Selection of applications within the activities of the Operator for lots „Equal opportunities and social integration” and „Environmental protection and sustainable development” – role and tasks of the Steering Committee.

The sequence of the process of the selection of applications.

1. After being submitted to the Operator, the applications are subjected to a formal control according to a formal assessment grid presented in the NGO Fund’s Procedures Handbook.

2. Applications which have fulfilled the formal requirements are passed on for a technical assessment made by two independent assessors.

3. In case of applications with administrative faults (which are presented in the catalogue of faults possible to be corrected) the applicants are asked to make proper corrections in a given time.

4. Applications which did not fulfil formal requirements and which have faults not possible to be corrected, are being rejected.

5. Rejection information, together with a note about a possibility of an appeal from the Operator’s decision will be sent to the applicants.

6. In case when the applicants submit an appeal from the Operator’s decision, the appeal is investigated by the Steering Committee (SC). SC’s decisions are final.

7. SC composition. The Committee is composed of at least four experts with knowledge of the NGO Fund’s focus points and at least one expert with knowledge of the NGO sector. Additionally the Steering Committees include representatives from the National Focal Point, Financial Mechanisms Office and the other NGO Fund’s Operator as observers.

8. Applications technical assessment made by the assessors. Applications are assessed by independent experts with knowledge and experience which ensures their in-depth applications assessment in a scope covering the Lot’s support areas. All assessors undertake training in assessing and formulating comments on the project while the assessment is being made. The assessment takes place in the Operator’s headquarters, which allows an up-to-date control of the assessments’ quality. Additionally, current interpretation of the NGO Fund’s procedures can be passed on to all assessors during daily meetings, which provides a coherent method of applications assessment.

9. Applications are assessed accordingly to the evaluation grid presented in the NGO Fund’s Procedures Handbook. In case when both assessors, while independently assessing the application, do not assign the minimum amount of points for the first criterion, the application is rejected. In case when one assessor assigns the minimal amount of points and the second one assigns less then the minimal amount, the final decision is made by the Manager responsible for submission and assessment of applications process.

10.  In case when the difference in assigned points is higher that 20% of the maximum amount of points, the Application is assessed by the Manager for Submission and Assessment of Applications. After reading justifications made by the assessors, the Manager makes a new assessment in accordance to the evaluation grid. Points assigned in this assessment are the base to enter the project to the ranking list. Assessment of both assessors as well as a final comment and scoring of the Manager will be presented to the SC.

11. When the average score of two assessors is lower than 101 points, the application is rejected.

12. Ranking list of projects which have successfully passed the technical assessment is presented to be accepted by the SC.

The role and tasks of the Steering Committee

The role of SC is to make a final decision on assigning a grant for projects. SC’s activities are controlling and monitoring in their nature and they apply to the whole technical assessment process.

A week before the meeting the representatives of the SC receive the following documents: a list of rejected applications and the applications ranking list, assessors’ summaries concerning particular applications and comments to particular criteria.

During the meeting the SC has access to the applications together with their appendixes and to all other documents including correspondence with the applicants.

Based on provided materials the SC assesses the quality of the assessors’ assessment, points out possible disparities between assessments of assessors within one project, analyses disparities in assessment of applications which are similar in quality and contents.

After presenting its comments and a general discussion, the SC has a right to change points in particular criteria, causing changes in projects ranking; however this has to be properly justified.

Any changes made by the SC have to be explained in detail and presented to public knowledge together with the final version of the results ranking.

SC has an unlimited time to analyse provided documents and to control the application assessment process. However, because of a disproportionaly high number of received applications in comparison to available funds, the Steering Committee analyses projects with the highest number of points received from the experts that fit in 50% over the grant allocation.

Grants will be given to applications according to the ranking list until the available funds (5 million EUR) are depleted.

Current call for proposals will not have a reserve list of projects. In case when an applicant declines the grant or does not sign an agreement because of the reasons presented in the NGO Fund’s Procedure Handbook, unused means will be transferred to the last call in 2009.

If projects for funding have received identical points given by external experts and there are limited funds available for granting all of them, then the Steering Committee will refer to the statistics on scope of components covered by the project application and their geographical distribution. The geographical and scope of component statistics will give the Steering Committee background for choosing projects in cases when an identical number of points has been awarded by external experts and limited funds are available for granting all of them.

 In 3 days from the final SC’s approval of the ranking list the Operator will post a list of projects formally rejected, a ranking list of projects together with their short description and the number of assigned points on the NGO Fund’s website. In case of changes being made by the SC, the full justification of the decision will be published on the website.

All applicants whose applications were technically assessed will receive a written information including comments of two experts concerning assessment of particular criteria and summarising comments. The scope of presented information will be identical to information presented to the SC.

The SC’s decision is final and cannot be appealed.