Social services in Spain are confronted with a series of challenges, including growing demand due to population ageing, changing family models, rising inequality and labour market changes. This report suggests ways to improve the legal context, move towards more universal services, strengthen quality, and move towards more evidence-based policies.

Social services in Spain are confronted with a series of challenges, including growing demand due to population ageing, changing family models, rising inequality and labour market changes. Services are fragmented and, with multiple providers, lack reliable and comprehensive data. There is also a discontinuity between primary and specialised care. The decentralised model of competences generates complexity in management and financing of services. With the current governance and financing system, there are disparities in the type and quality of social services provided across the 17 Spanish Autonomous Communities and two autonomous cities. In addition, there is a lack of portability of benefits throughout the country. This report suggests ways to improve the legal context, move towards more universal services, strengthen quality, and move towards more evidence-based policies

Spain has a high share of the working age population at risk of poverty or social exclusion and a high incidence of child poverty. While Spain has introduced a minimum income at the national level, social inclusion policies are the responsibility of the regions.

Written by leading experts from across Europe, this book provides a grounded exploration of innovation in the practice, research and education of social work. It focuses on the role of participation, collaboration and co-creation as key drivers of social innovation within these fields, providing practical examples of social entrepreneurship, people-centred design and participatory led innovation. The positive outcomes of local social innovations are analysed in the wider European framework, with reflections and recommendations for advancing innovation in policy, service provision, education and research.

Spain implemented sizable measures to cushion the impact of the pandemic and of the inflationary shock after Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The economy has held up well, but public debt, which was already high, has increased because of the pandemic, making it urgent to step up the pace of fiscal consolidation.

Spanish society values families and family life highly, but the way that families look and live has been changing drastically over the past decades. From being one of the countries with the highest fertility rates in Europe, Spain now has the lowest rate in the region and the legalisation of divorce and social acceptance of co-habitation has led to a decline in the traditional nuclear family model.

Este documento presenta la evaluación de la OCDE de los sistemas de tecnologías de la información para los servicios sociales utilizados por la administración pública en España. Muestra que existen grandes disparidades entre y dentro de las regiones en el uso de herramientas de TIC. La falta de sistemas unificados y las diferentes formas de identificar a las personas y clasificar los servicios hace que el intercambio de información sea extremadamente complicado. La mejora en la recopilación de datos nacionales sobre servicios sociales revela la importancia de acordar una terminología común y decidir sobre un conjunto de indicadores, así como de diseñar una infraestructura de tecnología de la información flexible para recopilar los datos.