to have an LSC Individualised Learner Record (ILR)
- The data must be transmitted to the LSC via the LSC online portal
- The data must be timely and accurate
- The data must be submitted monthly in line with the LSC submission timetable
- Failure to transmit data as per the above will be a serious breach of the contract
All contracts under Priority 1 and Priority 2 will use the full Employer Responsive (ER) ILR, not the Short Record, irrespective of the type of organisation. The ER ILR was formerly the Work Based Learning data route. This is not the Learner Responsive collection, which was formally the FE ILR collection.
The Community Grants contracts will use the ESF Short Record to collect ESF data.
The zip files at the above links contain guidance on completing the forms and a blank example document.
Document Retention
Under Structural Fund regulations, organisations are required to retain documents until three years after the European Commission makes the final payment for the programme concerned. As ESF Division is unlikely to make a final request for payment until 2016, documents will need to be retained until 2019 at the earliest.
For further information, and guidelines on electronic archiving, please see the ESF Division guidelines (section 2.29) here.
Third Sector Support
The LSC will be commissioning support for the Third Sector through Technical Assistance (Priority 3). Links to the organisation responsible will be posted here once in place.
Publicity
See the publicity section by clicking here.
Contract Close Down
Although contracts may just be beginning it is useful to start with the end in mind. Please click here to view and download an example of a closure pack that was required to be completed at the end of the programme that ended in 2008. It asks providers to confirm the outputs that have been achieved; cleanse data; confirm where documents will be archived and provide text for the Government Office closure report. This is just an example for your information and in 2009, when we are approaching closure, we will update this pack inline with the requirements of the 2007-13 programme.
Common Questions
|
Question |
Response |
| Are volunteers eligible on Priority 2 contracts? |
Yes, although they can not be counted against any new jobs created |
Useful Links
Below you’ll find useful links to help you with your ESF contract.
