What does the Certifying Authority do?

The Certifying Authority is responsible for the certification of all expenditure claims submitted to the EU Commission and subsequent reimbursement to each Member State. They ensure the expenditure reported is in compliance with EU and national rules.

What does the Managing Authority do?

The Managing Authority is one of a number of bodies identified by European Regulation and given particular roles in the administration of the programme. The Managing Authority has overall responsibility for the management and implementation of the Operational Programme (the document approved by the European Commission which establishes the programme strategy and priorities). The Managing Authority has a number of responsibilities established by EU Regulation.

These include:

Ensuring that projects are selected according to the criteria approved by the Programme Monitoring Committee;

Establishing and monitoring procedures for ensuring that project expenditure has been properly and legally incurred, claimed and paid;

Maintaining systems to store data on all aspects of programme implementation including financial management, audit, monitoring and evaluation;

Ensuring proper evaluation of the programme is undertaken;

Guiding the work of the Monitoring Committee and providing it with the documents required to allow it to complete its functions;

Preparing annual and final reports on implementation, and submitting these to the European Commission following approval by the Monitoring Committee;

Ensuring that information and publicity requirements established by European Regulations are met.