An important conference on Social policy Innovation took place in Brussels on 19-20 May with the aim of contributing to a new focus and better understanding amongst public authorities and other stakeholders on how social policy innovation catalyses structural reforms based on a social investment perspective, as described in the Social Investment Package. By doing so, the Conference hoped to contribute to helping Member States reach the targets of the Europe 2020 Strategy.
This is certainly an ambitious objective and whilst the event brought some new thinking, it was evident from a number of well-established organisations that defending their sector and restating familiar mantras, however laudable, was still the order of the day. This highlights a state of flux in which there is an emerging and welcome debate about the future of our social model(s). Having said this, whilst there are elements of a new language that attempts to articulate the need for cross-sector partnerships, there seems to be, in some quarters, little appetite or understanding of the bigger picture and the need to work in new ways.
John Halloran, ESN's Chief Executive, addressed the issue of partnerships for innovation and targeted the need for all partnerships to demonstrate added value for users and to build in an evidence base around systems development. Above all, he stressed that "We must ensure that we understand the local dimension to people's lives and seek to connect social services to a wider environment with schools, local health, housing, transport and, of course, economic development." He added that it was 'crazy' to discuss employment in European meetings without inviting the business sector to join the debate!
The conference, especially its session around new partnerships, sought to promote a different debate involving representatives from a broad array of sectors: business – Jacques Spelkens from SUEZ-GDF, foundations – Gerrit Rauws from King Baudouin, social business – Marieke Huysentruit from i-propeller and new forms of banking – James Vaccaro from Tridos.
"There are no easy solutions to the economic and social challenges of Europe, but this conference had sought to open up a debate. It is clear that there should be no return to the polarised positions of public-private and economic-social if we are to make a difference to the lives of our citizens. We are only at the beginning of a journey to make social investment demonstrably a way forward; building sustainable and inclusive communities means building value-driven, effective and knowledge-based social services”, added John Halloran.
The 22nd European Social Services Conference, organised by the European Social Network (ESN) in cooperation with the Italian Presidency of the European Council, will take this debate further with an emphasis on investment in practice. Join us in Rome on 7-9 July to share innovative ideas together with governments, managers and practitioners from all sectors from over 30 countries.
Resources
- More about the event and its outcomes
- ESN’s paper on partnerships across sectors ‘Working with education, health and employment: recognising a shared agenda’
- ESN’s paper on ‘Innovation, research & evidence-based practice’