This European Commission staff working document reports on the mid-term evaluation of the Employment and Social Innovation programme for 2014-2020 (EaSI) and identifies avenues for possible further improvements.
It is based on an external evaluation report and other sources of evidence, in particular EaSI performance monitoring reports, the annual management reports of the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, and evaluations of previous programmes.
This document summarises the main results of the external evaluation and provides the Commission with evidence and data for improving programme performance in later implementation; assessing whether there is any need to amend the EaSI Regulation; and preparing to design the post-2020 programme.
Key findings of the evaluations six themes
Relevance
The mid-term evaluation finds that all the activities undertaken in the first half of the programme are in line with the goals set in the EaSI Regulation. EaSIs original rationale and its five general objectives are still highly relevant, particularly in the current challenging socioeconomic context of the aftermath of the financial and economic crisis, with a welcome but slow recovery. The programmes objectives are also still pertinent in light of recent political events likely to impact the EU in the coming years.
Effectiveness
Despite the limited data sets available, the evaluation presents evidence that EaSI was effective in reaching relevant stakeholders, producing desired outcomes and achieving its objectives.
Efficiency
Due to the type of activity and the influence of conditions outside the programmes control, it proved difficult to conclude much about EaSIs efficiency. While the financial means available were sufficient to implement PROGRESS and EURES activities, the budget for Microfinance/Social Entrepreneurship was too low.
The efficiency of PROGRESS could be further improved by reducing the administrative burden in the projects award and implementation stages.
Coherence
The overall perception of programme coherence gained through the evaluation is that the three predecessors programmes were merged under the EaSI umbrella more in response to a simplification exercise than to the stakeholders needs. The evaluation concludes that despite efforts to build synergies between the three axes they operate quite independently. All programme activities should have a stronger focus on the potential benefits of a coherent programme structure, promoting interdisciplinary solutions to multiple challenges.
EU added value
EaSI produced demonstrable EU added value in terms of scope and scale, compared to national and regional support. Should EaSI be discontinued, this would have repercussions in many sectors. It would be unlikely that other national or regional funding schemes would be able to support policy experimentation across different participating countries and EU-level multidisciplinary networks, as EaSI currently does.
EaSI governance
Programme governance and communication between stakeholders need to be improved. It emerged from the focus group with the EaSI Committee that its members would like more ownership of the allocation of funds and the programming of activities, in particular the calls for proposals.
More cooperation with other committees to exchange information and more regular discussions between the EaSI Committee and the Commission are seen as necessary.
Lessons learned and further improvements