The Control Function of Social Services in Spanish Local Government: A Contribution to Transparency and Performance Improvement

Proper public management is not possible without the existence of internal control mechanisms that ensure reliability of the information for decision making. In Spanish local government this involves overcoming certain weaknesses detected for the internal control and audit function. Based on some of the results obtained by the authors through a survey over Spanish local government internal and external auditors, this work confirms the existence of consensus regarding the need to design and implement internal control mechanisms that assure reliable and useful information on performance and results. Upon this scenery, the paper puts forward a proposal for the development of the internal control, using the case of Homecare Services as a model. This system pursues to provide a useful tool for public managers, contributing to reduce the effects of the financial context over performance, as well as to facilitate cooperation with external audit.

Like many developed countries, public services in Spain are facing a prolonged period of financial austerity. Consequently, most parts of the Spanish public sector have to give consideration to various aspects of public services, including the means for improving existing performance. Performance audit is seen as a key means for improving performance in Spanish local government but the approach is not as well developed as in many other countries. This paper is an empiricallybased study of the current situation regarding performance audit in the Spanish local government sector and provides pointers as to how this approach might be strengthened.

ABSTRACTThis article presents an analysis of the opportunities for participation of citizens in the public system of social services in Spain and their impact on the design, implementation, execution and evaluation of public policies of social services at a municipal level. The study also involved performing a comparative analysis of cases, assessing the impact, in terms of contributions and possibilities of the councils, upon the increased democratization of local public policies in terms of social welfare and the improvement of the efficiency with which social services and benefits are managed. The results of these investigations permit us, first of all, to present the diverse opportunities on offer for participation at a regional level in social services in Spain and then to identify, from its participants, dimensions that intensify processes of democratization and therefore help to improve efficiency of public well-being policies at a municipal level. In the case of the autonomous communities, we must highlight the changes that new social services laws have brought about in terms of widening citizens’ participation and opening up feedback for users of the system at a local level. In addition, this article discusses the role of different typologies and explores mechanisms, bodies and processes of participation that are applied in the design, management and assessment of social services policies at a local level. Finally, we determine which factors help to increase the efficiency of social public policies, as revealed by increases in citizens’ participation in local governance.

This article outlines the public architecture of social services in Spain from the perspective of the constitutional guarantee of the provision of local social services. For this, the Spanish Constitution is analyzed, as well as the 17 laws of social services corresponding to the different Autonomous Communities. It is therefore a comparative regional study in which the local authority is the essential unit to deploy social services, responding to the principles of universality, proximity, and decentralization; mandated by Spanish legislation. These and other complementary laws establish universal access to social services for all citizens, determine the territorial structure, the competences of the different administrations, rights holders, typologies of services and benefits and their articulation to ensure the quality of life and social welfare of all citizens.

Debates on contracting out to the private sector is primarily focused on the cost efficiency of its provision, drawing on experiences with hard or technical services such as waste and water management. This paper focuses on a growing interest in the role and impact of sourcing decisions in softer or more human‐centered services, such as social services, where sourcing decisions are more complex or multifaceted. Using actual cost data obtained from open access government sources on social services in Spain, the first objective was to compare the cost efficiencies of different sourcing decisions using estimations of Technology Gap Ratios of different municipalities through Order‐M Panel Data. The second objective analyzed motivations for contracting out through a survey of municipal managers in Andalusia using principal components analysis combined with multinominal logit regressions. Our findings suggest that while contracting out to the private sector is, relatively speaking, the most cost efficient, most municipalities have decided to keep service provision in‐house. Decisions to contract out social services are not based only on cost but also incorporate a range of other considerations such as the municipalities' population size, its stakeholder expectations, and other complexities associated with service provision.

This scoping review summarizes and analyzes relevant studies related to the evidence published on undocumented immigrant women's access to and utilization of health and social services in Spain. Scientific literature was identified by entering search terms in seven electronic databases which combined retrieved health sciences peer-reviewed articles (Pubmed, Embase, CINAHL Plus and Scopus) and grey literature databases (Europa OpenGrey, DART-Europe and Google Scholar) published between 2004 and 2014 and written in Spanish or in English presenting data about Spain. Those that fulfill the inclusion criteria were selected after a blind peer reviewed process when pertinence and quality was debated. A total of 16 publications were included, the main topics being socio-cultural differences in the access and utilization of social and health services and barriers faced by immigrant women. None of the studies focused exclusively on undocumented women, hence further research is needed in this area.

ABSTRACTNPM reforms have become a global trend and performance management systems are considered suitable to enhance the decision-making process and accountability. The aim of the paper is to carry out a comparative study on the adoption of performance measurement tools in Italian and Spanish (medium-sized and large) local governments. It seeks to find out how widespread these tools are and how their usefulness is perceived. The results show differences between the two countries and that the presence of professional managers – experienced with performance measurement tools – positively affects the adoption of these tools. Moreover, performance measurement tools are perceived as a support for accountability purposes.

As in other European Union countries, Spanish local governments, by law and according to their population size, provide a number of basic services, which include the local police service, fire-fighting, refuse collection, street cleaning, land use control, urban transportation, social services, leisure and cultural activities, public works and town planning, slaughterhouses, central markets, housing, etc. Only the larger Spanish municipalities participate in the delivery of services such as education or health, which are under regional government responsibility. The vast majority of Spanish municipalities are very small. Recently, some Autonomous Communities have been establishing supra-municipal or district authorities (Comarcas), grouping several municipalities in order to manage the delivery of common local services.

Starting from the assumption that interpreting is a norm governed type of communication and that within this communicative pas de trois or situated activity (Wadensjö) which is socially bounded (Inghilleri), the interpreter's presence appears as a defining feature, this paper tries to identify preliminary and operational norms intervening in the institutional, interpersonal and professional projection of this activity in connection with the integration of foreign populations in need of interpreting services in Spain. In order to identify these norms, I will resort to contexts as reflected by status, regulations and practice in health care in the province of Alicante in the case of Romanian immigrants.

The subject of this chapter is the governance and financial aspects of social services in Spain. First, it describes how different Autonomous Communities deal with information management, more specifically on the development of information systems for social services, and the involvement of the non-profit and for-profit sector. Secondly, it explains the principles of financing of the Autonomous Communities, and shows statistics on the financing and expenditures of social services. Finally, it presents the limited mechanisms for intra- and inter-autonomic co‑ordination.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the entire report, drawing on the analyses carried out in the subsequent chapters. It defines the scope of social services in Spain, as well as the organisational structure of the public system. It highlights differences across the territory in staffing, eligibility requirements and financing. The chapter discusses a range of recommendations on how to improve social services in Spain, starting with the possible creation of a national law, and its scope for clarifying the scope of services and addressing gaps, as well as additional improvements needed in the area of quality and monitoring.

Minimum income policies are one of the social measures that have the greatest impact on social protection systems. After a year and a half since the implementation of the Guaranteed Minimum Income (IMV in Spanish) in Spain, this article aims at analyzing the perception of social workers on the effects of this new economic benefit on public Social Services. For this purpose, a qualitative methodology is followed, through a total number of six rounds of interviews in fifty-two social services centers located in different territories of the Spanish context. A total of 364 telephone interviews of 52 social service centers were conducted between July 20200 and September 2021. The results of this research point out to the unfulfilled expectations generated, the subordination of the social services to other institutional spheres, the bureaucratization of tasks and oversight in the social intervention processes, as well as the lack of recognition of social services' professionals regarding the management of this provision.

This paper analyses teleworking in social services during the state of alarm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. It has a double objective: To analyse the profile of the professional who teleworked in social services and, on the other hand, to analyse the perception of teleworkers of working conditions during this period, as well as the degree to which they have been affected by them depending on whether they work face-to-face or telematically. To this end, a questionnaire was administered to Spanish social service professionals working, obtaining a sample of 560 professionals in the sector. The profile obtained in relation to teleworking may be especially useful when considering the progressive incorporation of more non-presential activity in social services, and the results show that, although teleworking has been perceived as an efficient way of overcoming the limitations to face-to-face work arising from the pandemic, both the positive and negative consequences of the implementation of this modality of work should be carefully assessed.

Since the beginning of this century, Spain has become a host country for immigrants. In many cases, due to their living conditions, they are under pressure to demand different services and programs that are crucial for their social integration. This work is basically aimed at analyzing the immigrants’ satisfaction with social services. This article proposes an explanatory model of these users’ satisfaction with social services. The proposed model reports five significant factors, although the results obtained indicate that the three main factors influencing the satisfaction of users with social services are responsibility, assurance, and empathy. Satisfaction differences were also found according to users’ gender and place of residence.

During the state of alarm declared in Spain by COVID-19 due to the pandemic, the country's authorities declared Social Services and their workers to be essential, considering that the activity of these professionals with the vulnerable population was crucial and that services should continue to be provided to guarantee the well-being of users in this exceptionally serious situation. This article analyzes the impact that the COVID-19 and the state of alarm has had on Spanish social service professionals. An ad hoc questionnaire was used, administered on-line, individually, voluntarily and anonymously to 560 professionals working in social services, both in the public and private sectors, based throughout Spain. This questionnaire has five different parts: socio-demographic profiling, impact that the health crisis has had on the practice of professional functions, degree of knowledge of the measures imposed to guarantee the protection and safety of professionals and users, impact that it has had on the professional and personal development of social services professionals and, the fifth and last part, degree of adaptation of the measures aimed at the care of the vulnerable population. These results are discussed based on the situation in which professionals working in this sector find themselves in the face of the changes they are experiencing in the development of their work, and we are able to determine the profile of the workers who have felt most affected by the situation, with the consequent and foreseeable mental and emotional affectation that this implies. These professionals tend to value more negatively the set of measures developed to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on Spanish social services.