Building Better Opportunities June 2017

BBO Learning Event Participants’ files Hello my name is xxxx I am a funding officers working on the BBO program. My colleagues and I are here today to feedback to you on the main issues we are finding with the participant files we have been checking. After this session I would like to give you the opportunity to discuss our findings, so you can chat amongst yourselves in groups to look at ways that you might be able to overcome the issues. It is likely you have experienced most of these issues yourselves when dealing with your partners.

Lifecycle of the participant A potential participant is engaged by the project The potential participant fills out an Annex H (entry form) and provides evidence of eligibility With support from the coach, the participant completes a needs analysis and sets objectives The participant engages in activities in line with the needs analysis and objectives. I thought it would be good to start off with the lifecycle of a participant so everyone is aware of what is involved. It is important that the coach supports the potential participant to complete Annex H. We have seen some poorly completed forms and suspect that some individuals are being left to it. Taking part in learning activities is the start of the project from the participants’ point of view. This does not include induction or needs analysis. We will look at the needs analysis and compare it to the activities the participant undertakes to make sure there is consistency in what the person’s ideals and objectives are with the activities they take part in.

Lifecycle of the participant An Annex I (or equivalent progress report) is up-dated and signed by both the participant and coach as activities are completed and objectives are achieved The participant finishes project activities and (hopefully) achieves a result All of these steps in the lifecycle need to be clearly documented Not only does annex I need to be clearly documented but it must also be clear to a third party what progress has been made or what has been the outcome of taking part in an activity. One of the most common issues within Annex I has been a lack of detail within the form as to what has been achieved. For example stating an activity as ‘job club’ is not enough. What has the participant achieved by taking part in the job club. Have skills been developed such as cv writing, confidence building for interviews, did they submit applications

Why participant data is so important Documentation will come under far greater scrutiny from the EC audit teams than previous ESF programmes The data will be used to understand the performance of your project, the LEP area as a whole and will feed into perceived value for money Failure at audit risks clawback Participant data is important for the following reasons.

Why participant data is so important The errors we are coming across can be divided into two main categories: Evidence Quality As you can see we have grouped the errors we are finding to date into two main categories. I am going to discuss the main issues emerging from each category but before I do I just want to stress that this is a learning event. I want us to learn from each other however also feel it is important for me to communicate our findings to date. As I said before I’m sure most of you will be encountering similar with your partners. Hopefully you will be able to share good practices of how you have overcome some of the issues I am about to describe. If you haven’t found solutions yet maybe someone sat next to you has.

Evidence No exit evidence of results Types of evidence Hierarchy of evidence not being followed No progress reports or progress reports that do not provide enough detail Types of evidence No needs assessment Evidence Poor quality referral letters Over reliance on self-certification Types of evidence: knowing what you need for different participants (especially for EI versus unemployed). Hierarchy of Evidence – if you cannot get primary evidence after exhausting all avenues, you can use secondary evidence, but you MUST provide an explanation why. It is not enough that the participant just forgot to bring the documentation. The MA does not want to be burdensome but does need be satisfied that there is a system in place. Poor quality referral letters – these are where a participant is referred to the project from another agency but it does not meet the requirements. In summary referral letters must state the name of the participant, name of the ESF project and the eligibility criteria being confirmed i.e inactive, unemployed, full time student. Out of date documentation – certain documents (e.g. birth certificate or registration as a naturalised British citizen) will not change therefore the date is not an issue; however, other documentation such as a letter from the DWP confirming that an individual is unemployed needs to be recent at the time of signing up for the project. Short form birth certificate is not eligible evidence on its own as it does not include the name of at least one parent or adoptive parent. Over reliance on self-certification – this should only be used as a last resort and as mentioned before, an explanation of what has been done before accepting this as evidence of eligibility. No progress reports – Annex I or equivalent must be used to document participant attendance on the project, the activities undertaken and the achievement of personal objectives. Each time an activity is undertaken a clear description should be entered along with the signature of the participant and coach. We are finding these reports do not provide enough detail for us to get a good understanding of what the individual has been doing. We have also come across pre-signed progress reports – this is actually fraudulent. No exit evidence of results. When the participant leaves the project (by this we mean when they have actually finished their last activity on the project. The participant exit form should be used to show that the participant has left and record the results they have achieved. Evidence of results must be retained and you can find examples of these on page 15 of section 6 of the manual. Unfortunately we are finding that in some cases there is either no exit form completed or no evidence to support the result, Short form birth certificate Out of date documentation

Quality Illegible documents All fields in Annex L are not completed Only sending partial documents Information from forms incorrectly transposed to Annex L Lack of certification Illegible documents – some of the scanned documents we receive through Kiteworks are of poor quality and not easy to read. Check the quality before sending. We have also had problems with multiple responses to questions on the forms and crossings out making it difficult to decipher the correct answer. This is why it is important for coaches to help the individuals fill out the forms. Only partial documents sent – check that you send all pages; we have had just one page of a letter where the evidence we need is on another page. We have also had problems where people have scanned only one side of a two sided document so have only got every other page. This is all time consuming for us and you if we need to come back to you to rescan and resend. Lack of certification – for those documents that you will be handing back to the participants, there must be a clear declaration that the true copy has been seen; we have seen a lot of copies of documentary evidence that has either not been certified by a project officer or it is illegible or is even on the wrong page. Inconsistency of signatures across documentation, if signatures on various documents that a participant needs to sign, it could be considered suspicious – that the participant has not actually signed the documents. Entry forms filled out incorrectly – again, participants should not be left to fill out the entry form. A coach should support and explain throughout Information incorrectly transposed onto Annex L – No one can be 100 % mistake free but you can double check that correct information is put onto Annex L – this information is uploaded directly to the MA, which will carry out its own checks We are seeing a failure to complete all of the relevant fields in Annex L Entry forms filled out incorrectly Inconsistency of signatures across documentation

Further information: Section 6 of BBO guidance ESF Data Evidence Requirements – Eligibility and results: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/591548/ESF_Data_Evidence_Requirements_v2.pdf Participant Eligibility Webinar https://www.bboesfsupport.com/participant-eligibility-webinar

Discussion groups Common errors Sharing good practice Now I would like to split you up into groups giving each group a copy of either the evidence or quality slides we discussed so you can share learning on how you might be able to overcome some of these problems.

Questions