THE NATIONAL AGENCY

FOR TERRITORIAL

COHESION (ANCT)

A tool in need of consolidation

2020-2022 activity

Communication to the Senate Finance Committee

December 2023

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Summary

Created on 1 January 2020, the National Agency for Territorial Cohesion (ANCT) is a

public body that aims to facilitate projects led by local authorities, by deploying State schemes

to promote territorial cohesion and by facilitating access to technical support for small local

authorities.

A merger of the main government bodies working in this field had been envisaged

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.

Eventually, it was decided to create a network of these bodies, with the merger being limited

to the General Commission for Territorial Equality (CGET), the Digital Agency and the national

public body for the development and restructuring of commercial and artisanal spaces

(EPARECA). Although the benefits of bringing together just three bodies, each working in very

specific areas, have yet to be demonstrated,

it’s not advisable

to question this scope. The

structure now requires stability if it is to operate under the right conditions.

The definition of the agency’s programme, led by the Interministerial

Directorate for

Government Transformation (DITP), was largely entrusted to a consultancy firm. It was set up

under challenging conditions, hampered by the health crisis that occurred less than three

months after its creation, which delayed its structuring and the deployment of its activities.

The policies pursued by the ANCT are extremely varied. They cover the management of

policy towards disadvantaged urban areas, State measures to support medium-sized towns,

small towns, rural areas and mountain

régions

, the roll-out of very high-speed broadband,

digital access, policies for access to public services and support for the creation of

tiers lieux

.

ANCT is also the coordinating authority for the management of European funds, a remit that

in France is usually the responsibility of a central administration. Since its creation, the agency

has continued or ensured the deployment of a large number of national programmes and

schemes, which have been praised by local elected representatives, and which are the

hallmarks of its action in the field.

However, the conduct of its missions is constrained and weakened by difficulties,

particularly internal, which are highlighted in this report.

The many policies that the ANCT promotes require active support for local authorities,

which cannot be provided by its departments alone, which have limited staff and are mostly

located in Paris. Its presence in the territories is ensured by the departmental prefects,

designated as its territorial delegates by Article 4 of law no. 2019-753 of 22 July 2019 creating

the ANCT. However, their involvement varies greatly from one

département

to another, which

can lead to differences in treatment between territories. In

fact, no specific resources have

been earmarked to support them in this task, apart from the eight

régional

mission leaders

(

chargés de missions territoriaux

). Although there are plans to double their number, they

alone will not be sufficient to guarantee the deployment of the “custom

-made

” technical

support promised when the ANCT was created.

The diversity of the missions carried out makes the management of the ANCT

complex. Its departments are organised into different divisions, each responsible for one

or more policies, working independently and often in direct and exclusive liaison with each

ministerial office. To date, these conditions have not encouraged the necessary promotion

of a common ANCT culture or the standardisation of working methods and management

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rules, both of which have been identified as priorities by both ANCT and the Directorate

General for Local Authorities. Management shortcomings persist in all support functions.

They demonstrate the need to strengthen the link between the General Secretariat and

the business divisions by providing the ANCT with appropriate management tools.

Human resources management has to deal with a large number of departures and

difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff. HR tools are unreliable. The ANCT plans to

remedy this within 18 months. It is equally slow in setting up an institutionalised

management dialogue. Similarly, IT system management is lacking in terms of strategic

guidance, formalisation of procedures and security.

From a financial point of view, the ANCT’s specific budget (€117 million in

appropriations paid in 2022) does not reflect the full financial amounts of the schemes in

which it is involved, which total several billion euros, without a precise and exhaustive

inventory being available. This lack of clarity reflects the complexity and diversity of the

financial arrangements for national territorial cohesion schemes. In carrying out its

missions, the ANCT or its supervisory bodies should be able to report on the financial flows

of the programmes it manages, even if they do not pass through its budget and are not

provided in the cross-

disciplinary “territorial development” policy document.

More specifically, the ANCT’s own budget comprises two resource categories.

The first is overall revenue, amounting to €84.5 million in 2022. This includes the

€59

million subsidy for publi

c service expenditure, €20 million of which is for the agency’s

technical support funding. These overall revenues are supplemented at the end of the

year, as required, by transfer agreements or additional subsidies paid from programmes

112 and 147 of the State budget. This addition at the end of the financial year renders the

notion of a forward budget meaningless and compromises the development of a financial

strategy or the definition of a multi-year outlook.

There are also the revenues earmarked for spe

cific schemes, amounting to €36.4

million in 2022.

For this same reference year, the agency’s total resources amounted to €121 million,

compared with the actual spend of €117 million.

In addition, new missions are regularly entrusted to the agency, without the

corresponding budgetary or human resources being systematically allocated. As a result, the

ANCT did not equip itself with the budgetary and accounting monitoring and analysis tools that

would enable it to accurately determine the expenditure and revenue for each of its missions.

Outstanding payments and the use of earmarked funds should be systematically monitored

and reporte

d to the Agency’s Board of Directors.

There are no concerns regarding its short-term financial sustainability. However, given

the cash flow generated in its first year of operation, the ANCT has little structural room for

manoeuvre, which confirms the need for a more precise analysis of its financial position than

is currently available.

The real estate activities taken over from EPARECA (national public body for the

development and restructuring of commercial and artisanal spaces) benefit from the expertise

acquired by the teams of this entity, which offers solutions to commercial regeneration needs

for which there is no private or semi-public alternative. This activity, which is similar to

commercial property development and investment, explains why ANCT is a public body with

hybrid status. However, the ANCT should be able to accurately determine the results of this

activity for each of its operations, the economic equilibrium of which should be assessed from

a multi-year perspective. To this end, they should be identified in a separate budget.

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The ANCT has inherited very different types of mission from the bodies of which it was

formed. Synergies have yet to be created between policy towards disadvantaged urban areas,

digital deployment, commercial centre development, rural area and mountain region policies.

One of the new initiatives introduced by the ANCT, widely promoted in its

communications, was the provision of “

custom made

” technical support solutions to meet the

needs of elected representatives. This is embodied in a specific budget that initially amounted

to €10 million, and was increased to €20 million in 2021, included in the subsidy for public

service expenditure. This budget actually covers all the agency’s technical sup

port

expenditure, including its role in supporting the leaders of the ‘Small Towns of Tomorrow’

initiative and expenditure on support for other national schemes. The specifically “customised”

component amounts to only around €6 million a year. Elected repr

esentatives are still not very

familiar with this provision. Its use is largely based on the involvement of decentralised State

departments in the scheme.

The creation of the ANCT was intended to mark a renewal of the State’s action for small

and medium-sized towns and rural areas. Its added value was to lie in a new approach to State

intervention in schemes such as the ‘Action: Heart of the City’, ‘Small Towns of Tomorrow’ and

Maisons France Service

initiatives. The framework established by these programmes and the

support offered are intended to encourage the development of community or regional projects,

around which funding from the State or partner agencies is coordinated. The initial results

obtained and the favourable response from the elected representatives concerned bear

witness to the value of this approach, which should however be confirmed by an evaluation of

these programmes.

Despite the short implementation period and the difficulties faced by the ANCT, the

method of co-construction within a simplified contractual framework has met with the support

of local authorities, even if many improvements remain to be made.

Faced with these real expectations, the ANCT, which embodies a new approach to

collaboration between local authorities and the State, must now focus its efforts on

consolidating its internal operations and the management of the resources allocated to it, on

strengthening its partnerships, and on deepening its links with its regional representatives and

the territories in which it operates.