In general, it is possible to say that the European Social Fund’s structure (axes objectives, sub-axes, definition of the various types of users, times, costs, etc.) does not offer a good flexibility which could enable to innovate, create training initiatives built upon local contexts and give specific features an important role to play. Regional planning of training policies (co-financed by the European Social Fund) follows the procedural guide-lines established at European and National levels (EU Support Framework - Operational Plans - Multifund Operational Plans) through National and Regional Plans. We do not want to talk too much about the difficulties produced by this double level of intervention, in terms of the capacity to link regional programmes with central programmes (EU Support Framework - Operational Plans - Multifund Operational Plans), but we want to focus on the limits created by the present European Social Fund planning which hinders the possibility to repeat intervention models like the model tested in the framework of this ADAPT project. The procedures encoded in the Regulations and in the various European Social Fund Circular Letters impose some precise guide-lines upon the Regional Authorities for the establishment of training policy programmes. The discretionary power that Regional Authorities could have at a local level is in any case limited by the difficulties these Authorities encounter in guaranteeing a link between labour demand and offer, because of the absence or inadequacy of preliminary activities aimed at identifying the needs, and because of the lack of effectiveness evaluations of the previous training plans.
In most of the cases, Regional Authorities (and/or Provinces where they are delegated to do it) do not base training policy planning on activities meant at identifying training needs, and operational planning (planned training activities) is often limited to gathering and evaluating proposals presented by Training Authorities. These Authorities are often swamped with structure and personnel costs they have to cover. Therefore, they tend to formulate proposals responding to the priorities established by cost objectives or being adjusted on the traditional training standards (from the point of view of subjects and methodology). The general planning mechanism is substantially offer-oriented, for there is often a lack of links with labour market.
However, there may be some problems even when planning activities take the results of the previous training plans evaluation into account (ex post evaluation of training results) and are focused on the results of preliminary activities to find out the needs. These activities can also be useful to identify the various needs and experiment social dialogue processes and the involvement of institutional, social and economical stakeholders in a given area. Even though identification activities give Regions and Provinces the opportunity to identify and engage some specific professional profiles, these professionals do not always give an answer to the real local needs and local working needs. This is due to the fact that, in general, the analysis of needs is carried out on a large scale (at a regional level and only in a few cases on a Province level), it does not focus on local homogeneous structures, but it analyses macro-variables and macro-sectors. Regional planning documents are limited to a socio-economical analysis of the area; the data about labour demand and offer trends are analysed through the surveys given by ISTAT (the Italian National Statistics Institute) which are based on joined data; they do not supply any information based on a sub-regional level nor on relevant intersections between the various variables. Moreover, as far as the involvement of local stakeholders is concerned, this is not a very widespread practice and in some cases it only has consulting but not really participatory purposes (this is the case for the regions Umbria, Lombardy and, in southern Italy, of Calabria).

As far as the evaluation is concerned, Regional Authorities rarely carry out efficacy/efficiency evaluations or analyse the interrelations between training results and professional needs and the needs for local development of the structures involved in the intervention. In general, ex post survey is exclusively meant as a relation between what has been spent and what has been planned, but not as an element which can help identifying strategic choices to be taken in the next Operational Plans or Training Plans.
Planning is criticized because of its poor link with local needs; the structural and procedural restrictions imposed by the European Social Fund, in the framework of its Objectives 3-4, affect offer system as well, thus hindering the opportunity to create more structured and innovatory training interventions. The routine activity is designing pre-defined (on a catalogue) training courses with didactic methodologies which are often obsolete, too theoretical and not very applicable. In this traditional system, theory courses are rarely alternated with practice sessions; moreover, they rarely plan accompanying activities for trainees after their training.
Therefore, from the procedural point of view, restrictions imposed by managing regulations (circular letters, European Social Fund vade-mecums) prevent training institutions from experimenting innovatory courses both for their didactic structure and for their methodologies, i.e. flexible training interventions which can be re-moduled during the training process according to the user needs and course objectives. These limits appear particularly clear in some sectors of vocational training (new job opportunities, environment, tourism) and in some categories of users (i.e. adults and/or people already having a job).
Wider intervention areas and more experimentation opportunities are offered by some programmes. EU initiatives, such as ADAPT, LEADER and some Multiregional Operational Programmes enable to implement some interventions structured into a set of actions (research, animation, support, etc.) These actions allow Regional Autho-rities and Training Institutions to intervene on limited areas and carry out those kinds of analysis, thorough checks and inspections which, otherwise, would be impossible because of the above-mentioned procedural/temporal restrictions and difficulties. However, even for these Initia-tives, some restrictions are still imposed by the European Social Fund procedures. For instance, it was difficult for the ADAPT Project we are presenting here to find the right locations where training sessions could be organized in compliance with legislation, for training activities took place in rural areas. Moreover, there have been difficulties in respecting the scheduled timetable for procedural activities, because of specific problems in the various contexts. In general, the subjects open the debate about the potentialities and limits of the training system and about the need to guarantee more flexibility in designing and implementing training interventions which should match with local contexts.

Note1 (EU Support Framework - Operational Plans - Multifund Operational Plans)
In principle, this link should guarantee the effectiveness of Operational Plans, but in reality this is not true because of the presence of two factors closely linked with each other. First of all, because Italian Regional Authorities have a highly dependence on European Social Funds for the implementation of training programmes (integrated by the "Fondo di Rotazione" = Rotation Fund). Therefore, a rigid link is created between central planning (put into practice in the EU Support Framework) and regional planning. In the former, there is no orientation criteria, but, substantially, there is a financial background on which central planning intervention guide-lines are structured. In the latter, central planning formalization is delayed in comparison with the predicted periods, causing further delays in regional planning (the 1994-1999 EU Support Framework was approved in December 1994).
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Note2 (labour market)
Overcoming the present orientation towards the offer would need a planning which, instead of being limited to the identification of valid objectives on a general base (the only reference criteria are often those of beneficiary groups), would more clearly define them with reference to professional functions and defined initiatives. The development of this guide-line involves an outstanding engagement because it needs the creation of a link with labour market and a multilevel analysis of training needs.
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Note3 (rarely alternated with practice sessions)
There are various reasons behind this methodology, from the general difficulties encountered by training structures to organize these activities during the planning stage, to the real incapacity, in some cases, to carry out a previous planning of this activity (the specific objectives and the places where some operational stages are carried out can be defined only during the training, but this does not match with procedural restrictions imposed by the European Social Fund), up to the attitude of some companies or public authorities/structures which sometimes refuse to host trainee practice sessions.
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