Will the evidence spine survive reconstruction?
Decide what survives when an evidence spine is rebuilt under stress.
A programme's evidence must be reconstructed after a cycle of stress — partners have churned, attribution has thinned, lineage is broken in places, and reviewer standards have drifted. The headline indicators still look strong. The spine underneath may not hold.
Decide what survives reconstruction, what requires validation, and what cannot be used.
You are conducting the reconstruction review of a programme's Mid-Term Evidence Pack ahead of a €18M Tranche 3 reliance decision. A cycle of stress has passed since the evidence was first captured — partners have moved, reviewers have rotated, and parts of the lineage are thin.
Your mandate is not to judge whether the programme is desirable, strategic, or well-performing. It is to determine, for each item, what survives reconstruction, what requires validation, and what cannot be reconstructed and must be excluded.
Do not rely on how strong an indicator looks. A strong number on an unreconstructable chain cannot be defended at audit.
ERS does not rate, certify, approve or finance. It structures collapse evidence so the reliance decision can be defended — or correctly refused.
Collapse failure modes
Four failure modes determine whether the spine can be defended once reconstruction is tested.
Chain degradation
Attribution thins until an item can no longer be tied to who did what, when and where.
Broken lineage
Lineage to source is missing, so the record cannot be rebuilt from first principles.
Custody fragility
Evidence depended on a partner who has exited with no handover; custody dies with them.
Standard drift
Reviewer standards drifted or routes disagree, so a prior decision can no longer be defended.
Run solo or as a committee that votes. Set up the session, read the mandate (3 min), classify the evidence pack (10 min), debate & vote (10–15 min, optionally on the clock), then trigger the Audit Reveal. ~20–40 min. No subject knowledge required — this is about institutional discipline.
Open the reconstruction file
Choose how the room decides, set the clock, then open the evidence file.
A visible countdown runs through the evidence & decision phases — decisions under time pressure.
Classify all 8 items
Issue the reliance decision
One decision, on the record. The audit will test it against what the evidence can actually support after reconstruction.
Certify as presented
Rely on the Tranche 3 evidence at face value. The performance claims are taken as given.
Certify on surviving + validated
Rely on items that survive reconstruction now; condition reliance on validating the recoverable items; exclude what cannot be reconstructed; ring-fence the gap.
Certify on surviving only
Rely only on items that survive reconstruction now; defer everything else pending validation.
Decline to certify
Send the file back. No defensible reliance until the spine is reconstructed and the file re-presented.
The decision, tested against the record
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—Record-by-record findings
The debrief question that turns the game into reconstruction discipline. Captured in the minutes.
Breakout groups, side by side
The teaching moment is the spread: the same broken chain, different calls, different audit fates. Add this device's group, or paste a group code exported from another room.