1.2 HARDWARE DE REDES
1.2.3 Redes de área amplia
The Measures contained in this Priority are generally useful in that they address deprived areas and provide services to vulnerable young people and deprived communities.
The Childcare Measures are useful since they focus on deprived areas where individuals may be unable to afford fully private childcare facilities and, therefore, withdraw from the labour market. As increased female labour force participation has important positive implications for national output in general, this measure serves a useful purpose. However, physical progress is slower than
expected and the unit costs in the Southern and Eastern region are above the planned unit costs. Furthermore, in order to ensure that only deprived areas are actually targeted better information/ indicators are needed. In respect of this measure it is also noteworthy that the financial progress of the Quality Improvement Sub-Measure is ahead of target while that of the capital grants Sub- Measure is behind target for financial progress. The quality improvement measure also suffers from a lack of physical progress indicator. The Equality measure has suffered from poor progress, as has the Crime Prevention measure. On the other hand, Community Development and Family Support as well as Youth Services and Local Development have progressed well and all appear to be providing useful services. However, with regard to the Youth Services measure, the Youth Services Grant scheme Sub-Measure is not specifically aimed at disadvantaged youth, and there is poor progress with regard to the Young Peoples Facilities and Services Fund.
Overall a number of Measures, especially Childcare, Equality and Crime prevention have suffered from slow progress. In the case of childcare the output Measures are positive but there appear to be some capacity constraints in the local voluntary sector. There is also slow progress in the Crime Prevention measure.
With regard to most Measures under this Priority, improved indicators that allow the areas targeted to be identified more readily (e.g. DED identifier) are urgently needed. The lack of such data makes it almost impossible to measure in how far there is proper targeting and progress in terms of social inclusion.
COMMUNITY VALUE ADDED
Quite a number of Measures under the regional OPs are part of the CSF. The basis for the recommendations in Table 5.4 on CSF funding was outlined above but it is necessary to highlight separately the recommendations regarding the co-financed Measures. It is recommended that all the funding under the CSF be concentrated on the Local Infrastructure Priority. In particular the non-national roads measure is likely to produce relatively certain, if unspectacular rates of return. It will not have a problem in using the resources. The allocation of increased resources from the CSF Performance Reserve could be used to help reprioritise this measure to support the development of the regional gateways under the NSS.
SUPPORTING MEASURES
There are a number of supporting Measures that would have a positive impact on the OP. First of all, apart from the urgent need for improved targeting of Measures in accordance with the NSS, there needs to be much more integration with the other OPs in order to capture important complementarities. This should also take into account the forthcoming Regional Development Plans/ Planning Guidelines.
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Another important accompanying measure relates to incentives regarding the forestry sector. The government clearly wants to increase this sector and this would have obvious environmental benefits. However, planting by farmers is crucially dependent on the general level of subsidies for a variety of enterprises. In this respect REPS appears to be more profitable than forestry. This cannot be overcome by Measures that support harvesting machinery or forestry roads, which are more relevant to large-scale growers. A better approach would be to modify the incentives under the CAP.
CONCLUSIONS
An important aspect of the NDP is that it contains two regional operational programmes (OPs) that are aimed at achieving more balanced regional development. Our evaluation and the individual OP evaluations have analysed in detail the financial and physical progress of the two OPs. As they contain identical Measures it is valid to evaluate both OPs jointly, keeping in mind that they have different aims and that they relate to areas which are different in terms of a range of key economic, demographic and social indicators.
Overall, progress for both OPs is well behind target. The performance to date has been slowed by a number of factors. These included the deterioration of the external environment, management issues and measure specific issues. The deteriorating external environment has particularly affected demand led Measures. Other external events such as the foot and mouth crisis have also resulted in slow progress, particularly in relation to the Agriculture and Rural Development Priority. Among the management issues that have slowed down progress, delays in state aid clearance are particularly important. Here clear lessons should be learned for future programmes. Individual, measure-specific issues have also arisen, such as the delays in agreeing the Regional Waste Strategies, and delays due to the planning process, particularly for controversial facilities.
A number of broad trends emerge from the evaluation of individual Measures. Those Measures that support public goods, and especially certain types of infrastructure, are reviewed favourably as they address clear market failures. On the other hand, a number of Measures would appear to be subject to deadweight, as the investment supported under these Measures has significant private returns. This is particularly the case with regard to the Local Enterprise and the Agriculture and Rural Development priorities. Finally, the Social Inclusion and Childcare Priority Measures appear to be well designed and impact positively in deprived areas and on young people.
A universal conclusion from both OP evaluations and this overall evaluation concerns the availability and types of indicators. Here improvements are necessary and data should be available at NUTS III level for financial and physical progress, as well as impact and efficiency indicators. Such data would facilitate a more
thorough evaluation of the OPs, especially with regard to inter regional disparities, which are targeted under the Southern and Eastern OP.
A further issue that needs to be tackled going forward is the implementation of the NSS. The delay in publishing the NSS has meant that the project selection criteria did not incorporate spatial planning issues. With the publication of the NSS and the forthcoming Regional Planning Guidelines appropriate amendments to the project selection criteria, particularly in the case of infrastructure projects should be made. This applies in particular to the Non-National Roads measure and the Urban and Village Improvement measure. In order to facilitate the implementation of the NSS, we recommend that a special fund be set up that supports on a competitive basis integrated infrastructure projects in line with the Regional Planning Guidelines.
6. E
CONOMIC AND
S
OCIAL
I
NFRASTRUCTURE
OP
T
he key physical infrastructure priorities of the NDP/CSF are included in the Economic and Social Infrastructure OP (ESI OP), which encompasses public sector investment in six Priority areas: national roads, public transport, environmental infrastructure (water supply, wastewater and solid waste facilities, coastal protection), sustainable energy, as well as investment in social housing and health services infrastructure. Other physical investment in regional economic and social infrastructure, including non-national roads, solid waste facilities and rural water supplies is provided for in the Regional Operational Programmes, analysed in Chapter 5.The ESI OP accepted the stock and quality of public physical infrastructure as one of the key determinants of long-run economic growth (Chapter 3.4), with a major impact on the competitiveness of industry, and as a significant factor determining the attractiveness of the country to foreign direct investment. The distribution of infrastructure also has a bearing on the spatial pattern of development within the country. The ESI OP sets out the rationale for investment in infrastructure in the six Priority areas. In respect of the classification of Measures, investment in national roads, public transport and environmental and health services infrastructure is justified on the basis of being “public good” type interventions, while housing is justified on the basis of its redistributional effects, targeted at groups which are not in a position to finance their own accommodation needs.
T
able 6.1 sets out the actual expenditure to end-2002 on the ESI OP, and the classification of the Priorities. The main points about expenditure to date are:• Total expenditure to the end of 2002 has been €10.6 billion.
• The largest Priority in expenditure terms is Housing, at €3.79 billion to date, or 35.7 per cent of the total. National roads is next with €2.61 billion or 24.7 per cent of the total.
• The year-on-year split of expenditure has been 25 per cent in 2000, 35 per cent in 2001 and 40 per cent in 2002, reflecting the initial slow take-off of implementation of the plan. Table 6.2 overleaf compares actual expenditure to date with the planned expenditure under the OP. Notable points are:
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