§ Mr. Ben ChapmanTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if the Government are to implement the revised arrangements for administering the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund in England announced by the previous Administration. [6917]
§ Mr. CabornI have reviewed the proposed new arrangements, which are based on action plans, in the light of representations made to me. I recently met Commissioner Wulf-Mathies to hear the Commission's views.
The Government's view is that the action plan approach provides a real opportunity to improve the administration of the structural funds in England. Action plans will allow partnerships to bring together individual projects in a way which reflects regional priorities, tackles issues in a coordinated way and streamlines bureaucracy. However, we recognise that circumstances vary across the country and between regions and we do not wish to impose a uniform system. We have decided, therefore, that it will be for each programme monitoring committee to decide to what extent it wishes to adopt the new action plan approach.
A concern of local partners is that resources should be available to assist with management and administration costs. The Commission has agreed that technical assistance funds could, in principle, be available for 252W partnerships where it was clear that they were taking on an additional role which added to the quality and effectiveness of implementation.
I am today writing to the chairmen of the programme monitoring committees to let them know of the Government's decision and to encourage them to take advantage of the potential offered by the new action plan arrangements.