Overview

The Equal Community Initiative under the ESF is meant to provide services to socially excluded groups with the purpose of moving those individuals into training and employment. This means that any service user of ESF Equal funded services must be 1) in a socially-excluded group and 2) looking to move into training and/or employment. Each Equal programme chooses and defines the socially excluded groups it will work with and the services it will offer.

The Equal programme is not intended to provide services to every resident of an area nor is it intended to provide services to every socially excluded resident of an area. An Equal Development Partnership chooses which groups they will concentrate on.

Target Groups

The Equal Brighton & Hove programme was developed to provide services to specific target groups. These groups were chosen by the Management Partnership in Action 1 and were based on research done on the Brighton and Hove area. These are the people who count as beneficiaries and are eligible to receive Equal services.

Equal Brighton & Hove chose as its target groups 11 specific categories. These were identified in the DPA as:

• 1 Black and ethnic minorities (BME)
• 2 Concentrations of worklessness
• 3 Homeless people
• 4 LGBT
• 5 People aged between 16-25 (NEET)
• 6 People over 50
• 7 People with disabilities
• 8 People with mental health needs
• 9 People with a history of drug and alcohol misuse
• 10 Previous offenders
• 11 Refugees

Accessing Services - Direct & Indirect Service Users

Each project has as its focus one or more specific target groups; this should have been clarified through the project bidding process. Each project should be designed to address the needs of the specific target group(s) and directed at recruiting the specific target groups to participate in the project. These named groups of beneficiaries are referred to as direct beneficiaries and are eligible to access the services.

A beneficiary who is not in the project’s specific target group(s) but is in one of Equal Brighton & Hove's other target groups are considered indirect beneficiary and are eligible to participate in that service. It is worth bearing in mind that indirect service users are service users that a project has not been designed to specifically cater for.

If a service is being funded by Equal at 100% then only people who qualify as either direct or indirect beneficiaries are eligible. If a service is only part-funded by Equal, then anyone can attend that course, as long as there are also Equal beneficiaries being served. Non-EBH target groups cannot be counted as service users towards a project's EBH targets. These are not arbitrary rules which can be changed. These are requirements of Equal and the ESF.

With respect to the Annex 1 information, the only service users that should be estimated in that document are the direct beneficiaries. With respect to reporting, all service users, both direct and indirect, should be reported.

EBH Eligibility

To receive services funded by EBH and therefore also for audit purposes, the eligibility of a beneficiary must be evidenced. The criteria for eligibility is determined by the European Union and is codified in regulations and contractually. Equal Brighton & Hove (EBH) has no authority to change or waive these requirements.

There are three requirements:

• 1 A resident of the UK and able to work (aged over 16) - evidenced by the National Insurance number
• 2 Belong to one of the target groups
• 3 Be a resident of the Brighton & Hove area (please refer to additional guidance)

A project must be able to evidence that a person who has received Equal-funded services has met all three of the eligibility requirements. If a project is unable to do so, then that person is ineligible. The forms provided for projects to use - if filled out correctly - will provide all of the evidence necessary to prove eligibility. Guidance on using the forms can be found on the Forms and Monitoring page.

Evidence for target group membership varies according to what target group membership is claimed. Specific target group information is included on relevant target group pages listed below.

Service Users Accessing More than One (1) ESF Funded Programme/Project

Our guidance from Ecotec states that there is no problem with having a service user taking up more than one ESF funded programme as long as:

• 1. There is demonstrable additionality & innovation for use of the programmes
• 2. No duplication of activity/resources
• 3. Potential conflicts and how they are addressed are documented
• 4. There is no double counting of either client or costs
• 5. Match funding for each programme is entirely separate