MPS European Commission funding report

Report: 06
Date: 22 January 2009
By: Director of Resources on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

The report provides an update on internal processes surrounding EU Funding and an update regarding completed funding applications made to the European Commission in 2008.

A. Recommendations

That Members note the current status of funding applications made by the MPS to the European Commission.

B. Supporting information

1. The purpose of this report is to provide the Finance and Resources Committee with an up to date position statement regarding European Commission funding applications submitted by the MPS during 2008, along with a brief description of each project.

Lesson learned

2. Internal processes have been reviewed to ensure that formal routes are adhered to when seeking authorisation to scope projects and for bids to be submitted to the EU. By adhering to formal routes of process bids now ensure that all areas are reviewed with risks and benefits for HR, Legal, Race and Equality and Financial Appraisal in a consistent and standardised manner.

3. Part of this review has highlighted the need for guidance to be available across the organisation. The guidance is currently in draft form; key stakeholders have been consulted with completion and publication expected in the near future. This guidance also forms a work stream with the Developing Management Resources program and Partnerships work stream.

4. London European Office (LEO) supports the MPS in notification of funding calls, developing bids, finding partners and lobbying. It is now concentrating its efforts on more focussed support in writing bids. Appendix 2 shows the LEO annual workplan.

5. Currently the MPS applies for European funding from three streams, The Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, Prevention of and Fight against Crime Programme and the Criminal Justice Projects.

6. The Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7) is the EU's main instrument for funding research in Europe and it will run from 2007 to 2013.

7. The EC budget for the next seven years is € 50.5 billion and FP7 supports research in selected priority areas - the aim being to make, or keep, the EU as a world leader in those sectors and also designed to respond to Europe’s employment needs and competitiveness.

8. FP7 bundles all research-related EU initiatives together under a common theme of playing a crucial role in reaching the goals of growth, competitiveness and employment; along with a new Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), Education and Training programmes, and Structural and Cohesion Funds for regional convergence and competitiveness. It is also a key pillar for the European Research Area (ERA).

9. The Prevention of and Fight against Crime Program aims are to protect the freedom and security of its citizens and society from criminal activities. Take the necessary measures to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute all forms of crime efficiently and effectively, most particularly in cases with a transborder element.

10. Key objectives are to stimulate, promote and develop horizontal tools and methods necessary for strategically preventing and fighting crime and guaranteeing security and public order; to promote and develop coordination, cooperation and mutual understanding among law enforcement agencies; to promote and develop best practices for the protection of crime victims and the protection of and support to witnesses.

11. The programme will run for the period 2007-2013 and funding available is € 23.48 Million.

12. Criminal Justice Projects funding is for those for activities aimed at promoting judicial cooperation in criminal matters and thus contributing to the creation of a genuine European area of justice.

13. The objectives are promoting judicial cooperation based on mutual recognition and mutual confidence, promoting the compatibility in rules applicable in the Member States as may be necessary to improve judicial cooperation and to improve the exchange of information.

14. The program will run for the period 2007-2013 and funding available is € 6.8 Million.

Home Office Review

15. The Home Office has access to all bids from the UK and provides the MPS with information on the reasons for success and failure. The review of FP7 projects throughout Europe has been delayed in 2008 and is not yet finalised.

16. Therefore the Home Office cannot comment on the reasons and scores on the MPS bids and therefore we cannot, at present, determine where we can improve on failed bids. This information is expected to be available in January / February 2009 and will be used to review the projects and identify good practice.

Successful bids

17. To date the following bids for EC Funding have been made during 2008.

Project STAR-TRANS

18. The project aims and objectives are to develop a comprehensive transportation security risk assessment framework in order to assist and improve contingency planning and crisis management around interconnected transport networks within the EU.

19. Project STAR-TRANS received approval in November 2008, consortium contacts are at final stages and the project is due to start in January 2009.

20. Project STAR-TRANS is scheduled to last 3 years with the MPS actively involved for a period of 15 months over the 3 years. EU funding is €0.140m with the MPS contribution €0.045m.

Project Genesis

21. This project will undertake research to create and develop a secure interoperable situation awareness platform for the EU to combat organised crime and terrorism. The project will use technical (non-personal) and various constructed (false data) intelligence, crime information and open-source databases and combine these within one virtual platform.

22. Project Genesis is scheduled to last for 3 years and anticipated to commence in January 2009. EU funding is €0.185m with the MPS contribution €0.062m.

Prevention of and fight against crime programme

Project Sentinel

23. The project aims to improve continuity, coordination and the operational effectiveness of European policing & security resources deployed for the protection of Presidency of Council of the European Union. Furthermore it will look to develop an operational framework and proof concept for future working as well as promoting the UK as a centre of excellence for training and development of Security Co-ordinators (SecCOs).

24. Sentinel is scheduled to last 18 months starting in August 2008 with the MPS as the project lead. EU funding is €0.804m with the MPS contribution €0.380m.

Witness protection in Honour Based Violence Investigations

25. The WP-HBV Project will address the need for witness protection practitioners throughout Europe to reconsider their processes for protecting witnesses, with a view to ensuring that they are fit for purpose in the 21st Century. The increase of this form of violence is becoming more prevalent as the migration of communities throughout the world continues to increase.

26. This project is scheduled to last 3 years from January 2009. EU funding is €0.410m with the MPS contribution €0.190m.

Project CECOPS (Community Engagement for Civil Order, Policing and Security)

27. The objective of the project is to focus on the involvement of citizens, as volunteers, in maintaining order and in urban security and crime prevention. This can be seen as a natural parallel to situational crime prevention with its focus on the physical environment. Such involvement can be direct or indirect, in either case; local policing is increasingly posited on such engagement.

28. CECOPS is scheduled to run 2 years from January 2009. EU funding is €0.196m with the MPS contribution €0.086m.

Criminal Justice projects

Operation Golf

29. The project seeks to establish a joint investigation into Romanian Roma Organised Crime Networks (OCN) criminally exploiting and trafficking children from their own community. Since approval was gained, the project manager has been creating the Joint Investigation team (JIT) with the Romanian Police and the project became fully operational on 1 September 2008.

30. Operation GOLF is scheduled to last for one year. EU funding is €1,102m with the MPS contribution €0.544m.

Unsuccessful bid

Operation Tripper

31. Operation Tripper aimed to establish procedures with a Pan-European focus desk to embrace and enforce the provisions of the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council for facilitating cross border enforcement in the field of road safety. This is in response to increasing number of traffic offenders who are avoiding prosecution or other enforcement action because they are either non-UK residents or they are driving vehicles that are registered outside of the UK.

32. The MPS has recently received notification that the application for funding for Operation Tripper has been rejected. Publication of the results of the Commission evaluation remains outstanding.

C. Race and equality impact

All projects, if successful, would be delivered against an equalities impact assessment by the MPS to ensure compliance to our equalities and diversity strategies. The draft guidance seeks that projects are appraised for Race and Equality impacts.

D. Financial implications

1. The financial impact of each project is shown in Appendix 1. Grant funding is currently managed as part of the overall MPA budget setting process and MPS contributions towards project costs will be met from existing resources, within each business group’s devolved budgets.

2. The main resource for all EU projects is Officer time and therefore represent an opportunity cost to the MPA/MPS. The shortfall in funding (usually 25% to 30%) could be deemed as notional as long as there is capacity for Officer time to work on the projects.

3. There may be occasions when projects have to be included in the budget setting process as bids for growth if the costs are material or resources are not available.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author(s): Jason Stott – Strategic Finance, MPS

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback