CASE STUDY 1

The City of St Helens Submitted a proposal relating to new methodologies for intergrated Urban Devlopment.

The project synthesis is as follows:

“Sustainable Urban Development has become the leading paradigm in urban policy across member states and at EU level. This paradigm is based on the central prin-ciple that , issues faced should be tackled in an integrated and holistic manner. Cities have increasing therefore begun to develop integrated approaches which seek to improve the physical environment, preserve historical and cultural heritage, promote entrepreneurship and local employment, community development, and service needs of specific demographic groups.This project seeks to build a transnational exchange that will share experience in terms of using new methodologies such as master planning, cultural planning as well as new tools such as re-branding . These methodologies are often linked to processes through which cities seeks to develop a shared integrated vision for the future.”

The assessment criteria for the expression of interest are as follows:

Thematic Networks

Criterion 1: Relevance of the proposal and European value added
Out of 25
1.1 The project is contributing to the main objectives of the URBACT II programme
1.2 The project is contributing to the themes outlined in the URBACT II call for proposals
1.3 The declaration of interest clearly analyses the nature of the problem to be tackled (e.g. through use of a problem tree)
1.4 The problem exists in all of the partner cities and this has been evidenced
1.5 The project is clearly building on the stated experiences of the partners
1.6 The expected results are innovative (they bring clear added value compared to other current or past initiatives)
1.7 There is a European level interest in the work that they propose (e.g. clear contribution to Lisbon/Gothenburg agendas)
1.8 The project has been explicitly designed and organized to generate a low carbon footprint

Criterion 2: Coherence of the proposal Out of 25
2.1. Quality of the strategy: The issue tackled by the project, the objectives and expected effects (outputs and results) are clearly defined and meaningful
2.2. The objectives, the work programme and the expected outputs and results are logically interrelated
2.3. The project has a clear focus on the exchange of experiences and transfer of good practice and this has been evidenced in the work programme and expected results
2.4. The activities in the work programme have been set out as indicative work packages (specific objective, actions, time frame, leader)
2.5. The proposed activities in the work packages are in line with the objectives and expected effects

Criterion 3: Quality of the expected results Out of 20
3.1 The expected outputs/results are in line with what has been outlined in the Call for proposals
3.2 The expected outputs/results are concrete (visible and measurable). They are specified precisely and quantified
3.3 The activities and outputs are explicitly interrelated
3.4 The expected impact of the project on the policies and future actions of the partners is clearly demonstrated (i.e. There is a commitment to implement the results among the partners through their local action plans)

Criterion 4: Quality of partnership and lead partner
Out of 20
4.1 There is an adequate balance between partners from Competitiveness and Convergence regions
4.2 There is substantial commitment of each partner in the implementation of the project (e.g. different leadership and participation in the proposed work packages). There is evidence that each partner commits to set up and run an URBACT Local Support Group.
4.3 The candidate Lead partner has real evidenced experience of the problem being addressed in this field
4.4 The candidate Lead partner has real experience of leading exchange of experience projects in fields close to the proposed project (i.e. utilising existing departmental capacity)
4.5 The named officer to act in the name of the Lead partner (project coordinator) has good experience (from attached CV) of leading this type of work
4.6 A political decision-maker has been nominated within the Lead partner local authority to guarantee a strong political backing to the project
4.7 The skills needed to achieve the expected results have been identified and integrated in the partnership &/or the expertise
4.8 A Lead Expert has been identified and designated

Criterion 5: Budget and Finances for Development phase (phase I)
Out of 10
5.1 The budget is logically distributed between the budget lines and components
5.2 The budget reflects the planned activities in the development phase
5.3 The budget adds up to the total (vertically and horizontally!)
5.4 The budget allocated to management and coordination tasks (Component 1) is reasonable (e.g. percentage of total costs)
5.5 The budget foresees a reasonable allocation to finance the creation and the first activities of the URBACT Local Support Groups

TOTAL
Out of 100

Here is the score for the St. Helens project against these criteria:

EAP Assessment
Crit 1- Relevance of proposal and European value added 15 out of 25
Crit 2- Coherence of proposal 14 out of 25
Crit 3 - Quality of expected results 12 out of 20
Crit 4 - Quality of partnership and lead partner 9 out of 20
Crit 5 - Budget and Finances Development phase 8 out of 10
Total 58



Here is the evaluation report comments (in black) provided by the Urbact Secretariat and our observations/concerns in red:

The proposal identifies a valid number of core problem generators in city management and justifiably addresses capacity building for integrated urban development as a crucial factor.
This comment relates to Criteria 1 and 2 . However, having rated the project as addressing “crucial factors” the score given hardly reflects the “crucial” relevance of the project.
In the same time however, the topics proposed can not be regarded as innovative.
There is no critera in the assessment criteria that relates to innovation of topic. The programme is about exchanging existing practice NOT creating new innovation. The only reference to innovation is in relation to indicator 1.6. This however is about results NOT the topic. This comment seems to have resulted in the evaluation score for Criteria 1 and 2 being so low.
Furthermore the project acknowledges the interdependencies among the mentioned topics but also attempts to address too many objectives and hence lacks on concentration. Related to that is a lack of detail in some activities and outputs.
The project as stated above focuses on master planning, cultural planning as well as new tools such as re-branding .These are interrelated issues and the comment about lack of concentration therefore perplexing .Furthermore, it ignores the "integrated approach" that underpins the proposal.
The working connection between Master Planning on the one side and concepts like "place creation", Identity and Branding is meaningful and of EU-wide applicability.
This is reinforcing the need for the interconnections that the project is making and is indeed is a very positive comment. However, this is not reflected in the score for criteria 3.
Nevertheless the interaction with Master Plans should be described in a more detailed manner, since the latter are very complicated (definitely beyond URBACT II) and long-term processes, where actions have to be convincingly placed in order to make a difference. This fact is not clearly addressed in the proposal.
Here , the comment of the evaluator is confusing. It seems that the evaluator is of the view that masterplanning has to be undertaken in the Urbact II programme. This is definitely not the objective of the programme. It is about exchange of experience. It would be impossible for any partner to undertake masterplanning in a 30 month project. The aim is the exchange methodologies NOT to take direct action during the life of the project.
The partnership is led by an enthusiastic LP but is not very cohesive. A focus on a limited number of specific concepts and tools (e.g. branding) could eventually help to bond the partnership together.
How is “cohesive” being assessed? The programme requires a mix of competition and convergence partners. The partnership included Lodz, Madrid, Starogard Gandanski. It is totally unclear why this group is deemed to lack cohesion. There are approved networks with partnerships that are considerable less cohesive.
Finally the project commits a large amount for the ULSG (which is a welcomed gesture) but does not justify this choice.
The application makes clear that the funding is to establish the LSG’s and in conjunction with the LSG’s to undertake a local mapping that would feed into the benchmarking report.