European Social Fund: programme guidance
Programme guidance documents for the 2014 to 2020 European Social Fund.
Documents
Details
The European Structural and Investment Funds Growth programme is funding for projects that create jobs and supports local growth.
The funds include:
- the European Social Fund
- the European Regional Development Fund
- part of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development
The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development helps with:
- improving the environment
- improving farming and forestry competitiveness
- supporting rural businesses to grow and expand, improve knowledge and skills and get started
Read more information about the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
The ESF programme continues to invest in projects after the transition period ended on 31 December 2020. All funding must finish by the end of 2023.
Read more on the European Structural and Investment Funds.
Updates to this page
Published 19 September 2019Last updated 21 March 2022 + show all updates
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Minor updates to the Simplified Cost Options guidance - 1. ESF Direct Staff Cost Methodology 4 (fixed percentage), where it now clarifies what contractual documents the Grant Recipient need to provide to the ESF Managing Authority. 2. Annex B first bullet point stating that all staff must have a HR letter and job description or other other contractual documentation.
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Removed the PDF version of the European Social Fund Cross Cutting Themes Guidance and replaced with a HTML version of the same guidance.
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The ESF Operating Policy for Online Applications has been deleted, however if you require a copy of this please contact your ESF Contract Manager.
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Updated the Simplified Cost Options guidance -- updated to clarify the Annual Gross Employment Cost calculation and sets out what the gross employment costs can include.
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Revised annex B of the Simplified Cost Options guidance.
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Simplified Cost Options Guidance has been updated to include additional information under the heading Latest Annual Gross Employment Costs.
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The Simplified Cost Options guidance has been added. The Managing Authority has updated and combined the Programme Guidance and ESF National Eligibility Rules to create one document which is available on the ESF Eligibility page.
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The ESF Scoring Framework has been updated. In this version of the ESF Scoring Framework we have: i. Removed the Outline Application and Assessment elements; ii. Taken the opportunity to set out in the document to set out clear wording explaining the precise timeframe of validity for this edition of the ESF Scoring Framework; iii. Introduced additional wording explaining that the scoring methodologies for dual-stage applications received by the ESF Managing Authority in response to calls published prior to 29th October 2018 can be found in Versions 6 & 7 of the ESF Scoring Framework document and explained how copies of previous versions of the ESF Scoring Framework can be obtained on request from the ESF Managing Authority.
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First published.