English

Funds allocated: euro 358,000,000 (36.89% of total ROP resources)

To counter the effects of the economic crisis, above all in terms of high levels of unemployment and of young people Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET), long-term unemployment and the need to redeploy employees of failing businesses and keep them in work, Priority axis I aims for a sustainable labour market through the strategic implementation of policies designed not only to combat unemployment but also to support re-skilling, up-skilling and labour mobility. Here the resources of the ESF help to implement personalized services with a powerful emphasis on getting people into jobs.

Specific targets and corresponding actions

1. Promote the employment of young people and reduce the number of NEETs, in synergy with the Youth Guarantee initiative (see para. 8.1) with the aim of fostering the creation of permanent work opportunities to counter casual employment

active policy initiatives for the employment of young people, with special attention to those industries offering better growth prospects (8.1.1)
advanced training and research career paths, promoting interventions that make it easier for graduates to start on sustainable, long-term, truly worthwhile careers and foster integration between the academic world and the Lombardy economy (8.1.4)
2. Promote women’s employment (see para. 8.2) through greater female participation in the workforce, so helping to support household incomes. This contribution is essential at times of high unemployment, and also relieves some of the burden of an aging population

active policy initiatives for the employment of women, with special attention to those industries offering better growth prospects (8.2.2)
local information and outreach campaigns to raise and spread awareness of the main schemes available, so that women know about the principal career development tools at their disposal (8.2.6)
3. Encourage rehabilitation and employment of the long-term unemployed and those who find it harder to get jobs, and support people at risk of long-term unemployment (see para. 8.5), through interventions to develop adaptability to the new circumstances in the economy and the jobs market and to update skills throughout working life

active policy initiatives to provide jobs for the long-term unemployed and those in precarious positions, with special attention to those industries offering better growth prospects (8.5.1)
vocational retraining pathways to develop and upgrade vocational skills and capabilities, based on study of businesses’ requirements for trained staff as seen from systematic surveys and/or expressed by employers (8.5.5)
4. Encourage steady employment and the redeployment of employees from failing businesses (see para. 8.6), by means of measures to upgrade and update individual workers’ skills according to their personal characteristics: the aim is to create a more highly skilled workforce that can contribute to and cope with the technological and organizational changes increasingly affecting businesses

integrated active and passive policy measures including re-skilling and secondment of staff from failing businesses in connection with company conversion and restructuring plans
Main beneficiaries

Accredited operators and institutions; businesses and business networks including nonprofit organizations; universities; training institutions; younger and older workers; the Regional Treasury; the social security institution INPS, etc.

Main recipients

Long-term unemployed or those at risk of long-term unemployment; young people aged 15-29 (continuing the Youth Guarantee scheme); unemployed/economically inactive women; workers in firms faced with the need to adapt to changes in society and the economy; employees of failing businesses and those who have dropped out of the jobs market or are on the point of doing so.

Funds allocated: euro 227,100,000 (23.40% of total ROP resources).

Priority axis II is intended to enhance opportunities for the social integration and employment of people in difficult or disadvantaged circumstances, by promoting pathways to active inclusion designed to improve the employment prospects of the most disadvantaged, the disabled and people threatened by poverty and extreme marginalization. Aiming at joined-up and mutually complementary interventions for inclusion, this Priority supports action to improve access to good, sustainable healthcare and social care services in order to deal with situations of extreme marginalization, not least by deploying rapid intervention services to reduce the risk of sliding further into poverty.
Specifically, the aim is to promote social inclusion by concentrating mainly on a policy for active inclusion based on the region’s Single Multidimensional Needs Assessment model and consisting of two pillars: the creation of inclusive labour markets and access to high quality services as a factor that complements and amplifies the effects of active inclusion, so as to respond to people’s needs with coherent and targeted actions, paying special attention to the disabled, the disadvantaged and those at risk of marginalization.

Specific targets and corresponding actions

1. Poverty reduction, combating social exclusion and promoting social innovation (see para. 9.1), not least by making the best possible use of Third Sector organizations as actual "social managers" of council housing whose ongoing presence in the field as auxiliaries to public sector bodies can promote processes for council tenants’ social inclusion by improving life skills and fostering stable, co-operative neighbourly relations

support for people in temporary financial difficulties, by means including micro-credit and help that could be returned in the form of hours of community service (9.1.3)
2. Enhancing the employability and labour market participation of the most vulnerable people (see para. 9.2), so as to encourage the process of active inclusion, not least through assessments using a multidimensional approach to identify active ways in which they can be counselled, guided and supported in returning to school, work, training and society generally in a properly targeted and personalized manner

multidisciplinary treatment interventions to promote the inclusion of the disabled in the world of employment, by working out individually tailored projects (9.2.1)
multidisciplinary treatment interventions to promote the inclusion in the world of employment of the most vulnerable, those at risk of discrimination and clients of the social services (9.2.2)
3. Improving children’s social care and education services and care services for people of limited independence, and strengthening the Region’s healthcare and social care infrastructure and the range of health and social services provided (see para. 9.3), so as to ensure that bread-winners or potential bread-winners in households with members who need care or support get what they need without necessarily having to withdraw from (or not enter) the labour market; this applies especially to the women in such households

implementing good social and educational services for infants, with a view to easing parents’ work/life balance and encouraging households’ access to the network of social and educational services; raising the quality of those services (9.3.3)
implementing good services for people of limited independence, so as to encourage households’ access to the network of healthcare and social care services and raise the quality of those services, as well as promoting regular employment in this sector (9.3.6)
4. Reducing the number of badly-housed families with acute social and/or economic problems (see para. 9.4), as a way of kick-starting a virtuous circle that would help them to become less prone to domestic problems, to re-think their patterns of consumption, and to find new ways of being productive and actively participating in the communities to which they belong

services to help and guide those in social housing, as part of innovative social and housing experiments to try and meet the needs of specific target groups with severe social and economic problems (9.4.2)
5. Reducing extreme marginalization among homeless people, and measures to promote their economic and social inclusion (see para. 9.5), ), in urban situations featuring more extensive vulnerability and greater social insecurity due to a stagnant jobs market and/or difficult family or household circumstances

funding of projects in the main urban neighbourhoods for targeted interventions to strengthen the network of services for rapid social intervention to help the homeless and support them on the path to independence (9.5.9)
Main beneficiaries

Local public institutions; accredited training and employment institutions; accredited institutions managing healthcare and social care service units; social enterprises and Third Sector organizations registered with the regional government; the Regional Treasury, etc.

Main recipients

Problem households, disabled people at severe risk of social exclusion, people living on their own or without an established home, the chronically sick, severely or very severely disabled and unable to care for themselves; young people in fragile family circumstances, vulnerable people

Funds allocated: euro 332,500,000 (34.26% of total ROP resources.

Priority axis III is a contribution to the Lombardy regional government’s strategy of investing in human capital, not least to help prevent social exclusion and work with other such programmes to put together a determined effort to lower the school drop-out rate and the numbers failing to complete training, to provide incentives for excellence and motivate talent both at school and on starting a life of work. To trace out this road map encouraging successful training and raising the level of the education system, the Priority also supports interventions to improve the provision of technical and vocational education and training.
Specifically, the ESF ROP aims to support measures designed to lower school drop-out rates and by means of education, vocational training, continuous retraining and further education to promote the development of human capital as a factor of strategic importance to Lombardy’s competitiveness, with special attention to the rising generation.
The Lombardy regional government takes the view that a good education system is one of the most important factors contributing to everyone’s personal and cultural development. Raising the level of personal capabilities, including those of people already in the labour market, helps individuals not only to establish themselves in the job market, but also to avoid any form of social marginalization. This in turn helps to mitigate the impact of the economic crisis on employment as well as more long-term challenges such as globalization, for instance, or the need to constantly develop new technologies and consolidate a shared system of values.

Specific targets and corresponding actions

1. Reduce the drop-out rate from training and education (see para. 10.1), by – among other things – consolidating the Permanent Education & Training system (IeFP) as a comprehensive, high quality training pathway especially for those young people most at risk of dropping out of school, constructing tailor-made ways forward around the basic idea that the individual is central to the exercise and that each learner’s potential should accordingly be maximized and valued• implementing IeFP pathways which match the region’s main avenues of economic and business development, in a way that makes those pathways more attractive and counters early dropping out from training or school, through innovative and diversified interventions across the region to provide training that matches the needs of the region’s economy (10.1.7)

2. Boost workforce skills and make it easier for workers to get their first and subsequent jobs (see para. 10.4)

training initiatives that effectively relate to the requirements for getting first and subsequent jobs, directed primarily at the target groups where they will have most impact, as well as initiatives for specialist training and business skills (10.4.1)
action to update skills (including IT skills) throughout the workforce, not least using innovative methods that match the region’s main lines of economic development (10.4.2)
3. Improving the quality of technical and vocational education and training provided, so that they effectively meet the needs of the local economy (see para. 10.6) and foster rapid engagement in the world of work at a high level and also enhance the expertise available within local networks such as Vocational Technical Centres (PTPs), providing effective and efficient collaboration between the education system and the economy

interventions to raise the level of initial technical/vocational education and training and of the Advanced Technical Institutes (ITS), with particular regard to weaker learners; system-wide measures for the development and coordination of the ITS and PTPs (10.6.1)
training to professional standards in keeping with the needs of the local economy, in particular strengthening the ITS and PTPs in ways closely related to that economy’s expressed needs (10.6.2)
Main beneficiaries

Training and education organizations; accredited institutions; universities and equivalent institutions; research organizations; businesses; Advanced Technical Institutes and Vocational Technical Centres

Main recipients

Students and their families; adult jobseekers (unemployed or economically inactive); workers between jobs or looking for redeployment; workers (employed or self-employed) setting up micro-enterprises; members of co-operatives, graduate and postgraduate students, etc...

Funds allocated: euro 20,000,000 (2.06% of total ROP resources).

The interventions promoted under Priority axis IV are intended to develop the conditions for improving the performance of government as a whole and of the entire chain of players involved in the successful implementation of public policy. The interventions are designed in particular to consolidate the necessary conditions for sharing, integrating and making generally available the data held by government so that it can be used both by institutions responsible for regional programmes and plans and by executive bodies, with special attention to the practical needs of the region’s institutions. Computerization, staff training in the various areas of work, and the improvement of organizational processes are some of the levers of change in public administration.Attention will be paid to those requirements concerning personal safety and civil protection, and to innovation in the running of those services which have the greatest impact throughout Lombardy.
Priority axis IV is designed to foster change within government by working on the quality and capabilities of the institutions involved in managing European funds, raising the level of qualification of the staff and the quality of organization, and strengthening relations among institutions.
As in the earlier planning period, the ROP also supports interventions to improve the efficiency of the legal system and the management of culture so as to make the most of the region’s public and private assets, not least by generating digital versions and then making them available in public and school libraries.

Specific targets and corresponding actions

1. Reduce the drop-out rate from training and education (see para. 10.1), by – among other things – consolidating the Permanent Education & Training system (IeFP) as a comprehensive, high quality training pathway especially for those young people most at risk of dropping out of school, constructing tailor-made ways forward around the basic idea that the individual is central to the exercise and that each learner’s potential should accordingly be maximized and valued

implementing IeFP pathways which match the region’s main avenues of economic and business development, in a way that makes those pathways more attractive and counters early dropping out from training or school, through innovative and diversified interventions across the region to provide training that matches the needs of the region’s economy (10.1.7)
2. Boost workforce skills and make it easier for workers to get their first and subsequent jobs (see para. 10.4)

training initiatives that effectively relate to the requirements for getting first and subsequent jobs, directed primarily at the target groups where they will have most impact, as well as initiatives for specialist training and business skills (10.4.1)
action to update skills (including IT skills) throughout the workforce, not least using innovative methods that match the region’s main lines of economic development (10.4.2)
3. Improving the quality of technical and vocational education and training provided, so that they effectively meet the needs of the local economy (see para. 10.6) and foster rapid engagement in the world of work at a high level and also enhance the expertise available within local networks such as Vocational Technical Centres (PTPs), providing effective and efficient collaboration between the education system and the economy

interventions to raise the level of initial technical/vocational education and training and of the Advanced Technical Institutes (ITS), with particular regard to weaker learners; system-wide measures for the development and coordination of the ITS and PTPs (10.6.1)
training to professional standards in keeping with the needs of the local economy, in particular strengthening the ITS and PTPs in ways closely related to that economy’s expressed needs (10.6.2)3
Main beneficiaries

Training and education organizations; accredited institutions; universities and equivalent institutions; research organizations; businesses; Advanced Technical Institutes and Vocational Technical Centres

Main recipients

Students and their families; adult jobseekers (unemployed or economically inactive); workers between jobs or looking for redeployment; workers (employed or self-employed) setting up micro-enterprises; members of co-operatives, graduate and postgraduate students, etc...

Funds allocated: euro 32,874,516 (3.39% of total ROP resources).

Improving the administrative capacity of the various bodies involved in implementing and running the Programme is fundamental to achieving the results and attaining the targets set. Priority axis V funds technical assistance interventions in support of the activities of managing, monitoring, assessment, information/communication and control of the ROP so as to ensure that it is effectively and efficiently implemented.

Specific targets and corresponding actionsMain

1. Support the implemenmtation of the ROP in its main stages: planning, execution, surveillance and control (see para. V. 1)• planning, execution, surveillance and control (Action V. 1.1)

setting up recruitment arrangements to reinforce the staff engaged in planning and managing the interventions, having first specified exact criteria for implementation (see para. V.1.2)
assessment and research (see para. V.1.3)
information and communication (see para. V.1.4)
Main beneficiaries

Executive authorities and control bodies involved in implementing and running the Programme.