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Implementation Principles of the Project
INTRODUCTION
During the approval process of KaleidoscopEurope Project, the Project Office with
all the personnel has set up office in the premises of Italian Institute of Culture
– Ankara (IIC Ankara). Grant Agreement was signed by Contracting Authority (Central
Finances and Contracts Unit – CFCU) , Grant Beneficiary (IIC Ankara) and European
Union Delegation on March 2nd, 2009. Grant amount was 1.665.052,0 EUR. Project duration
was 22 moths. Project partners were Italian Institute of Culture – Istanbul, Middle
East Technical University (METU) and State Theater, Opera and Ballet Employees Foundation
(TOBAV). There were seven individual sub projects within the project itself. Since
Technical Assistance Team tender was not finalized during the first part of the
Project, the Project team relied on the advices of European Union Delegation and
CFCU. This has taken the shape of extensive meetings and heavy e-mail traffic. Therefore
with the help of EU Delegation and CFCU Experts, the systems that were used for
the implementation of the Project have come into being. After the arrival of Technical
Assistance Team (TAT) in 09.10.2009, aid was received from TAT especially for visibility,
Notifications and Interim and Final Reports. The systems established were the following:
- Project Management system
- Project Monitoring system
- Reporting system
- Creation
of templates
- Notifications system
- Tendering system
- Financial Control and Payment
system
- Visibility and Public Relations system
- Archive system
- Services for
the Activity Partners
- Training for Activity Partners
These individual systems
are told in detail below.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Italian Attache for Cultural Affairs was the Project Coordinator. This burden was
shouldered by Ms. Angela Tangianu between March 2009 and March 2010. Ms. Tangianu
also masterminded the Project and supervised the writing of the Project. After Ms.
Tangianu, Mr. Francesco Servida as the new Italian Attache for Cultural Affairs
became the Project Coordinator who has finished the Project. Technical side of the
Project was coordinated by the Project Team; Task Manager H. Sibay Tugsavul, Experts
Cigdem Akcar, Özge Tura and Key Expert Aylin Nalbantoğlu, Expert Bahadır Tahtalı.
Project Coordinator had the functions of final approval, monitoring the documents,
approving them and signing them. Task Manager had the functions of Contract Management,
checking the documents, supervising the establishment of systems used in the implementation
process, checking the documents prior to Project Coordinator. Experts had the duties
of creating the systems used, carrying out the jobs required for the Project, carrying
out the services required for the activity partners.
Within IIC Ankara, weekly progress meetings were held to evaluate the progress made
and activities to be carried out for the week.
PROJECT MONITORING SYSTEM
Project monitoring was carried out by two agencies. First was the Project Management
Unit (PMU). Project Management Unit was composed of representatives of IIC Ankara
and three Project Partners for carrying out the general management of the Project.
PMU made a meeting in every three months.
The other Monitoring agency was TAT. TAT’s monitoring meetings were held twice during
the life time of the Project. TAT monitoring meetings resulted in checking of the
jobs carried out, controlling the procedures used, checking the documents on the
part of the Project Team. It may be said that TAT meetings including the presence
of EU Delegation have resulted in extensive autocontrol by the Project Team.
Independent Auditor’s role in writing the Financial Report of the Project was another
factor in autocontrol of the duties of the Project Team.
REPORTING SYSTEM
Reporting was carried out by especially the three main Reports; Inception Report,
Interim Report and Final Report. The writing of these reports caused self-assessment
and monitoring the jobs already done and to be done for the Project. The formats
of the Interim and Final Reports were given as attachments of the Direct Grant Agreement
and these were followed to the letter. Formats of the Financial Reports were trimmed
according to the criticims of TAT especially.
Also the Global Work Plans which were parts of the above mentioned three reports
were at hand for following the time dimension of the Project.
Monthly Progress Reports was a must for conveying data on the activities carried
out for the month and activities for the next month. These reports were sent to
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, CFCU, EU Delegation and when TAT has come into being
to TAT. All in all 20 monthly Progress Reports were written. Beginning in August
2009, the media company contracted has also contributed its media coverage to the
Monthly Progress Reports.
Tri monthly VAT Reports for Ministry of Finance: Since the Project has taken the
VAT Exemption Certificate from the Ministry of Finance’s Taxation Department in
April 2009, every three months two tables (above and below 2.000,0 TL , roughly
1.000,0 EUR) containing the lists of firms paid by using the VAT Exemption Certificate
was given to the related Taxation Department.
CREATION of TEMPLATES
Creation of the document templates was an urgent task at the beginning of the Project.
Factors like placement of the logos of the related institutions, the form of the
templates have taken a long time of preparation. CFCU and European Union Delegation
have helped extensively in creation of the templates. By April 2009 the templates
were ready to be used. But with passage of time, all of them had to be revised according
to the feedback from their usage.
Human Resources templates: Short Term Expert Agreements, Time Sheets, Action reports
and Attendance Sheet for per diem were created. Short Term Expert Agrrement was
taken mainly from CFCU sources. Then it was seen that it should be revised as to
have one for individual experts and another for orchestra representatives. Time
Sheet was another template. Action Report template was taken from CFCU sources.
Attendance Sheet for per diem was also created.
Tender templates: Here mainly three sources were used. One was the EU web page http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/work/procedures/implementation/services/index_en.htm
. The other was the web page of EU – Turkey Chambers Forum, another EU funded Civil
Society Project which was very valuable: www.etcf.org.tr . Last one was naturally
PRAG 2008. As a result of extensive study, templates for Competitive Negotiated
Procedure, Single Tender Procedure and Direct Purchase were created and used. Only
Services Sector tendering procedures were used, because all the budget lines of
Kaleidoscopeurope Project were for Services sector and none for Supplies and Works
sectors. The tendering templates created had to be rehauled over time according
to the feedback from their usage.
Monthly Progress Report template: This was created using the outline given by Ministry
of Foreign Affairs and consequently revised.
Notification Template: Notification template was taken mainly from the EU Manuals
available. Through usage in time, the format of the Notifications have reached a
satisfactory level by the criticisms of CFCU, EU Delegation and TAT. Especially
the budgetary tables were revised extensively.
Payment templates: Three payment templates were created. First Accrued Expenses
Sheet which shows the budget line, money to be paid and documentary proof was created,
second a sheet containing financial information needed for IIC Ankara was produced,
and last Payment Order to the Bank template was created. Also a control sheet was
produced for office use for controlling the correctness of the data and attachments.
Revision of Contracts template: As time went on it became clear that certain contracts
of the tenders had to be revised and a template was created accordingly.
Travel templates: In case of the trips of the individual experts, templates for
flight and accommodation reservations were prepared and used.
NOTIFICATIONS SYSTEM
As told above Notifications templates had to be created. Notifications has arisen
from the fact that some of the approved budget lines of the Project did not confirm
to the reality of what is going on. Therefore certain budget lines had to be cancelled,
certain budget lines had to be divided, certain budget lines’ description (called
Justification of Costs) had to be changed and new budget lines had to be created.
The need for change in the budget of the Project has come either from Activity partners
or from the diagnosis of the Project Team. As a result Approved Budget and approved
Justifications of Costs had to be amended with fourteen Notifications.
Originally there were 195 inital budget lines. With the 14th Notification, there
has become 207 budget lines. A total of 142 budget lines were revised, cancelled
or divided. 23 budget lines were cancelled, 5 budget lines were divided into 14
budget lines, 25 new budget lines were introduced and 22 budget lines had their
names changed. Correspondingly, description of individual budget lines in Justification
of Costs were changed.
The extensive change in the budget lines were mainly due to : it was not possible
to predict all the items related to travel expenses, place and number and timing
/ work plan of events and workshops at the time of project writing; there were 40
activity partners, many experts, orchestras and groups who had to be dealt with;
legal intricasies of state and private institutions being activity partners; and
also within one Project there were seven different activities with different specializations
and needs which had to be taken care of and which has come into open with passage
of time.
TENDERING SYSTEM
A total of 61 tenders were made in Europe and Turkey using the Competitive Negotiated
Procedure, Single Tender Procedure and Direct Purchase procedures using the templates
created for the services sector. 23 tenders used Competitive Negotiated Procedure,
24 tenders used Single Tender Procedure and there were 14 Direct Purchases. As for
finding the candidate firms, Activity partners have helped mainly in locating the
candidate firms. Over 200 candidate firms were contacted for the tenders. 17 tenders
were made in Europe and 44 in Turkey.
FINANCIAL CONTROL & PAYMENT SYSTEM
Specially designed Accounting Program X-CUBE : An accounting software named X-CUBE
was created for the accouting and payment system. The computer in which the X-CUBE
accounting software program was loaded was placed in the Project Office and could
be accessed only there. X-CUBE program is based on the Payments to be done according
to the approved budget lines of the Project and the double entry system of accounting.
X-CUBE’s function was three fold:
(a) Preparing the 3 individual payment documents: Accrued Expenses Sheet, IIC Ankara
Payment Document, and Bank Payment Order.
(b) Preparation of payment tables according to activity, year, time period etc.
(c) Ledgers and subledgers according to Double entry system of accounting.
These functions were carried out by the Project Office. Changes in the budget lines
due to approved Notifications were also input into the system.
Financial Control and Planning by Project Office: Project Office input all the payments
into the individual budget lines of the whole Budget, therefore followed whether
the limits of individual budget lines were reached. Also the subtotals and whole
of the budget were monitored by specially designed tables. The changes in the budget
lines due to approved Notifications were also put into the system.
One of the important contributions of financial control and planning was in preparing
the calculations related to the two basic thresholds of the Project, namely 80 %
level for 1st Year Payments (1st instalment of grant amount ) and 10 % level of
the whole Grant amount (last instalment to be paid), for each of the 7 activities
of the Project.
Monitoring was also done by IIC Ankara’s Accountant. Payment documents were given
to the Accountant for control, and one copy of the Bank Payment Order as one copy
of the whole payment dosier were given to the Accountant. for the purposes of IIC
Ankara. IIC Ankara is the Grant Beneficiary, therefore the Bank account of the Project
was opened on its name and IIC Ankara Accountant kept the bank account documents
and extres. The Accountant kept track of the total amount of the money spent through
comparison with X-CUBE’s outputs.
Bank Account: The grant amount was put into the Bank account declared to and accepted
by CFCU. Bank Account statements were checked with X-CUBE’s outputs both by IIC
Ankara Accountant and Project Office every month.
All in all , 200 payments were made in 2009. 177 payments are done as to complete
the amount for 90 % of the Project grant amount. And 25 are programmed to be paid
as the last instalment of 10 %. These add up to 202 payments for the second year
of the Project. Therefore a total of 402 payments for the Project activities. Aproximately
two payments were made for each budget line (402 payments for 207 budget lines).
VISIBILITY & PUBLIC RELATIONS SYSTEM
All the visibility items produced within the Project had to conform to the visibility
rules of EU. Therefore visibility materials like posters, invitations, flags and
the like , and booklets, exhibition catalogues, books, documentary CDs and DVDs
had to conform to EU visibility rules. This was done by sending the soft copy of
the draft material to EU Delegation at first and, after TAT has come into being,
to TAT.
Distribution and hanging of visibility materials like posters, leaflets were left
to specialized firms mainly, these firms were found in Turkey and in Europe.
Public relations were mainly implemented by the winning firm of the tender on media
relations. All the events within Turkey were publicized by the contractor. PR activities
were mainly before the event and after the event. Press Announcements in Turkish
and English, invitation of media members to events, establishing press desks during
the event, collecting the media coverage before and after the event, press conferences
before and after the event, radio talks, TV coverages were the main activities carried
out. The media activities done for each month, as well as the list of the press
members invited, media coverage for the events were collated into mothly reports
and submitted to IIC Ankara. IIC Ankara put these reports as attachments to its
Monthly Progress Reports.
Public relations were also carried out by the Activity Partners themselves to promote
the events. Some of them were very successful at it. Public relations in Europe
were carried out mainly by Activity partners themselves.
Another item of visibility and PR was the web site created and updated by the contractor
for the job. The name of the web site was www.kaleidoscopeurope.net
ARCHIVE SYSTEM
Hard copy archive: Hard copy archive included all the reports, notifications, tender
dossiers, payment dossiers, incoming and and outgoing hard copy documents. The archive
is preserved in locked steel cabinets in the premises of IIC Ankara.
Soft copy archive: It is composed of two items. First is the soft copy of all the
documents mentioned above. These are kept in a transportable hard disc belonging
to IIC Ankara. Second item was the soft copy of payment documents kept in a separate
computer again belonging to IIC Ankara, which was used solely for the payment procedure.
SERVICES for the ACTIVITY PARTNERS
Hotel and flight reservations were carried out for the trips of Activity partners.
According to the budget lines written for the Project there were two ways to accomplish
it: either through organization by travel agencies through tenders, or by the Project
Office in case organization budget lines are not put into the budget. In cases where
Project Office had to do it , it was mainly for the movement of individual experts
and it was time and human resource consuming. As for the movement of groups and
orchestras it was part of an organization tender.
TRAINING FOR ACTIVITY PARTNERS, EXPERTS AND CONTRACTORS
Training the Activity Partners in preparing the Human Resources templates for the
experts, explaining the EU tendering processes both to activity partners and candidate
firms and helping in the process was implemented as on-the-job training. In many
instances, Activity Partners were helped in preparing the necessary documents for
human resources. How to write Short Term Expert Agreements, Time Sheets and Action
Reports, where to put signatures and stamps, how to write invoices according to
EU rules had to be told to the activity partners, experts and contractors.
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