The Managing Authority, on the basis of Article 14 (1) of the Regulation No 1080/2006, after consulting with Member States covered with the Cross-border Cooperation programmes, appoints Joint Technical Secretariats, to which it delegates some of its tasks. According to Article 12 of the Regulation No 1828/2006 the Managing Authority shall delegate some of its tasks under a formal agreement.
Pursuant to the above the Managing Authority on 19 February 2008 concluded a written agreement with the "Cooperation Fund" Foundation, which determines the scope of delegated tasks and precisely presents JTS obligations.
Tasks
The tasks of the Joint Technical Secretariats were determined in agreements and cover in particular:
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Running calls for project co-financing applications, including:
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Preparing, in cooperation with the MA models of the documents for the Beneficiaries of the Cooperation Programmes (guidelines, manuals, instructions to existing documents);
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Announcement of the call for applications;
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Receiving and registering the applications for project co-financing;
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Performing formal evaluation, as well as coordination of and participation in the content-related evaluation of the applications for project co-financing;
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Contracting external experts to evaluate applications and organising, if need be, experts meetings;
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Preparing ranking list for the Steering Committee (SC), together with an information sheet for each project, which includes, inter alia, a brief project description and a summary of the project evaluation procedure;
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Informing each of the applicants on the results of considering his/her application;
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Putting up the list of projects approved for co-financing from SC on the Programme website.
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Ensuring technical servicing of the MC and SC works, including:
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Preparing necessary materials, documents and expertises for MC and SC meetings,
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Making invitations, minutes and other documents from the meetings;
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Implementation of relevant decisions taken by the MC;
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Implementation of relevant decisions taken by the SC, including, first of all, supervision over the process of meeting the conditions for approving an application for project co-financing in case the SC makes such a decision;
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Carrying out circulation procedures in line with the MC or SC Rules of Procedure.
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Advisory services for applicants, including:
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Ensuring operation of unit serving Beneficiaries, whose mission is to provide all information on how to apply for co-financing, expenditure eligibility, project applications, procedures for awarding co-financing for a project and then procedures for providing assistance and support at every stage of the project implementation, i.e. rules of project implementation, making payments, settlement, etc.;
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Cooperation with Contact Points (CP) and Regional Contact Points (RCP).
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Programme information and publicity, including:
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Publication and distribution of leaflets and materials informing on the programme;
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Production and distribution of programme publicity materials;
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Organising conferences and seminars targeted at potential and existing Beneficiaries;
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Organising trainings and workshops for Beneficiaries;
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Keeping and up-dating Programme website;
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Dissemination of publications;
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Cooperation with media within the scope of information on the possibilities to be granted aid under a programme;
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Preparing, in consultation with RPC and CP, of an annual information and publicity Action Plan for the programme together with an indicative budget and forwarding the aforementioned plan to be accepted by the MA within established deadlines;
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Control over the use of the Programme image (logo);
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Use of the Programme logo, European Union emblem, and information on co-financing from the European Regional Development Fund given in the documents and publications, during conferences, seminars, working meetings, etc.;
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Support to MA in tasks involved in Programme monitoring, including:
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Cooperation with MA, as regards the process of implementing and applying of the national information system (SIMIK 07-13) to collect and process data concerning the Cross-border cooperation programmes;
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Development of studies, surveys and current reports, as well as annual reports and final reports on programme implementation; Forwarding the abovementioned documents to the MA.
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Support to MA within the scope of programme implementation:
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Preparation of co-financing agreements and forwarding them on behalf of the MA to the Lead Beneficiary (LB) to sign them, and then as necessary, annexes to the concluded agreements;
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Coordination of the 1st level controllers network and support to auditors group;
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Forwarding to the MA signed co-financing agreements/enclosures together with a set of annexes, after verifying if they were properly signed by the LB;
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Formal and content-related verification, based on relevant check lists received from the LB, of periodic and final Progress Reports and forwarding verified Reports to MA.
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Retaining all documents pertaining to project and programme implementation, in particular documents pertaining to expenditures and controls required for provision of appropriate audit trail in accordance with the requirements set out in Article 90 of the Regulation No 1083/2006 and in line with the provisions of the Act of 29 September 1994 on Accounting (Dz. U. of 2002 No 76 item 694 as amended).
Pursuant to Article 59 (2) of the Regulation No 1083/2006 the Managing Authority is responsible for all tasks which it delegates. The agreement concluded between the Managing Authority and the “Cooperation Fund” Foundation establishes all issues pertaining to the control, which the Managing Authority exercises over the tasks delegated to the Joint Technical Secretariats. It was also ensured that the organisational units of the "Cooperation Fund" Foundation, which act as a Joint Technical Secretariats, will be substantially independent from other units implementing the statutory tasks of the entity, or performing other tasks arising from other agreements concluded by the "Cooperation Fund" Foundation.