“Paper rights”: recognized benefits that do not reach older people and people at risk of exclusion

The stagnation of social services for older people and the dismantling of resources intended for integration foster a protection system “of paper rights,” according to the president of the Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services, José Manuel Ramírez, who has explained that many people do not receive their corresponding benefit. “They simply have advertisements and papers published in bulletins. It’s awful”. This was claimed this Friday in the presentation of the DEC 2022 Index (IDEC), an annual report that assesses the situation of social assistance in Spain.

Public residence places have barely increased since 2019, but the deterioration is more pronounced in the telecare service, which does not reach 10% of the population over 65 years of age. The data is also negative for the provision of home help, as it has only maintained 5% coverage since 2018. The only positive data is reflected in the increase in assistance time per beneficiary. People in a situation of dependency now have a minimum of 20 hours of care per month.

According to the representatives of the association, the implementation of the Minimum Vital Income —destined to cover economic deficiencies of individuals and families—, can allow the autonomies to allocate all the resources of their Minimum Insertion Income to favor social inclusion. However, social services professionals denounce that the 1.5 billion euros corresponding to these minimum incomes have not been allocated to this type of social items. “There are autonomous communities making money with the Minimum Living Income and with dependency. There is no right, it is inhuman,” claimed the coordinator of the study, Gustavo García.

The budget differences between the Spanish autonomies are important. The percentage of regional GDP that the public administrations of the Basque Country and the Canary Islands allocate to social services triples that of the Community of Madrid. And while La Rioja has increased the recipients of its Minimum Insertion Income by 56%, Murcia has reduced it by 62%. The only aspect where all the autonomous communities agree is in the application of the new generation Social Services Law – only the Community of Madrid needed to join and has already done so.

The IDEC evaluates all autonomies equally. It rates coverage on thirty indicators divided into three sections: recognized rights, economic investment and service coverage. Two autonomous communities have been awarded, Castilla y León and Navarra, without waiting lists for dependent people. At the bottom of the ranking are the Community of Madrid, Cantabria and Murcia.

Social service provision improved from 2014 to 2021, when it stagnated. Even so, the Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services has acknowledged to the Government the importance of approving the budget increase in the dependency care system this year. García hopes for better results for the next study – which will be published within a year – and insists: “We must reduce rhetoric and increase practice.”

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