What changed between the draft committee report and the plenary report

Added:37. Underlines that social dialogue and collective bargaining are pivotal for well-being at work and the reduction of in-work poverty, social exclusion and wage inequality; calls on the Commission to allocate consistent, adequate and sufficient financial resources to capacity-building, with the aim of empowering social partners to play a relevant role in areas of their competence, strengthening their capacity to engage in social dialogue both at EU and national level and of enhancing social partners’ actions with an appropriate minimum obligation in all Member States, and to include technical assistance for these three purposes; further insists that CSOs and non-for-profit organisations should, on an equal basis, be guaranteed minimum access to funding to contribute to and pursue ESF+ objectives in the Member States; underlines at the same time the need to develop institutional capacity through strong and professional administration and to foster innovation in public sector management;

Added:38. Stresses the importance of employee-owned cooperatives, social enterprises and other alternative business models in reaching EU goals of inclusion; underlines that it is of the utmost importance that small social enterprises, not-for-profit social services and CSOs have access to all aspects of the ESF+; calls for a co-financing rate of at least 90 % for measures targeting the most deprived, and at least 70 % for all other actions implemented by small entities with limited capacity, such as CSOs, not-for-profit social services and social enterprises, in order for them to have access to funding while preserving a minimum number of different co-financing rates;

Functioning of the fund

Change 8

Removed:25. Calls on the Member States to ensure that regional and local authorities and organisations have a say in projects financed from national budgets;

Added:39. Calls on the Member States to ensure coordination between regional and local authorities and organisations and their involvement in projects financed from national budgets and insists on the need to maintain the partnership approach of the current ESF+, which is key to strengthening the quality of the programmes financed under the ESF+; reiterates the need to adopt rules to manage the fund in cooperation with local actors that are closest to people’s needs and can develop place-based solutions that best suit their specific territories; highlights the need to involve regional and local actors in the implementation of the fund;

Change 9

Changed:26.40. Insists that the rules governing the use and the implementation of the ESF+ must ensure and enhance compliance with the rule of law, the EU acquis, the highest EU social standards, social rights and democratic principles, and be aligned with the EPSR, the UN’s sustainable development goals and fundamental human rights and workers’ rights;rights, as also included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU;

Change 10

Changed:27.41. Calls for strongrules governing the ESF+ to allow public money to be allocated only to those employers that respect workers’ rights and the applicable rules on working conditions; calls, further, for more effective social conditionalities in rules on public procurement and concessions, with effective sanctions;concessions; encourages the Commission to create a comprehensive database, supplementing the Eurostat data, to allow for the timely and reliable monitoring of the developments in employment, living conditions and industrial relations;

Change 11

Changed:28.42. CallsNotes with concerns that the national governments often hinder efficient implementation of the ESF+ by imposing unnecessary administrative burdens or preventing local actors from managing support under the fund or funding opportunities; calls for the reduction of the administrative burden,burden and bureaucracy, notably by simplifying the application processes for accessing funds and the reporting procedures for organisations, in particular for civil society and social economy organisations, and those of a smaller size; warnsemphasises that beneficiaries, including not-for-profit social service providers, should be consulted for the design of the simplification mustmeasures; noturges compromisethat simplification uphold the fundamental principles of shared management, transparencytransparency, accountability and accountability,independent scrutiny, as well as the principles of partnership, ensuring the proper administration of public funds;

Change 12

Removed:29. Warns that not all people are prepared for digitalisation, and that certain groups of people, especially the most vulnerable, could miss out on funding opportunities as a result;

Added:43. Recognises that excessive reliance on metrics such as the error rate may lead to a greater administrative burden; notes that different metrics, including measurements of inputs, outputs, performance or qualitative measures, may fit different objectives and interventions;

Removed:30. Sees that more work needs to be done for organisations and people to know about all the opportunities that the ESF+ can bring; insists that the Commission and the Member States raise awareness of, inform and advise organisations about the opportunities presented by the ESF+;

Added:44. Calls on the Commission to provide consistent support and communication to the Member States in order to help them set up individual projects effectively and transparently, including transparent and predictable conditions, which provide legal clarity and predictability to applicants, as well as for the final beneficiaries of the funding;

Added:45. Calls on the Commission to ensure more thorough evaluation of the effectiveness of individual interventions without imposing major new burdens on providers, for instance by simplifying the exchange of information between the Member States and the Commission and by creating evaluation desks at both EU and national levels;

Added:46. Reiterates that digitalisation is one of the important tools to reduce administrative burden and streamline applications for funding opportunities, and that as such it should be promoted and people’s digital skills strengthened; warns, however, that not all people are prepared for digitalisation and that certain groups of people, especially the most vulnerable, such as older people and those living in depopulated areas where access to services and opportunities can be more limited, and the projects targeting them, as well as CSOs, not-for-profit social services and social enterprises, could miss out on funding opportunities as a result;

Added:47. Sees that more work needs to be done for organisations and people to know about all the opportunities that the ESF+ can bring; insists that the Commission and the Member States raise awareness, inform and advise organisations about the opportunities presented by the ESF+ by carrying out information campaigns; sees that there is still a significant knowledge and skills gap, especially for social services, in accessing the current ESF+ and running EU-funded projects; considers, in particular, that the future ESF+ regulation should reserve a technical assistance budget to set up a network of national helpdesks or low-threshold information points offering services such as walk-in job counselling, coordinated at cross-European level in order to effectively deliver the training, guidance and support to organisations on the ground;

Added:48. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to strengthen synergies at all levels between projects supported by the ESF+ and by other EU funds;

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Change 13

Changed:31.49. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the CouncilCouncil, the Commission, the European Economic and Social Committee, and the Commission.European Committee of the Regions.