COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE EVALUATION European Social Fund Plus mid-term evaluation
Date: 2025-11-26
Institutions: Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, European Commission
Subjects: EU employment policy, European Social Fund, European social policy, Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived, access to education, eligibility criteria, innovation, job access, poverty, social integration

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   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 26.11.2025  SWD(2025) 392 final  COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE EVALUATION  European Social Fund Plus mid-term evaluation  {SWD(2025) 391 final}  
 
 
Context and purpose of the evaluation 

This evaluation covers the European Social Fund Plus in its two strands: the shared management 
strand and the direct/indirect management strand (EaSI strand). The obligation to carry out the 
mid-term evaluation by the end of 2024 is set in the Article 45.1 of the Common Provisions 
Regulation1 (shared management) and Article 34.2 of the ESF+ Regulation2 (EaSI strand). The 
evaluation covers the period from the entry into force of the Regulations, i.e. 24 June 2021 until 
the end of 2024. 

Key findings 

The  ESF+  continues  to  be  highly  relevant  for  addressing  the  EU  policy  priorities  and 
national needs. All the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) that fall in 
the thematic scope of ESF+ are addressed by the fund. Under the shared management strand, 
the main challenges in the employment, skills and social policy area are fully addressed by the 
fund’s general objectives. The main key priority areas across the EaSI strand are adequately 
covered in the strand’s Annual Work Programmes and subsequent grants and tenders. The ESF+ 
is also strongly aligned with the priority issues identified by the European Semester, ensuring 
a high degree of relevance of the ESF+ intervention logic to national priorities (there are only 
six  Member  States  in  which  certain  relevant  Country  Specific  Recommendations  were  not 
addressed by the ESF+ programmes). ESF+ continues to be broadly relevant also considering 
future trends and priorities as identified by Draghi report and foresight studies. Nonetheless, 
stakeholders report that some emerging challenges such as housing, homelessness, migration, 
green and digital transitions and gender equality may not be sufficiently covered. 

The  key  factors  ensuring  the  continued  relevance  of  ESF+  are  the  flexibility  to 
(re)programme the fund in line with the changing policy contexts and priorities, the broad 
scope of ESF+ intervention, which allows to address a wide range of (emerging) problems 
based on the specific national needs, as well as the involvement of relevant stakeholders at 
all levels in the process of programming and monitoring, which ensures the responsiveness to 
the needs on the ground.  

Due to the Covid-19 crisis and related initiatives (including additional resources allocated to 
the 2014-2020 programming period and the creation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility) 
actual implementation of the ESF+ shared management strand started effectively only in 
2023. The level of achievement of the 2029 EU targets for the output and results indicators 
under shared management was between 8.1% and 14.8% at the end of 2024, roughly in line 
with  the  level  of  financial  implementation  (7.6%  expenditure  rate).  The  EaSI  strand 
implementation was overall on track, with most Key Performance Indicators being in line with 
or above the expected delivery at the end of 2024. 

The European Social Fund Plus merged four former funds (European Social Fund (ESF), 
Youth Employment Initiative (YEI), Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD), 

1 Regulation (EU) 2021/1060 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 June 2021: https://eur-
lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32021R1060  
2 Regulation (EU) 2021/1057 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 June 2021 establishing the 
European Social Fund Plus (ESF+)): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32021R1057 

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and  Employment  and  Social  Innovation  (EaSI).  The  evaluation  looks  at  the  effects  of  this 
merger: 

•  The merger of former ESF and YEI clearly demonstrates a number of advantages. 
include  more  streamlined  and  simplified  management  and 
Such  advantages 
implementation processes as well as greater flexibility in transferring funds depending 
on  changing  needs.  The  positive  impacts  of  the  merger  are  linked  to  strong 
complementarities  between  ESF  and  the  YEI  in  the  previous  programming  period 
(2014-2020) both in terms of target groups (young people not in employment, education 
or training - NEET) and areas of action (employment support). 

•  The  merger  of  ESF  and  FEAD  has  also  produced  better  complementarities 
compared to when they operated as separate funds, in the previous period. These 
synergies  were  mostly  observed  in  Member  States  (18)  dedicating  a  priority  to  the 
former FEAD-type operations within national/regional programmes implementing the 
mainstream shared management specific objectives of the ESF+. On the contrary, little 
impact of the merger was seen in the nine Member States that have programmed the 
measures fighting material deprivation as a separate national programme.  

•  The effects of the merger of the ESF and EaSI programme have not  yet clearly 
emerged.  While  this  may  partly  be  due  to  the  slow  start  of  activities  under  direct, 
indirect and shared management in the programming period 2021-2027, stakeholders 
consulted at both EU and national level provided mixed views in relation to the potential 
for  synergies.  Different  modes  of 
timelines  of 
programming,  level  of  governance,  stakeholders  and  type  of  activities  constitute 
multiple challenges to fully grasp those synergies. Nevertheless, more communication 
was  observed  between  the  two  strands’  stakeholders,  also  thanks  to  the  incentives, 
mechanisms  and  platforms  created  for  this  purpose.  The  newly  created  Social 
Innovation  Plus  Initiative  has  the  potential  to  strengthen  the  transferability  and 
scalability of the EaSI strand results. Still, additional efforts, both at the EU and national 
levels, as well as more time are necessary for the synergies to occur.  

implementation,  procedures, 

Enabling  conditions  have  been  generally  effective  in  ensuring  that  the  necessary 
preconditions  for  effective  implementation  of  EU  funds  are  in  place.  Moreover,  thematic 
concentration plays an important role in ensuring that Member States continue to support 
areas which previously benefited from dedicated funding. The allocation focused on support 
to NEET remained at the same level in ESF+ as under the former YEI, while the allocation for 
most deprived under ESF+ increased compared to the former FEAD. The obligation to dedicate 
a  priority  axis  to  social  innovation  resulted  in  almost  doubling  of  the  allocation  for  social 
innovation under the shared management strand.  

The  evaluation  shows  that  simplification  measures  introduced  in  the  2021-2027 
programming  period  have  significantly  streamlined  the  processes  and  reduced 
administrative burden.  

Increased use of simplified cost options (SCOs) and financing not linked to costs (FNLCs) 
have had the most significant impact on the reduction of administrative burden. The use 

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of simplification measures at lower level  (between programme authorities and beneficiaries) 
has  increased  from  6.5%  in  the  previous  period  to  25%.  Likewise,  their  use  at  upper  level 
(between European Commission and programme authorities) has increased from 32% to 50%. 
Around 90% of beneficiaries implement projects using SCOs and/or FNLCs. Evidence based 
on  surveys,  interviews  and  simulations  suggest  that  SCOs  and  FNLCs  have  significantly 
reduced the administrative burden, simplified compliance and reduced error rate. The uptake of 
FNLCs is lower than SCOs, but after the initial hesitation and concerns (notably about audit), 
managing authorities are showing a growing interest in FNLCs, and their use is expected to 
increase in the second part of the period. 

Other simplification measures have also contributed to increased efficiency of the ESF+. 
In  the  2021-2027  period,  80  simplification  measures  were  adopted  in  Cohesion  Policy.  The 
most impactful ones contributing to reduced administrative burden were ‘a more proportional 
approach to audits’ and ‘reduction of the number of verifications’. Efficiency gains have been 
produced also by the merger of the funds, with fewer programming documents, a simplified 
monitoring system and lighter reporting requirements, although the programming process and 
documents are still regarded as complex. Administrative registers are insufficiently used for 
collecting  monitoring  data,  and  digital  tools  remain  underutilized.  Evidence  from  the  EaSI 
strand indicates that the eGrants tool has effectively reduced administrative burden during the 
application  and  the  reporting  phases.  However,  there  is  potential  for  further  simplification, 
particularly for small organisations and the operating grants beneficiaries. Additionally, there 
is also scope to streamline the dissemination of information about EaSI strand activities which 
is currently dispersed across multiple websites.  

Administrative costs for programming authorities  are  estimated to  be at a low level  in 
comparison with overall spending. They are expected to remain in the range of 2-2.7% of total 
spending  throughout  the  entire  programming  period.  Costs  are  mostly  concentrated  at  the 
beginning of the period. 

ESF+  is  broadly  coherent  with  other  EU  funding  instruments  active  in  human  capital 
investment. The degree of complementarity varies across funds, with the strongest synergies 
occurring between the ESF+ shared management and European Regional Development Fund 
(ERDF).  For  the  EaSI  strand,  there  was  a  good  complementarity  with  InvestEU.  The  EaSI 
strand funded several activities to support the structuring of the market for microfinance and 
social entrepreneurship, which were then funded by InvestEU. 

The Staff Working Document offers additional details supporting the analysis under five 
evaluation criteria: effectiveness, efficiency, coherence, relevance, and EU value added. 
The analysis draws mainly on evidence from a supporting study. To ensure the robustness of 
the findings, the results were triangulated using different data sources, including stakeholder 
surveys,  interviews,  desk  research,  legal  analyses,  and  analysis  of  the  monitoring  data. 
Conclusions and lessons learned are outlined per each evaluation criterion. 

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