European Union Funds
Agenda item 4 is our exploration of the range of EU funds that are available. Paper 4 goes into some detail on that. Ian Duncan will give us a brief overview. I have picked up on one area of concern in the paper—Ian may mention it.
The excellent paper was produced by Iain McIver in SPICe. It was a mammoth task. What seemed initially to be an easy question to ask has proven to be a hard one to answer. There is a useful table at the end of the paper that allows members to scan the various funds. Iain has helpfully laid out each fund, what each fund is meant to do, how the funds are allocated, the overall EU budget that is available to the whole of the EU and how much Scotland has drawn down.
There are two types of funding streams. One is what I will term pre-allocated, which basically means that the negotiations on the multi-annual financial framework take place, the budget heads are set and that is the amount of money that the UK, including Scotland, gets. That covers things such as structural funds and the common agricultural policy.
The other, more interesting funding stream—the one that the committee is touching on—involves large pots of money that Scottish organisations and Scottish bodies can draw down if they are successful. However, they are competitive funds, so they have to be secured in open competition across the whole of the EU. It is important to note that match funding plays a key part in that process. If organisations do not have sufficient funds to get into the round, we will not have great success in drawing down the moneys.
It is worth while drawing attention to a point that the convener alluded to. A scan of the list of Scottish draw-downs shows that, on a number of occasions, the figures are simply unknown. Reasons given for that include the fact that many draw-downs involve not the Scottish Government, but other organisations, so the Government is less aware of the details. However, I am sure that somebody somewhere must have a book that sets out exactly what Scotland has drawn down, so that they know whether Scotland is a net recipient of funds. Somebody has to know. The EU will know, but one would hope that somebody closer to home would know, too. One recommendation in the paper is that the committee should ask that question, because somebody somewhere must have that information.
The paper covers the period up to 2014, which is the end of the current funding cycle. The next funding cycle is important as well. I suggest that the committee asks the Scottish Government where things stand with regard to that. How successful is the Government being in securing the big budget heads such as those for the CAP, which Jamie McGrigor raised earlier and structural funds? That negotiation is on-going and an update on it would be useful.
Other committees would be interested in the paper, so I suggest that we circulate it. This committee should think about what it wants to do once it has more information from the Government on those other funds.
I, too, congratulate Iain McIver. It is an exceptionally good paper that was a huge undertaking for him, as it was for us to read our way through it. The paper is fantastic and it is important to share it with colleagues across the Parliament. All MSPs should have sight of the paper.
I agree with the recommendations. It concerns me that we do not have the information on the figures. As Ian Duncan said, there may be good explanations for that, but it is important that we get the information. We either get it from the Scottish Government or go to Brussels—not physically, but by asking Brussels for it. It is vital that we get the information, because some of the figures that we are talking about are higher than the whole of the Scottish Government’s budget. We could draw down that funding and grow the budget.
We talk about shovel-ready projects and so on, but there are possibilities of getting more money if people work much harder and the Scottish Government puts the highest priority on getting all the money that can be drawn down. I realise that there is a fixed pot of money, but there is also the draw-down money for research, which is separate. That is what the committee has to focus on.
You are absolutely right. If we send the paper to all the committees, at least all MSPs will get a sight of it.
I am concerned about the unknowns. Some of the unknown money will be at the local authority level. In a match-funded project that I ran, the money came through the local authority and not through any Government—it came direct from Brussels to the local authority. There are avenues to gather some of that information.
The other thing that crossed my mind is that, as members will remember, when we took evidence on the multi-annual financial framework, some people in the sector said that there should be a central Government strategy, and that an agency in one of the Government directorates should communicate appropriately, actively seek out additional funding and then distribute it. Perhaps we could follow that up at a later date.
Ian Duncan states in the “Brussels Bulletin” that somebody has complained that the budget is not big enough. That person stated that, two years ago, the EU ran out of money in November; last year, it ran out in October; and this year, he suggested, it will run out even earlier. I presume that that affects all the grants that we are discussing.
It affects some more than others. You might remember that one of the big impacts of a failure to secure the budget would have been that the Erasmus moneys would immediately be at risk.
I note from the bulletin that an extra €6 billion has been dedicated—I do not know whether it is for that particular project, but it is for research and development. I imagine that it is for the Erasmus project.
Yes. Other sources of money had to be sought. The problem is always that all these commitments are made, but they are almost unfunded commitments. The member states then come along and say, “We don’t want to put that money in,” so we end up with high-level commitments and low-level funding. That is a frustration that almost everyone in Brussels has. There is always a discrepancy between the two, and that causes the very problems that we are witnessing now.
There is no doubt that the EU does not like running out of money before the end of the year, for the obvious reason that, if that happens, projects cannot be completed.
I support everything that has been said so far. How is it made known to organisations in Scotland that they are eligible to apply for the funds? For example, the European partnership on sports has €3.5 million available to tackle things such as the fight against match fixing. That might not be applicable in Scotland, although we do not know. [Laughter.] How are organisations made aware that the funds are there and that they can apply for them? Is that part of the remit of either the UK Government or the Scottish Government?
That is a good question. The convener touched on the issue. There are lots of funds, but if people do not know that they exist, how can they prepare to draw down the money? On the sport example, it is fascinating to read what we could get funding for. I am not quite sure who would be the person to draw down the money in that instance. We might want to put the question to the Scottish Government and ask it what strategies it has to make potential recipients aware of the sources of funding at the EU level and what support could be offered to help them engage with that.
Are we happy with the recommendations? We will contact the Scottish Government and get updates on the multi-annual financial framework and some of the other issues, and we will circulate the paper to the subject committees. Once we have the updates, we can agree our approach. Are members happy with that?
Members indicated agreement.
Convener, I have a parliamentary question to ask in the chamber and it is fairly high up on the agenda. Will we be finished in time for me to get away?
We will be. We have to be. We are not allowed to sit at the same time as the Parliament, so I am conscious of the time.