The budget attached to the contract must be respected. However, beneficiaries can benefit from a certain flexibility within the budget, as long as the 'expected results of the action' are not affected and the change does not call into question the initial award of the grant or the equal treatment of applicants.
The term 'results' includes: overall objective (impact), specific objective (outcome), other outcomes and outputs.
In case of doubt, it is strongly recommended to check beforehand with the Contracting Authority (is EUD under the direct management modality) that the planned modifications do not impact the expected results of the action. As long as the expected results of the action is not affected, beneficiaries can perform followings, in terms of financial aspects:
- Transfers between items or cancel or introduce the new items within the same budget heading,
- Transfers part of the budget from one main heading to another (from “1. Human Resources to “4. Local Offices” for instance) as long as this transfer does not imply variation (both increase and decrease) of more than 25% of the headings concerned.
Please be noted that successive unilateral modifications to the budget shall be taken into account in a cumulative way.
For instance; if a budget heading was already increased with a unilateral modification by 20% of its initial value (as set out in the original budget of the project/action or as modified by an addendum), that heading can be further increased by no more than 5% of its initial value (thus reaching in total the limit of 25% of its initial value).
When informing the EUD, a comparative version of the budget with the cumulative changes already made must also be submitted.
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Example 1: You are running a 24 month length project and you want to make an unilateral amendment (minor modifications) in the budget in line with 25% rule as stated in the GC of your contract. In the original budget per your contract, you have an allocation for vehicle cost under the ‘4.1. Vehicle Cost’ of the “4. Local Office” budget heading. The unit value for the allocation is 500 EUR per month for 24 months. You have already spent this allocation for 12 months. Meanwhile, you make a cooperation agreement with municipality and the municipality agrees to provide you a vehicle for your use for 3 months long in summer time. Under the circumstances, you decided not to use this allocation for forthcoming 12 months and you want to continue hiring the vehicle for 9 months instead of 12 months. For making this amendment, you plan to transfer 1,500 EUR (3 months cost of vehicle hire) from ‘4.1. Vehicle Cost’ budget item to ‘1.3.3 Seminar/conference participants’ budget item under the ‘1. Human Resources’. More 15 people will be able to participate in seminars through transferring 1,500 EUR to the 1.3.3. Seminar/Conference participants without increasing the unit cost of the allocation. Please be informed that the total amount of the transfer (1,500 EUR) is in the limits of 25% rule in line with the article 9.4 of GC. 1,500 EUR does not exceed 25% of the total amount of ‘4. Local Office’ budget heading nor 25% of the total amount of ‘1. Human Resources’. Under the circumstances, you may make this amendment through unilateral amendment (minor modification) process by informing your Project Manager via official correspondence. For a sample “Modified Budget Table” for unilateral amendment based on this example please e-mail to [email protected] For a sample request letter to explain unilateral amendment based on this example please e-mail to [email protected] |
For more information, please check out Companion.
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