Choice and control for citizens

IBM has published a report on the main outcomes of its International Social Sector Forum held in Warsaw in October 2012. The Forum gathered leaders from the social sector, academia and national government to share their thoughts on reforming social security from both a policy and service delivery perspective and on the use of innovative technology to prevent and tackle problems from unemployment to ageing.

John Halloran, CEO of the European Social Network, contributed to discussions by bringing the perspective of local government in tackling today’s social challenges and defining new directions for the welfare state.

"A key question is: what role is there for the state, the citizen and the public services? It is obvious that throughout the years reform in welfare provision has taken place. Welfare was initially provided by the Church and then gradually moved on to a wider range of non-profit organisations. The challenge now is to grow to a more active and inclusive society, where there is room to develop the human potential and where the focus is more on ability rather than on disability. The challenges we are encountering (financial crisis, increased consumerism, a changing and aging population) are formidable but they also provide for the development of new opportunities. The welfare state needs to be better informed in order to develop more active citizens – participation is a vehicle for improving citizen wellbeing.

“Services need to be appropriately responsive and a key issue going forward is understanding the linkage between costs and outcome. Another challenge, but also opportunity, is to align the workforces of our social providers to the needs and preferences of clients. And finally, there is the technological innovation with client interface and integration. These challenges and opportunities also carry with them some important risks. Changes based solely on cost-cutting will lead to insufficient services for poor people and hence to less solidarity. We should not be blind to the risks of standardisation in which the individual is secondary versus personalisation.

“A ‘hand-up’ approach, where real help is provided to enable self-sufficiency, is probably better than a ‘hands-out’ model, where we temporarily solve the problem by giving an allowance. A clear example can be found in the way we tackle unemployment. Instead of giving allowances, we should invest more in professional training, giving people more chances to be in the labour market.

“New directions also entail new services. We will have to move to more open government and citizen-participation, with social inclusion and cohesion to tackle poverty. There is also a trend towards personal budgets for users and care-givers, so citizens can manage their own care instead of receiving structured and organised aid. We are also likely to see a move away from open-end approaches and service commitments towards time limited contracts which are more personalised. All this will only be possible when we will manage differently. And this entails political leadership and vision as well as skilled managers and workforces.

“There will be a need to measure outcomes, so we can conduct evidence-based planning and innovation. There will be a need to engage with users, clients and care-givers. Quality and standards, which vary throughout Europe, will have to be more rigorously monitored. In order to manage these new challenges, opportunities, risks and needs, the welfare state will need to develop the characteristics of a learning organisation.”