Justice chancellor: Lääne-Viru grant access restriction unjustified, unfair

Two state agencies unjustifiably restricted access to applicants during last fall's apartment building renovation grant round, violating the principle of equal treatment and giving some applicants an unfair advantage, the Chancellor of Justice, Ülle Madise, has found.
The issues concerned online applicants who had to enter a queuing system, while restrictions on entering this queue were illegitimately put in place, the justice chancellor noted.
Madise said that the State Support Services Center (RTK) and the Enterprise and Innovation Foundation (EISA) had been responsible for the inconsistencies, more specifically in Lääne-Viru County.
In a letter to Minister of Infrastructure Vladimir Svet (SDE) Madise wrote: "EISA did not ensure equal treatment for all applicants, as applications were restricted without legal grounds, thereby giving some applicants an unjustified advantage."
Madise was asked to evaluate whether the principle of equal treatment was violated during the Lääne-Viru County grant round for apartment building energy efficiency projects, as access to the
Applicants who had appealed to the justice chancellor had stated that they were unable to access the e-support system 30–40 minutes before the grant round opened, at 10 a.m., October 28, 2024.
Though they were able to start submitting applications, at 10:26 a.m., the funds allocated for the Lääne-Viru County round were exhausted within five minutes of opening, and application acceptance was then closed.
While applicants said they suspected that this might have been a technical glitch, the chancellor's advisors determined that there was no technical error as such, and this had been a deliberate restriction by RTK, which limited access to 400 users (including RTK staff themselves) from 9:45 a.m. on the day.
The RTK said that the user limit was increased to 500 at 10:23 a.m.

The restriction was lifted at 10:45 a.m. that day.
In her letter to Svet, Madise pointed out that under the current regulation, application acceptance can only be restricted if the volume of applications exceeds the budget allocated for the projects, adding that the restriction was put in place before this limit was let.
"The budget for the Lääne-Viru County grant round was exceeded only at 10:31 a.m., yet access to the e-support system was restricted from 10:00 to 10:26 a.m. Such a restriction was unjustified and lacked legal grounds," Madise wrote.
"Neither the regulation nor the e-support system's user terms (including the register's rules) contain provisions that would allow grant applications to be limited based on system capacity," Madise added.
According to Madise, EISA should take the system's limited capacity into account when planning and organizing application rounds, as restricting access to the online environment cannot be an arbitrary decision by the implementing body or the system administrator.
The Chancellor of Justice also deemed it inappropriate to apply a queue system for applicants, as it does not ensure equal opportunities for all individuals.
"I recommend following the best practices of proper administration and considering higher capacity for the online application system when organizing grant rounds," Madise noted.
Where possible, grant rounds should be held on different dates, she added.
Madise stated that speed-related issues in applying for grants have occurred before and are often linked to technical problems within the online application system.
On October 28 last year, apartment associations had the opportunity to apply for energy efficiency renovation grants for their apartment buildings via the online system.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Marko Tooming