Synthesis Report - European Commission - Europa

Synthesis Report Ex-post Evaluation of the ERDF 2000-2006
‘Intangible mechanisms’ in the table refer to support for technology transfer, collaboration
between firms and with research centres, and for clusters or ‘poles’ of excellence. The shaded
figures show the total business support packages which include the measure in question (in the
case of non-repayable grants, 122) while the other figures show the number of instances where
the measure was combined with others (the figures do not sum to the total since a combination
of more than two measures were often used). The last two columns show the number of instances
of the measure being used on its own and the proportion of instances where this was the case.
Non-repayable grants were, therefore, the most frequently used measure over the period, these
often being used in combination with support services or with intangible mechanisms. There was
a clear tendency to focus non-repayable grants on selected sectors, rather than making them
generally available for investment, as the period went on.
Support services were the next most frequently used (in 105 cases). Their focus varied across
regions. In some cases, for example, they were directed towards helping firms gain access to
export markets (in Objective 1 regions in Spain and Eastern Germany), in others, especially the UK
regions, they were concentrated on increasing the rate of business start-ups.
Equity-based finance was the least used measure. They were employed most in the UK, where
they were included in all regional programmes, and to a significant extent in Germany (in 5 of the
7 programmes examined).
In the case of nearly all programmes, there was a clear tendency over the period to move to loans
and equity finance. This was partly to meet the need for support at lower cost. Problems arose,
however, in the implementation of equity financing both because of a lack of experience in
setting up the funds and because of the difficulties of finding suitable projects to invest in. On
the other hand, the contribution of equity finance to business performance was reported as being
significant in a number of regions (including in the Objective 2 regions of Scotland and the North
East of England according to the analysis of their equity funds carried out).
3.1.5 What were the results of enterprise support?
The difficulties of estimating the effects of enterprise support are compounded by the mix of
indicators used and the various methods applied to putting values on them, which in most cases
were not made explicit.
The central indicator which managing authorities were intended to use was the net number of
new jobs created and safeguarded as a result of support measures, which was supposed to make
explicit allowance for deadweight and displacement effects. In practice, partly because of the
significant difficulties of estimating such effects, the figures produced were often in gross terms
and sometimes related to the total number employed in a firm rather than the additional number
of jobs created as a result of the measure. Where estimates in net terms were made, the
techniques used were rarely explained or justified 22 .
22 This was less so in UK regions, where in most cases, serious attempts were made to estimate net job creation. In
South Yorkshire, for example, an elaborate econometric model, constructed by an external consultancy and
incorporating explicit estimates of deadweight effects, was used to compare actual employment growth with that
which would have occurred without the support of the programme.
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