Spanish Social Services: Progress and Future Challenges
Theme 1: Status and Prospects for Social Services in Spain
1. Progress Since the SSSS (Social Services System)
1.1 Legal Framework
The legal framework governing this area has been established. The European Community (EC) opened a regulatory framework that was complemented with the statutes of autonomy, the law of bases of local government, and regional legislation on social services. The latter is designed to respond to the specific needs of each autonomous community in this matter. Second-generation regional legislation is currently being approved.
We must also pay attention to the laws regulating specific sectors: prison, reconciling work and family life, gender violence, etc., which have led to intense policy development at both central and regional levels, with a range of decrees, orders, or regulations.
1.2 Organization and Management
The consolidation of administrative organization has given high visibility to social services. The creation of Ministries, Councils, and Councillors has legitimized the field. Administrative consolidation has helped promote improved standards of service quality and improvement of data and statistics.
The approval of action plans was very important, such as the Basic Social Services Benefit Plan, Family Support Plan, Action Plan for Seniors, etc., often aligning with regional Welfare Plans in many autonomous communities.
This represents a step toward making certain services or resources a right for all citizens by virtue of their status, thus overcoming the charitable tradition of care. The European Green Book and White Paper on social policy pose challenges related to population growth, labor market shifts, and new poverty. All these demand a new welfare policy.
The new welfare model is based on the principles of universality of social rights, equal opportunities, and ensuring citizenship rights regardless of Social Security contributions. This also involves a significant cultural transformation: the idea shifts from an isolated individual to the citizen within the community, and ultimately, the citizen-customer with the right to demand services from the public system.
2. Principal Debates and Trends
2.1 Inequalities
The first major debate concerns social and regional inequalities. There are significant differences in service levels, care, investments, and resources across territories and within Autonomous Communities (CA). Little progress has been made toward uniformity; the Organic Law on Financing of the Autonomous Communities, the Inter-territorial Compensation Fund, or the Concerted Plan have not achieved uniformity in the actual situation.
2.2 Decentralization
Since the restoration of democracy, a process of transferring activities, services, and resources has been set in motion. This process has involved problems and discrepancies. Looking ahead, other issues concern the distribution within each CA—the so-called second decentralization—involving not only formal powers but also funding and monitoring of grants and subsidies.
2.3 Evaluation, Results, and Cost Analysis
Until now, the Social Services System (SSSS) has been supported by the public and leaders, but the greatest challenge lies in evaluating performance and conducting cost analysis. Evaluation studies will be necessary to prove the usefulness of the efforts implemented and will serve as political credentials for securing resources.
2.4 State of Welfare
The SSSS will be affected by the debate on the State of Welfare (EB) in several ways:
- Hindering the growth of public resources for the SSSS. This growth will increasingly depend on the evaluation of outcomes and cost studies.
- The EB debate may affect the SSSS by raising the question of privatization. This can be approached from different perspectives:
- The question of who is the legal owner running a service. This interpretation of privatization will have less influence on the SSSS, as a generalized transfer of SSSS to the private sector seems unlikely.
- However, another dimension of privatization, which could have a greater impact, is the introduction of private management techniques, such as conducting program contracts and quantifying objectives.