| Title of Document: |
Special Report concerning vocational training actions for women co-financed by the European Social Fund |
| Keywords: |
vocational training actions for women, co-financed by the European Social Fund |
| Author: |
ECA |
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| Codex-online publication date: 02/09/2010 |
| Date of Original Publication: 02/09/2010 |
| Country: EU |
Summary: According to a report released in late January 2010:
The Court is of the opinion that neither the implementing authorities in the Member States nor the Commission were in a position to assess to what extent the objectives were attained and recommends that future operational programmes should be established in the light of an analysis of the labour market and that the type of training and objectives decided on should be a direct response to this analysis.
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The European Court of Auditors has analysed whether vocational training actions for women co-financed by the European Social Fund during the 2000-2006 programme period were appropriately selected and adequately monitored.
Vocational training actions for women - the main specific ESF-funded means of promoting equal opportunities for men and women in the labour market - accounted for an estimated 3 billion euro during the 2000-2006 period.
These measures complement programmes or actions that the Member States may implement without EU co-financing. For the 2007-2013 programme period, the budget for specific actions has decreased significantly, as more emphasis has been placed on what is known as gender mainstreaming.
The Court concludes that, overall, the training actions co-financed under the programmes audited were not selected as a direct response to an analysis of labour market requirements.
The measures established by Member States tended to leave a broad scope for actions to be implemented, failing to focus sufficiently on specific target groups. Certain projects with the stated objective of promoting the employment of women in sectors where they were under-represented still focused on training in traditional female occupations. For some projects audited, the candidates selected were not necessarily those most in need of support for entering the labour market.
As regards monitoring, the Court concludes that the information available for the programmes audited did not allow an evaluation of whether the vocational training actions for women achieved their stated objectives. The indicators established were too narrowly focused, targets were often not provided and the monitoring information itself was unreliable or incomplete.
As a result the Court is of the opinion that neither the implementing authorities in the Member States nor the Commission were in a position to assess to what extent the objectives were attained.
On the basis of its observations, the Court recommends that future operational programmes should be established in the light of an analysis of the labour market and that the type of training and objectives decided on should be a direct response to this analysis.
The Court noted that there is a need for the Commission to continue to monitor the establishment by the Member States of appropriate and feasible indicators and for reliable data to be collected, thereby allowing meaningful conclusions to be drawn on the effectiveness and efficiency of the co-financed actions.
* The purpose of this press release is to give a summary of the Special Report adopted by the Court of Auditors which is available on the Court’s Internet site (http://www.eca.europa.eu) and will be published shortly in a printed format.
Source: http://eca.europa.eu/portal/pls/portal/docs/1/3682291.PDF
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