The purpose of this study is to establish a new baseline – from scratch – concerning the administrative costs and burden of the current ESIF programming period, compare this to results of previous studies and assist the Commission with simulations on how possible regulatory changes for post 2020 might affect administrative costs and burden. 
Building upon the experience made in previous studies, calculating administrative costs and burden requires a precise definition of the administrative tasks. Based on that the FTE person years and external costs for conducting the tasks need to be assessed. Using information on staff costs and overhead costs this can be translated into monetary information. Although monetary information are usually more interesting and easier to communicate, the information on FTE person years is actually the more accurate information which can be compared across programmes and Member States.

The report of the study is available here.