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MINISTERIAL FOREWORD
This consultation seeks your views on the future of European Structural Funds in Scotland. Structural Funds have played an important part in economic development in Scotland over the last 30 years and have provided over £1 billion pounds between 2000 and 2006 alone. They have made a valuable contribution to the Scottish economy and have led the way in developing an innovative and sustainable approach to economic development.
However, the EU budget agreement reached under the UK Presidency in December 2005 was a landmark point, formally recognising the need to extend EU Cohesion policy across an enlarged EU and setting out the collective challenges we will face as a result. It is these challenges that we have set out to address in the development of draft Operational Programmes for 2007-2013.
With enlargement has come a re-direction of EU funds towards the new Member States. Scotland, like many other Member States and regions of Europe, will receive significantly reduced levels of EU funding in future which will require Structural Funds Programmes to be more targeted than ever before. They will need to focus not only on those activities which have the highest value added, but those activities which will leave an economic development legacy in Scotland post-2013. With less funding available and with pressure to concentrate our EU resources, it is essential that Structural Funds are used to complement our existing strategies and to add value to what we already do.
This is particularly important given the fact that Structural Funds Programmes for 2007-2013 are being developed in post-Devolution Scotland. We have, for the first time, the opportunity to align Structural Funds programmes with our strategic domestic goals. Central to this is the Framework for Economic Development in Scotland, our economic development strategy, which balances the competing goals of economic growth and opportunity, social inclusion and sustainable development. Our strategic objectives - as set out in FEDS as well as Smart Successful Scotland, People and Place, Workforce Plus, the Scottish Sustainable Development Strategy and other policy statements - fit well with those set out in the EU Community Strategic Guidelines, particularly with regard to our shared ambitions under the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs. It is important that we recognise this as we develop our strategic objectives for the use of more limited Structural Funds and that we continue to align domestic and EU policy. Where we have shared goals we must ensure that Structural Funds add maximum value to what we already do.
Given the reduced funding, it is also important that we achieve a more streamlined and cost-effective delivery system. In line with Efficient Government, we must support continued innovation and modernisation of service delivery whilst continuing to support the key principle of partnership which has been such an important part of our approach towards Structural Funds in Scotland. In our attempt to secure greater alignment of Funds with our domestic priorities we must, where possible and beneficial, make the best use of existing and developing mechanisms for the delivery of domestic funds in Scotland which can help to achieve these efficiencies.
Our proposals mark a new departure for Structural Funds management in Scotland. It is one that is necessary to maximise added value from reduced EU Funds and to modernise the delivery mechanism to make it more cost-effective and more closely integrated with the wider Scottish domestic policy environment.
I look forward to hearing your views on our proposals for Structural Funds in Scotland from 2007 to 2013 as set out in this consultation.
NICOL STEPHEN
DEPUTY FIRST MINISTER AND MINISTER FOR ENTERPRISE AND LIFELONG LEARNING
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