Annex 1

TERMS OF REFERENCE

for experts ("assessors") to assist in the evaluation of grant applications received in the framework of the call for proposals

Reference: EuropeAid/139223/ID/ACT/RS

Support to local self-government units

TERMS OF REFERENCE

Table of contents

1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION 3

2. OBJECTIVE, PURPOSE & EXPECTED RESULTS 4

2.1. Overall objective 4

2.2. Results to be achieved by the Contractor 4

3. SCOPE OF THE WORK 5

3.1. General 5

3.2. Specific Activities 5

4. LOGISTICS AND TIMING 9

4.1. Location 9

4.2. Start date and period of implementation 9

5. REQUIREMENTS 9

5.1. Staff 9

5.2. Facilities 11

6. REPORTS 11

6.1. Reporting requirements 11

6.2. Submission & approval of reports 11

1.  BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The programme on Public administration reform at the local level - EXCHANGE 5 programme is an inseparable part of the ongoing process of the EU (and other donor) efforts focusing on improving municipal management and service delivery by municipalities, aimed at fostering local development. It represents a continuation of the Exchange 1 to 4 programmes that covers, based on past experiences and developed tools, a scope of activities addressing currently most challenging areas in local self-governance reforms - public property management and public finance management. The programme will enhance administrative capacities and service provision effectiveness by LSG units in Serbia in line with principles of Public Administration Reform strategy, specific national, regional and local policies and EU practices. The present Call for Proposals pertains to first component of the EXCHANGE 5 programme i.e. concerns property management support to LSGs.

Strategy of Public Administration Reform (PAR Strategy) in the Republic of Serbia, adopted in January 2014, together with Action plan for the period 2015-2017, from March 2015, in comparison to the previous one, is extended to the public administration system at all levels. The key reason for broadening the scope of the Strategy primarily lies in the requirement of ensuring the functional unity and standard quality of activities, irrespective of the public entities which perform them. The overall objective of the PA reform is to ensure further enhancement of the public administration operations in line with the principles of European Administrative Space - that is, to create the high quality services for citizens and businesses, and the public administration in Serbia that will significantly contribute to economic stability and improved living standard of citizens. As a part of PA reform and decentralisation process, many laws have been adopted in recent years.

In respect to the implementation of the Law on Public Property (since 2011) some LSGs successfully conducted the activities necessary for gathering documentation for submitting the requests for registering their right of public ownership over real estate at the Republic Geodetic Authority (RGA), but many are only at the beginning of the process. LSGs that conducted such activities have determined those real estate for which the right of use is registered to LSGs, their institutions and organisations, they gathered the needed documentation and submitted request to Republic Property Directorate (RPD) for issuing certificates necessary for registering right of public ownership in RGA’s Real Estate Cadastre all in order to obtain the certificate of such registration. However, due to restraints in financial and human capacities and the unresolved property issues, majority of LSGs in Serbia did not manage to complete documentation necessary for registering of real estate they are using. Further, LSGs use great deal of real estates’ without appropriate legal basis needed for registering the right of use or the right of public ownership within the records maintained by the RGA’s Real Estate Cadastre (missing building and usage permits, lack of geodetic records, etc.). Finally, in order to establish efficient and accountable property management system LSGs are currently facing with following challenges: establishment of the bookkeeping value; lack of methodology of estimating the value of publically-owned real estate; unregistered infrastructure and the underground communal network; non-appropriate bookkeeping records of properties; insufficient technical capacities; incorrect geodetic data and records from the RGA for certain number of property units, etc. Decree on evidence of property in public ownership, prescribes procedure for keeping records on real estate. On that basis, in February 2016, RPD developed software for online submission of property data by LSGs. Once filled in, it will enable the RPD to efficiently keep evidence on all public property, follow the change of public property status and annually report to the government on the effects of the property management on all levels. In practice, this process progresses very slowly, usually due to technical difficulties and preparatory activities necessary for filling-in the RPD software by LSGs.

Previous Exchange Grant Scheme (GS) was partially allocated to assist LSGs with property inventory and registration which revealed very pertinent and numerous open issues and the difficulties the LSGs are facing in setting the basic conditions for property management. The EU Exchange 4 Programme dealt with this both on the level of immediate needs of supported LSGs (the sample of 13 GS projects and 37 supported LSGs) as well as on the policy level (through the sector analysis and consultations in the scope of Sector Focus Group on Property Management). Consequently, the range of issues is extensive and based on evidence/findings which started to be addressed already with EU Exchange 4 Programme. Therefore, the Support to local self-government units - Exchange 5 GS aims to address and respond to above mentioned issues in the appropriate manner and scale.

Main competent Ministry for the Exchange 5 Programme is the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government (MPALSG), while the present GS, as well as the entire Programme is implemented with the support of a programme management unit (PMU) established within the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities (SCTM).

The Contracting Authority of the present Call for Proposals is the Government of the Republic of Serbia, Ministry of Finance, Department for Contracting and Financing of EU Funded Programmes (CFCU).

The global objective of the present Call for Proposals is to increase the effectiveness, efficiency and transparency of public administration through enhancement of property management at local level.

The specific objective(s) of the present Call for Proposals is to strengthen the capacities of LSGs for property management and provision of related services, thus bringing the public administration closer to citizens and business.

The overall indicative amount made available under the Call for Proposals is EUR 3,300,000 with planned size of grants between EUR 120,000 and 200,000. Co-financing of the grants is envisaged between 51% - 90% of the total eligible costs of the proposed action.

The evaluation of the subject grant scheme is to be performed in line with the regulations defined in the latest version of the Practical guide – PRAG 2016.

Detailed information on the present Call for Proposals is available at the following sites:

www.cfcu.gov.rs, www.mduls.gov.rs, www.skgo.org,

2.  OBJECTIVE, PURPOSE & EXPECTED RESULTS

2.1.  Overall objective

To recruit assessors to assist the Contracting Authority in the selection of the best proposals received under the Call for Proposals “Support to local self-government units” and to achieve a high-quality, complete and coherent selection process of projects in line with the criteria set in the guidelines for applicants.

2.2.  Results to be achieved by the Contractor

  • Assessors will carry out the technical assessment of concept notes in accordance with guidelines to be provided by the Contracting Authority and which are based on the published evaluation grids. Approximately 85 concept notes are expected. Each concept note has to be assessed individually by two assessors.
  • Assessors will carry out the technical and financial assessment of full applications in accordance with guidelines to be provided by the Contracting Authority and which are based on the published evaluation grids. Approximately 50 full applications are expected. Each full application has to be assessed individually by two assessors.
  • Assessors will carry out the eligibility check of the applicants, affiliated entities and the action of the applications that have been provisionally selected, in accordance with guidelines to be provided by the Contracting Authority and which are based on the eligibility criteria set out in the Guidelines for applicants. At least 20 provisionally selected applications are expected. Each application has to be assessed individually by one assessor.
  • Team Leader and Assessors will prepare conclusions for each of the above mentioned evaluation phases and presentations to the Evaluation Committee
  • Team Leader will prepare assessors’ report (with the table of scorings)

These assessments will be used by the evaluation committee in the process of selecting the best proposals.

3.  SCOPE OF THE WORK

3.1.  General

The objective of assignment of assessors is to assist the Evaluation Committee in selecting the best proposals in line with the criteria set for the Support to local self-government units Call for Proposals on the basis of well documented high-quality assessment process.

3.2.  Specific Activities

The team leader and Assessors are bound by a Declaration of Impartiality and Confidentiality[1] to be signed before starting each phase of the assessment. If an assessor believes there might be a situation of conflict of interests in relation to one or more applicants, he/she must inform the Contracting Authority immediately. In addition, strict confidentiality is required from the experts involved in the implementation of this Contract, notably on the assessments of individual applications.

(1)  Role and tasks of assessors

The Call is launched as a restricted Call for Proposals. It implies that there will be three phases of the evaluation of proposals. In the first phase of the assessment submitted concept notes will be evaluated, including the administrative check, as foreseen by the respective restricted procedure (Step 1). The second phase will cover evaluation of full application forms, including the administrative check, submitted by the applicants who passed the first phase of the concept notes evaluation (Step 2). The third phase includes final eligibility check (Step 3). The administrative checks will be done by Evaluation Committee.

The Guidelines for assessment of Applications, together with the evaluation grids shall prescribe how the assessors should appraise the applications in each phase of the evaluation. These Guidelines will be submitted to assessors at the beginning of their task and the assessors are obliged to strictly adhere to the Guidelines provisions.

Assessors should provide written technical and financial assessments to the Contracting Authority of concept notes and full applications. (this includes the verification of the budget proposed by the applicants for the action, assessing its overall coherence and particularly its cost-effectiveness, with an emphasis on the identification of potential anomalies and/or overpriced items or budget lines).

At least two assessors must assess each concept note and each full application, working independently of each other.

The assessments must be undertaken in accordance with the guidelines and instructions provided by the evaluation committee. These are based on the published evaluation grids in the guidelines for applicants. The overall assessment should be based on the scores obtained under each subheading, added up by heading and the final score is the arithmetical average of the scores given by the assessors.

Each application must be assessed on its own merits and not by comparing different applications. External assessors are expected to bring their own experience of the sector and project implementation to bear in the analysis of each proposal.

The assessors may be invited to the evaluation committee to justify and discuss his/her assessment of the proposals. Likewise, the assessors are expected to attend the introductory briefing session which will be held by the Contracting Authority, as well as any other meeting in the course of implementation of their tasks, when presence of the assessors might be needed and initiated by the Evaluation Committee.

Each expert assessor should liaise directly with the team leader only, which afterwards will liaise with the chairperson of the Evaluation Committee. The assessors are required to submit their evaluations to the team leader, who will provide the completed original paper (not a scanned copy) evaluation grids to the Evaluation Committee at the end of the evaluation phase.

Assessors will be engaged in the period from October 2017 and at latest until December 2018.

Assessment by assessors is based on the following:

Concept note evaluation

• Relevance of action

• Design of action

Full application evaluation

• Financial and operational capacity of the applicant and its partners

• Effectiveness and feasibility of the action

• Sustainability of the action

• Budget and cost-effectiveness of the action

Final eligibility check

§  Performing eligibility verification in accordance with the applicable Assessment Grid for the Full Application Form

Each assessor has therefore to be familiar with the Guidelines for Applicants for the relevant Call for Proposals and other relevant documents such as the Law on Public Property, the Decree on Records of Real Estate in Public Ownership, Law on Local Self-Government, Methodology of inventory and registration of LSG public property developed by Council of Europe (CoE) under the project “Strengthening Local Self-Government in Serbia - Phase 2“[2], etc.

Assessment will notably be organised on basis of the following instructions:

·  For each phase/step (i.e. Step 1: Concept note evaluation; Step 2: Full application evaluation; Step 3: Final eligibility check) of the call evaluation, the Contracting Authority will organise a briefing session in Belgrade to be attended by all assessors, in order to clarify the Call for Proposals’ objectives, management structure and other particularities linked to the Call and the specific evaluation criteria to be taken into consideration when assessing the proposals;

·  The assessors must provide a comment for each score in each sub-section, and they must provide an overall comment on the strengths and weaknesses of each proposal. Eventually, the assessor must provide a justified opinion if the proposal should be proposed for financing or not;

·  The assessors must ensure that their comments and scores are coherent, and that a high score is not accompanied by negative comments, and vice versa;

·  The assessor is expected to bring his/her own experience of the sector & project implementation to bear in the analysis of each proposal;