Due to EC requirements, the recording, reporting and evidencing rules of the programme may be over and above those required to evidence expenditure or outputs on Agency Single Pot projects. Detailed guidance will be made available but projects will need to be developed with this in mind.
Specifically, projects will need to be able to demonstrate:
Document retention policies that conform to the EC regulations (at least 5 years after Programme Closure, 2021 at the earliest);
The retention and availability of source documentation that supports claimed project expenditure and claimed outputs and results, to meet the requirements of Article 13 project monitoring and Article 16 project inspections (or any NAO, EC audits);
Agreed apportionment or overhead methodologies when not based on actual costs; and
Documentation to support adherence to EC publicity, procurement and State Aid regulations.
Irregularities
An irregularity as defined in EC legislation is the infringement of a Community or National scheme rule by an applicant, which has or would have led to financial loss by the Community. An irregularity need not necessarily involve a false claim or any deliberate act by the claimant. Chapter 2, Section 4 of EC Regulation 1828/2006 specifies how irregularities should be dealt with.
An irregularity can be either:
Irregularities include the following types of action:
Deliberate negligence/fraud;
Evidence of lack of competitive contracting or tendering;
Claimant-supplier collusion;
Invalid claims;
Duplicate claims;
Claims in excess of amounts in the Funding Agreement;
Claims under more than one grant scheme for the same expenditure;
Claims for ineligible expenditure; and
Claims prior to, or in excess of, expenditure defrayed;
An irregularity can be discovered in numerous ways, including:
Through administrative checks;
By a project notifying an overpayment;
By a project notifying that an aspect of the approved project has been changed without prior approval having been sought;
During a compliance monitoring inspection;
Through information received from a third party or indirectly through monitoring and/or investigation of the applicant for other purposes; or
From a notice that the beneficiary has ceased to trade.
On discovering an irregularity an open dialogue will be initiated with the project in order to understand the issues influencing their project and to discuss how best to address the problems which have arisen.
All stages of the procedure must be fully documented and the project must be kept fully informed of all steps. They must be given the opportunity to explain their case. The exception to this is where fraud or serious negligence is suspected.
Irregularities will be assessed using set criteria as well as considering all other circumstances, including any mitigating factors, which are applicable to the project in question, to determine the action to be taken to address the irregularity.
Further information is available in the related documents section of this page.