Building Better Opportunities is jointly funded by Big Lottery Fund and the European Social Fund. Version 1.0 Monday, 25 April 2016 PARTICIPANT ELIGIBILITY Quick Links Right to live and work in the UK Refugees and Asylum seekers People who are Unemployed People who are Economically inactive People in Employment People in Prison Age Eligibility Geographic Eligibility Other Eligibility Requirements Participants already receiving support funded by ESF Personal Documents ESF Requirements: Participant Eligibility Original sources from which this guidance has been drawn are: European Social Fund programme for England 2014-2020 National Eligibility Rules (March 2016) Home Office: An Employer s Guide to Right to Work Checks (May 2015) 1
Participant is the name used for the ultimate recipient of ESF support: the people who are being helped to move closer to work or to secure a job. You may also encounter the term beneficiary, which was used to refer to participants in the 2007-2013 programme, but now applies to the organisations who are funded to implement ESF projects. You must keep records for all participants that have been involved in funded ESF activities. For each of these records, there must be evidence of the participant s eligibility. Participants in the BBO programme must fulfil criteria for ESF, the programme, and the specific project outline developed by BBO and the local ESIF Committee, that your project is designed to address. ESF Requirement: Participants must have the right to live and work in the UK People can live in the UK without having the legal right to work here. However, people that have the right to work in the UK always have the right to live here. For this reason, you can address both parts of this eligibility requirement through a single check on potential participant s right to work. Since 2008, employers have been legally obliged to carry out document checks to ensure that a potential employee has the right to work in the UK, and take copies of the documents they have checked in order to provide a defence (against knowingly employing someone who cannot work here). Since the checks that must be conducted for each participant of ESF-funded projects mirror these employer checks exactly, we recommend that the same guidance is used. For the majority of cases, the evidence that needs to be checked and copied is simply a page in the participant s passport. However, checks can be more complex in cases where immigration status and/or right to work is not clear-cut, or where passports cannot be provided. There is a great deal of guidance available from the Home Office on this requirement, including information on how to conduct the check, lists of acceptable documents, and a tool for working through individual cases to establish which documents to check. https://www.gov.uk/legal-right-work-uk 2
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-work-checks-employers-guide For UK citizens who do not have a passport, a birth certificate together with an official document giving their name and NI number will usually be needed. Please note that short birth certificates are no longer acceptable, and documents with NI numbers or birth certificates can only be used to prove eligibility when they are both presented together. Nationals from the European Economic Area have the right to work in the UK without restriction. EEA countries are: Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Denmark Republic Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Swiss nationals may also work without restriction. Since 1 July 2013, as EU nationals, Croatians have been able to move and reside freely in any EEA Member State, but the UK has applied transitional restrictions on their access to the labour market. If a potential participant is a Croatian national, they will therefore need to provide an accession worker authorisation document (permission to work) as well as their passport, to prove eligibility. Refugees and Asylum seekers Asylum seekers seek international protection and claim they are unwilling or unable to avail themselves of the protection of authorities in their home or habitual country of residence. Refugees are people who have been granted international protection and have been given permission to stay. Asylum seekers are not usually eligible for European Social Fund support, but refugees are. (Note that migrants is a more general term that includes people moving from their home or habitual country of residence.) Asylum seekers are not generally allowed to work while their claims are being decided. However, they may apply for permission to work if they have been waiting more than 12 months for an initial decision, or for a decision on any subsequent submissions. If they have been given permission to work, they will normally be able to access the full range of ESF support, and can take part in BBO. This will be clearly stated on their Application Registration Card (ARC). The ARC will generally state that employment is only permitted in a job on the Shortage 3
Occupation List that can be found on the Home Office website, so you should take account of this in your work preparation activities. Asylum seekers who do not have permission to work may still access European Social Fund pre-vocational activities (but not BBO projects), so you should be ready to signpost them to alternative provision where possible.- BBO Requirement: Participants must be Unemployed or Economically Inactive People who are Unemployed The ESF definition of unemployment is that internationally agreed and recommended by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) an agency of the United Nations. An unemployed person is defined as someone aged 18 or over who is: i. not in paid employment or self employment; AND ii. currently available for work or self employment; AND iii. actively seeking work. In the UK, unemployed people may be registered or unregistered. They may be working up to 16 hours per week and still be in receipt of unemployment benefits such as Jobseeker s Allowance, if they are actively seeking a new job. However, anyone who has even one hour s work a week (through a part time job or a zero hours contract) is not eligible for support through BBO, as the Managing Authority has agreed with the European Commission that such people will be considered as employed under the ESF 2014-2020 programme in England (excluding provision provided by the DWP Opt In Organisation, which will apply a different definition). Registered Unemployed: In these cases, participants will be registered as unemployed with Job Centre Plus. Suitable evidence: You should see an original and make and retain a copy of any letter or document from Job Centre Plus that confirms that the person is registered unemployed. The date should be as close as possible to the date that they start involvement in the BBO project (one month is generally considered the acceptable limit). The document does not necessarily need to confirm receipt of Jobseekers Allowance, but it should confirm the participant is unemployed (or available for and seeking work).in addition, the participant will need to sign a self-declaration stating that they do not have even one hour s paid work a week. 4
Unemployed but Not Registered: Some people who are unemployed and available for and seeking work will not be registered. Suitable Evidence: There may not be any standard official sources of evidence, though individuals may be able to produce documents from a government agency that gives their status as unemployed. If no official letter is available then the candidate should sign a selfdeclaration confirming that they are unemployed. They will also need to self-declare that they do not have even one hour s paid work a week, and declare that they are available for, and seeking work. People who are Long-term Unemployed People under 25 years of age are defined as long-term unemployed if they have had more than 6 months of continuous unemployment. People of 25 years or more are defined as long-term unemployed if they have had more than 12 months of continuous unemployment. People defined as long-term unemployed may be registered or unregistered unemployed. People who are Economically inactive An economically inactive person is not in paid employment or self-employment, but not available for or not seeking work. Economically inactive people may be available for work, but not actively seeking a job at present (if they are actively seeking work, you should define them as unemployed). Economically inactive people include those who are not available for work, such as carers, those who are in retirement and those who are long-term sick or disabled. As with unemployed people, only inactive people who do not have even one hour s paid work a week are eligible for BBO projects. Suitable Evidence: There will be no blanket sources of evidence, though some individuals may be able to produce official proof of economic inactivity (doctor s letters, state pension books, letter from educational establishment etc.) 5
You will therefore need to provide a self-declaration template, so that potential participants can sign a confirmation that they do not have paid work but are not actively seeking work (or are not available for work), and indicate any particular barriers to them working (e.g. childcare responsibilities), if applicable. People in Employment People who are already in employment (for one or more hours per week) are not eligible for the BBO programme, though they may be eligible for support from other ESF operations in their local area. This includes people that: are performing work for pay or profit have a job or business from which they are temporarily absent, eg through illness, holidays, industrial dispute, maternity or paternity leave, and education or training are self-employed, including those who are helping family members, even if unpaid are in the process of setting up a business, farm or professional practice are in subsidised or incentivised employment. have a zero hours or part-time job of even one hour per week. People in Prison People who are in custody cannot take part in the BBO programme. The National Offender Management Service will be running ESF projects that are designed for people in prison to participate in. ESF: Age Eligibility ESF support has no upper age limit. However ESF support is for individuals who will be able to contribute to the growth of the economy, through their employment or increased skills levels, and you should take account of this and be ready to demonstrate it to auditors. The ESF Operational Programme in 2014-2020 allows additional ESF support for at risk young people aged 15-18 who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) or at risk of becoming NEET. Young people below the age of 15 are not eligible to be supported by ESF. 6
BBO: Geographic Eligibility Project outlines have been carefully developed to address needs in specific LEP areas. ESF expenditure is allocated to LEP areas, and must be spent on activities within them. You should give consideration to how you will ensure that the benefit of the project is to participants within the LEP area. However, participants should not be turned away on the basis of where they live: their eligibility is based on where they access the ESF provision, not their home address. If a participant is already taking part in a BBO project in the same LEP area, you will not be able to count their data towards your output targets, though you are still able to fund their participation in your project and should retain their paperwork as for all other participants. In some areas, a BBO project covers two categories of region, as defined by the European Commission. If this applies to your project, your Funding Officer will discuss this with you: you will need to ensure that each region has the appropriate share of the project spend and the participant numbers and be able to demonstrate this to auditors. However, participants are still eligible to engage with the service in either category of region, whever they live. BBO: Other Eligibility Requirements Many project outlines specify that particular target groups are to benefit from activities. These may include: People from rural areas People from thinly populated areas according to the Degree of Urbanisation (DEGURBA category 3) classification. This means that more than 50% of the population lives in rural grid cells. Disabled people People who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which may hinder their full and effective participation on an equal basis with others. People in jobless households people in households where no member is in employment. A household is defined as a unit that has common arrangements, shared household expenses or daily needs and in a shared common residence. Note that this category does not usually include students, whose permanent address (not their term-time address) is taken as their household. Single adult households with dependent children Household defined as above. Adults are over 18 years. Dependent children refers to individuals aged 0 17 years and 18-24 if inactive and living with at least one parent. Homeless people includes people who are sleeping rough or in emergency accommodation, people in accommodation for the homeless, in shelters, in accommodation for immigrants, people due to be released from institutions and 7
people receiving long-term support due to homelessness, people in insecure accommodation, or unfit housing. NEET is not defined specifically by ESF regulations, though there are ESF indicators for Inactive, not in education or training and Below 25 years of age which will be relevant if you are working with NEET young people. In all the above cases, please refer to your project outline for full eligibility requirements, which may be more specific. Where target groups do not align with ESF indicators, definitions should be agreed in order that consistent reporting and evidencing is maintained across your partnership: Examples: Carers People with multiple and complex needs People with multiple barriers to employment People who are furthest from the labour market People from specific ethnic minorities People with mental health issues Troubled families Specific age groups Care leavers Ex-offenders Participants already receiving support funded by ESF You should check that your activities will not duplicate other ESF provision, just as you must check that they do not duplicate mainstream or statutory services. A situation may occur where a participant receives support from more than one Building Better Opportunities project, either simultaneously or consecutively. Provided there is a clear rationale for their participation, this does not affect the individual s eligibility for support through your project. Nonetheless, participants may only be counted once per ESF operation (per BBO allocation in each LEP area, in this case). More information on this is provided in the next section: Participant Data. 8
Note on Personal Documents Projects will be retaining sensitive personal documents for each participant including copies of identity documents, personal data including addresses, and documents relating to sensitive personal circumstances. They must therefore be stored safely and securely, with access limited to named individuals only who are checked and trained in how to maintain their security. You should ensure that at each stage of collection, checking, verifying and storing documents, their security is maintained, including after the project has ended. See also information on the Data Protection and Security in Participant Data. 9