The purpose of this study is to assess the legal and practical challenges in accessing and re-using administrative data, including data related to ethnic origin, for the purposes of monitoring and evaluation of ESF and ESF+ programmes.
This study aims to assess the legal and practical challenges in accessing and re-using administrative data for the purposes of monitoring and evaluation of ESF and ESF+ programmes, including data related to ethnic origin. In order to facilitate the monitoring and evaluation of ESF+, the study also assessed how to facilitate access to administrative data, with the aim of providing guidance to Managing Authorities on how to process personal data, including administrative data, while complying with data protection rules.
In order to draw the necessary conclusions and make recommendations, the study has:
• Described the legal framework at EU level with implications for the monitoring and evaluation of ESF+.
• Provided an outline description of national legal frameworks to gain futher insights into how a selection of nine Member States (Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Sweden) apply and supplement the EU legal framework.
• Assessed examples of dataset and sector-specific legislation from three selected Member States (Austria, Spain, and Romania) to gain a deeper insight into the iversity and multiplicity of national legislation to be considered for datasets that are held by public authorities.
• Analysed data protection aspects relevant to to the monitoring and evaluation of the ESF+, including the relevant legal bases, provisions and national practices relevant to the reuse of data, consent, special categories of personal data, transmission of data, data linking, data storage, and informing data subjects.
• Developed models of accessing administratived data in nine Member States, including a deeper review of three Member States (Austria, Spain and Italy) and related legal obligations and conditions to access these data.
• Conducted 50 stakeholder interviews, complemented by several rounds of followup questions, with a wide range of relevant stakeholders in nine Member States to identify practices, challenges, and possible solutions to the processing of data for the purpose of implementing, monitoring, and evaluating ESF/ESF+ Projects.
The conclusions of the legal research and stakeholder consultations have mainly been used to identify challenges related to the processing of administrative data for ESF/ESF+ monitoring and evaluation, and to develop recommendations to overcome those challenges.
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