Your project proposal
If you have a project proposal that you think may be suitable for our investment, please contact your relevant Activity Manager (as highlighted in the program support structure table) who will be able to offer you further advice. However, limited resources mean that we must be selective in the way we allocate our funds.
Your Activity Manager will assess your proposal to see if it’s suitable to be included in our Programmes.
In addition, for projects seeking ERDF there are three routes that can be followed to formally call for proposals to come forward. The Programme Monitoring Committee has approved these three approaches over the duration of the ERDF 2007-13 programme:
- Open Calls
- Limited Bidding
- Non-Competitive Selection
These routes will be widely publicised through the ERDF website pages and via e-bulletins to partners.
For each call, we will provide a commissioning document which clearly sets out the nature of the activity covered by the call, together with the required outcomes, outputs and impacts expected from the investment.
Potential applicants will be required to register their initial proposal with One North East.
During our assessment we ask the following:
- Does the project have strategic fit with the Priorities of the Regional Economic Strategy and Corporate Plan?
- Is the project capable of effecting a desired change?
- Does the project allow us to align activities and resources?
- Does the project support our priorities?
- Does the project support our Programme targets?
- Is there an opportunity for us to influence the development of your project?
- If your project is seeking ERDF resource it will also be assessed against agreed ERDF ‘gateway’ and project selection criteria.
Following this assessment you will be advised whether your project is:
- being recommended for inclusion in our Programmes
- being rejected as inappropriate for funding, or
- being identified as a potential project if additional funding becomes available.
If we have more potential projects than we have funding, we may have to turn down good projects or direct them to other potential funding opportunities.
Your project’s inclusion in our Programmes does not mean we will definitely invest in the project. It is only the first step in our Project Handling Framework which involves a robust development, appraisal and approval process.
Your One North East Developer is there to support you throughout the development of the project. We will assess the project on an ongoing basis to ensure that we will achieve value for money from any funding we make available to you.
Support during the development phase
Your One North East Developer will contact you by telephone within an agreed timescale of each stage of the process being completed. The stages include:
- Sign off of the Project Initiation Plan
- Sign off of the Business Case
- Successful Appraisal of the project
- Approval of the project
We will let you know whether your project is moving forward to the next stage, highlight and clarify and issues and give you an idea of when we will next contact you.
Issues
The project development and appraisal process will help us to develop a robust project with you. If we identify any issues that we need to resolve before we can move on to the next stage we will contact you to explain. We will explain:
- the next issue identified
- next steps to address the issue
- any help or information we need from you to help us address the issue
- the likely timescales for resolving the issue and progressing to the next stage
- any external factors that may affect us moving forward
- when we will contact you again
We will contact you by telephone and follow this up with an email or letter. We may also seek expert advice on issues of a specialist or technical nature.
Delays
We will contact you if we think that there may be delays of more than two weeks on the timescales that we have outlined. You will be contacted by telephone and we will explain that there is a delay, the reason for it and how long it is likely to be.
If you feel that the project is not hitting planned timescales and milestones you need to contact us within five working days of it coming to your notice.
You need to agree the milestones as soon as possible to get your project up and running. These milestones will be set out in the Project Initiation Plan. Your One North East Developer needs these to form part of the Business Case. You need to contact us immediately if you become aware of any issues or delays in the project.
Funding Approval
How projects are approved depends upon the level of funding the project is seeking. The levels of delegation will be discussed between you and your developer during the project initiation and planning (PIP) stage.
Once your project is approved a Funding Allocation Letter will be delivered to you which you mush sign and return. If your project has been approved for ERDF and Single Programme you will receive a joint Funding Allocation Letter.
You must not commit any spend against the project until you receive your Funding Allocation Letter.
Project Rejection
If at any point in the process we decide not to go ahead with your project we will contact you to explain why.
Appeals
If you want to appeal against our decision you must do this in writing to your Activity Manager. You will then be contacted within 10 days and assigned an Appeals Manager. You must do this within 30 days of being told that your project is not going ahead.
>> Project Management and Monitoring
