What are the Board and Staff duties?

The Board evaluates and decides

The Board's main duty is to evaluate, prioritize and approve the project applications that implement the LAG's development strategy. The Board also has many other roles: it is legally and financially responsible for the LAG's operation, it monitors and if necessary updates the local development strategy and it has an employer status in regards to the staff members. The Board members are knowledgeable antennae for the LAG's animation and advisory work towards the project applicants. They can also be project applicants and implementers themselves, they must just remember not to participate in any decision-making regarding their own projects (the overall share of the Board member owned projects must in any case remain low). To maintain their capacity the Board members are expected to attend national or regional training sessions organised by the Managing Authority or National Rural Network every now and then.

The Manager prepares and presents

The LAG Manager is in charge of preparing the project presentations to the Board. Together with other staff members and possible sub-committees set by the Board he is often a helping hand in the turning an applicant's initial idea into a project plan and a funding application. The LAG Manager is in charge of preparing the project presentations to the Board. Together with other staff members and possible sub-committees set by the Board he/she is often a helping hand in the turning an applicant's initial idea into a project plan and a funding application. The Manager and the LAG team organise the process of reviewing project applications against the Local Development Strategy (LDS) selection criteria using the evaluation mechanism set by the LAG. The final decision for project selection and funding within the allocated resources of the LDS is made by the decision-making body of the LAG where the principle of at least 50% representation of the non-government and private sectors is applied.

The other staff assists and brings in specific expertise

The Manager's role is central in the project preparation and selection processes but he also takes part in other LAG duties like payments, monitoring and evaluation. The Manager often gives a voice and a face for the LAG in the media and is involved with cooperation and networking activities. He/She is a superior to other staff members, whose roles are usually more narrowly related to advisory, payments, cooperation or office work duties for example. In the Member States where LAGs are following the so called global grant administration model and are both in charge of project funding decision making and payments, these two tasks must be separately assigned to different staff members.

For administrative and decision making models in different member states see –the analysis here