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 services  Outcomes 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 department Increasingly understood as including leisure services, culture, sport, adult education Therefore, 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