M. Reimeris, The Ministry of Finance of Lithuania (Managing Authority) Application submission, evaluation and financing contract administration processes Conference and Open Discussion about Effective management of EU structural funds 1-2 of February, 2012 M. Reimeris, The Ministry of Finance of Lithuania (Managing Authority)

Project initiation procedures State planning projects (non-competitive calls – selection is made by central authorities based on national strategic planning documents) – 56% Regional planning projects (non-competitive calls – selection is made by regional authorities based on regional strategic planning documents ) – 19% State planning projects and regional planning projects have no scoring selection criteria Call for proposals - 25 % *data of 2012.01.30 in SFMIS2007

Types of project selection (1) Planning projects – projects planned in the national and/or regional strategies and their implementation plans Planning project: Strategy/strategy implementation plan Selection criteria (Monitoring Committee) Detailed conditions for financing (Ministry) List of projects (Ministry/Region Council) Invitation to submit an application (IA) Evaluation of administrative compliance Evaluation (IA) Evaluation of the project’s eligibility Decision to finance a project (Ministry) Contract (Ministry, IA, project promoter)

Types of project selection (2) Call for proposals (open tender) - support for projects where there is a need for “bottom-up” approach and competition Open call for proposals procedure: Selection criteria (Monitoring Committee) Detailed conditions for financing the projects (Ministry) Evaluation of administrative compliance Call for proposals (IA) Evaluation of of the project’s eligibility Evaluation (IA) Evaluation of the project’s utility and quality Decision to finance a project (Ministry) Contract (Ministry, IA, project promoter)

Project Evaluation and Selection (1) Evaluation of project applications consists of 3 steps: Administrative compliance assessment, Eligibility assessment, Quality assessment (applies only for projects selected by way of call for proposals). Project selection criteria and their methodology are provided in Guidelines for applicants.

Project Evaluation and Selection (2) Simplification  evaluation of quality (scoring), administrative compliance and evaluation of the project’s eligibility - all these processes at the same time (or in any order). Evaluation  is carried out by the Implementing agencies and (or) by the experts. After individual evaluation the results are discussed in evaluation committees. Additional projects  Selection committees can be established by Line ministries which select projects on the basis of evaluation results

Applications Common application part A: basic information about project owner and his partners and their declarations, project description, project activities, project budget, project indicators, etc. Special application part B Annexes

Applications Administration processes were simplified: Only one application form for all beneficiaries: electronically pre-filed form (depends on fund), possibility to import data directly to SFMIS2007, only necessary data is required, general errors verification in e-forms, additional errors verification in SFMIS2007 after import.

Financing contracts Financing contract includes: Standard and special conditions Annexes (including description of the project based on common application form) Possibility to prepare contract in SFMIS2007 automatically: data automatically transferred from application to contract arrangement, automatic errors verification in SFMIS2007, data cross check, additional errors verification in SFMIS2007. General projects implementation information in SFMIS2007 (possibility to monitor projects). Possibility to prepare amendment of contract annexes in SFMIS2007. Amendments of contracts: Essential, Non-essential. Possibility to download contract data from SFMIS2007. Scanned documents are stored in SFMIS2007.

What is in SFMIS2007? (Structural funds management and monitoring information system) 4 OP’s and ~6.776 billions of euros for the period 2007-2013. About 20 administrative institutions. Number of users 753. Number of applications 996. Number of contracts 3608. Number of finished projects 1795.

Data stored in SFMIS2007 (Structural funds management and monitoring information system) Planning projects lists, calls for proposals Applications, Evaluations results, Financing contracts, Financing contracts implementation, Financing contracts amendments, Scanned documents, Other.

Public portal The public data exports directly from SFMIS2007 to Public portal www.esparama.lt: applications submitted, evaluation results, project implementation. Reliable data, time savings.

Our priority is to make administration process as simple as possible. Challenges / issues High costs for project preparation – applications are submitted with a lot of annexes, rejected and it is absolute loss for project owners; To focus on quality – sometimes number of signatures and papers is more important than the benefit of the project; Too expensive and difficult management for the institutions – a lot of paper documents and checks. We need to focus on cost effective solutions in all project stages; Only e-form applications should be processed; paper documents – annexes, only for medium or large projects; Integration with other governmental IT systems. Our priority is to make administration process as simple as possible.

Thank you for your attention! Mantas Reimeris m.reimeris@finmin.lt