INTEGRATING SOCIAL SERVICES

THE EUROPEAN PICTURE

INTEGRATING HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

Marriage and single home

Unmarried partners in one home

LATs – living apart together

Which is cheapest? Joint or separate bank accounts?

BRIEF CLARIFICATIONS

‘Social services’

‘INTEGRATION’ = a continuum of different approaches

No blueprint or recipe for best or correct form of integration. It depends

Degrees of integration of services

Horizontal and vertical

EUROPEAN SOCIAL TRENDS & SS INTEGRATION

THE ‘CUSTOMER’ IS KING Rising public expectations of services Greater information Choice & involvement Rights Personal budgets & increase in sole or

co-funding

EUROPEAN TRENDS

New public management Cost-efficiency – so, ?integrate servicesOutcomes for service users Standards, inspections – you must show

evidence for taking the customer seriously

TACKLING SOCIAL EXCLUSION

Most forms of social exclusion have several rather than just one cause e.g. long term unemployment

Therefore, joined-up integrated service solutions are required e.g. project for unemployed women in Greece, centres for the socially deprived in France

DECENTRALISATION

Cause and effect?

Political and administrative decentralisation makes it easier to integrate services at the local level

A feature of change in central and eastern European countries?

HOLISTIC APPROACH TO SERVICES

‘Social care’ is much more than formal, legally defined services provided by one (local) government departmentIncreasingly understood as including leisure services, culture, sport, adult educationTherefore, new combined departments of ‘Community Services’

DEMOGRAPHY

Ageing populations = increasing numbers of elderly and disabled people with long term health and social care needs

Experience shows that integrated services are most necessary and possible for these people e.g. care management services