Public programs supporting work integration in the Trento province – Intervento 18 Public programs supporting work integration in the Trento province – Intervento 18 Case study on “Strategic Partnership between public sector and social enterprises”

Intervento 18: main traits Partners: Local Agency of Employment (representative of the Autonomous Province of Trento for the implementation of active labor market policies) [active part in co-planning of WI projects, establishment of subsidies, monitoring] local social cooperatives for work integration (type b social cooperatives) [active part in planning the activity and work integration projects] Local social public services which relates with vulnerable people [more passive role, involved in the individuation of people to integrate only] Business firms [passive role, they express the demand for trained people to be hired] Aim: To provide incentives to those WISCs who manage efficiently their activity and training programs; to recognize the WISCs’ role in increasing the employment rate of vulnerable people and to support the intermediation with local partners (social public services, for-profit firms) Activities: The Agency allocate subsidies to WISCs and support their activity by co- planning the training program

Intervento 18: functioning In implementation of the third-year Provincial Development Program, the Provincial Government provides the Agency funding to be invested in work integration programs to vulnerable people (among which Intervento 18) The Agency finances WISCs through diverse subsidies: (1) individual subsidies for the first three years of employment of disadvantaged workers in the cooperative (max 9 years for psychiatrics); they cover 60% of the total labor costs at the first year of employment in the WISC, 40% at the second year, 30% at the third year (20% following); (2) a general subsidy for the coverage of the labor costs of tutors (max 50% of costs) and of social responsible (max 60% of costs); (3) general subsidies for feasibility study and business plans for new social cooperatives start-ups, training activities for ordinary workers, investments in new products and procedures.

Intervento 18: strenghts helping to support it as a best practice Monitoring efficiency and effectiveness of the action: Subsidies are assigned after an attentive evaluation of: the cooperative annual strategic plan; the economic sustainability of the organization; the coherence among the entrepreneurial activity and the work integration aims; the relationship between ordinary and disadvantaged workers; the methodologies used to integrate and train disadvantaged people; the investment in supportive figures like tutors and the social responsible; The Agency co-plans with the WISC itself and with some local social services the individuation of vulnerable people to be integrated, although the cooperatives can (and frequently do) propose the name of the person to be integrated; The Agency carries out annual monitoring and an ex-post evaluation of outcomes achieved; The Agency helps WISCs in individuating possible partners for the hiring of trained disadvantaged workers, especially on the open labor market and among local business firms.

Intervento 18: other strenghts (empirically tested) Increase in the number of trained people and of the turn-over (high nr of disadvantaged people finding a job on the open labor mkt) [thanks to the initial co-planning and the research of outside partners] Consistent saving of public resources thanks to the reduction in public social services provision, less income supports, etc. [thanks to the development of labor policies and not of welfare policies, like in other regions/provinces] High level of perceived satisfaction, wellbeing, and abilities of vulnerable people in WISCs [thanks to the quality of the work integration process] Opportunity to develop the entrepreneurial dimension of WISCs [thanks to the support of subsidies to innovation and to the employability aims of he local policy]

The replicability: specificities of national and local context In order to understand the replicability of the best practice, we need to consider that: The Autonomous Province of Trento is a wealthy province in Italy, it enjoys of good amounts of public funds, it autonomously conduces some local policies (e.g., labor policies) Social cooperatives in Italy emerged as a bottom-up phenomenon and they are totally autonomous from public bodies; they only need legal recognition and financial support by the public administrations; they already worked together with the government and public administrations to properly regulate their sector and support their activity (e.g., laws on social cooperatives and social enterprises) Social cooperatives’ representatives (umbrella and second level organizations) intermediate also with public administrations Since the law (and local legal measures) requires SEs to decide for A or B type, welfare policies can be explicitly distinguished from work integration/labor policies.

Intervento 18: does it support social enterprise development? Yes, for at least three reasons: It considers (and exploits) the entrepeneurial nature of WISCs other than considering their social role (important for the SEs’ autonomy, future, sustainability) It supports (throug subsidies) both start-up phases, ordinary training programs, and investment It involves WISCs in a network with other interested social and economic actors (business firms and public bodies) It improves policy coordination by assigning to WISCs a well defined social and active role in the labor market.