Participation in the administration of local welfare systems in Spain.

• Author: Seller, Enrique Pastor
• Position: Report

Introduction

The article presents an analysis of the opportunity offer for citizen participation in the design, implementation, follow-up and assessment of the public policies of local welfare systems in Spain, and of their potential influence on the social local public agenda. The results of this research allow us to systematically describe the offer of mechanisms, bodies and process of participation in the design, management and assessment of municipal social services. They also allow us to determine the factors that help increment the efficiency of the social public policies, by means of an increase in the citizens' participation in local governance.

The complexity and the interdependence of the phenomena and social issues described, as well as the difficult situations experienced by people, families, social groups and communities, requires a degree of engagement, competencies and interactions of the different publics actors (public and civic). Thus, public participation becomes a substantial element in this new pluralist, relational context. In this current context, participation provides essential benefits to organizational and community dynamics, as it allows for a progressive adaptation of the functioning of institutions, breaking citizens' apathy and mistrust and offering their representatives tools to assess and improve the management of public affairs. It also allows citizens to seize and win back public spaces, whilst creating social capital, fostering community feelings, allowing "politics to socialize" and supporting decisions to be adopted, as has been pointed out by several authors (Cunill, 1991, 1997; Maiz, 2000; Held, 2001; Warren, 2001; Montero, Font & Torcal, 2006; Bloundiaux, 2008; Pares, 2009; Navarro & Font, 2013; Font & Navarro, 2013). Participation is a key element of integration and social cohesion (Machinea & Andras, 2007), as it is one of the markers of international cohesion (CEPAL, 2007, 2008, Taguenca & Lugo 2011, Millan, 2012, Gurgel, 2013; Pastor, Tamez & Saenz, 2014) and of the quality of democracy (Barreda, 2011). This is the reason why participation has become a cross-sectional issue of great interest on the governments' agenda, as well as the agenda of professionals who wish to implement a political management and/or efficient technique aiming to improve social welfare, the citizens' quality of life, and the users of the centers/services.

As has been pointed out by Sauca and Wences (2009), the consolidation of citizens' participation in decision-making and control is constantly spreading in Western democracies. The tools seeking to encourage participation are multiplying in terms of practical policies (see for instance eParticipation and eGovernment in Velicu, 2012), and in plenty of societies they are spreading out at every level of the government (Blondiaux, 2008). The importance of citizens' participation in the uptake and expansion of social rights and the consolidation of representative democracies are clear. The strengthening of this form of government no longer depends only on free execution of the political rights of the citizens, but also on the fact that they actively get involved in the various fields and stages of public affairs (Vallespin, 2000; Giddnes, 2000; Bobbio, 2003). We are now facing a "deliberative turn," as some authors believe (Chambers, 2003; Jorba, 2009).

The current model of Public Social Services System in Spain began to structure starting from the enactment of the Spanish Constitution (1978) and the democratization of institutions. In the constitutional text, the syntagm social services is vaguely present, as it is only used to refer to a system that should ensure the public authorities to promote the welfare of the citizens during the "third age" (art. 50). It referred to certain sectors being unemployed, physically disabled, sensory and psychological, family and children (arts. 39, 41 and 49); collective own Social Services. As for the area of responsibility, the art. 148.1.20[degrees] regards "welfare" as one of the powers of the Autonomous Communities. Thus, the Constitution gives power to the regions for the construction of new social services. These tasks are taken in the Organic Laws of the Statute of the Autonomous Communities.

Methodology

The study, whose results are presented below, was carried out in the years 2012-2015 (Pastor and Navarro, 2014). It allowed us to describe the typology of the mechanism, organisms and processes of civil participation in the autonomic system of welfare social in Spain. The study also performed a comparative analysis of cases, and assessed the impact, in terms of contributions as well as possibilities of the Councils, for increasing the depth of democratic influence on the local public policies with regards to social welfare and improvement of the efficiency of the service management and social benefits management.

The context of the research was the autonomic system of social welfare and services in Spain in general, and the offer of opportunities for associative and/or individual participation in the implementation, management and assessment of local social policies, in particular. For this purpose, a systematic analysis of the 17 most recent Social Services Laws was carried out. The mechanisms and organisms for promotion of participation in the management of public policies established by means of those laws were also analyzed.

Once the typology was analyzed and compared, we studied the participation of actors in Councils and Institutes in the social welfare policies in general, and in a specific region of Spain, the region of Murcia, in particular. This analysis aims to assess the participation policies included in the public policies of social welfare at a local level. This assessment allowed us to identify the dimensions and procedures that improved the local public policies of social welfare by encouraging participation in organizations of social economy and by taking into account people as individuals.

For this assessment, every local corporation--local councils and grouping of municipalities--with involvement in social welfare services of the Region Murcia, i.e. 45 local councils and 5 groupings of municipalities, was followed up. The monitored outcomes were the implemented mechanism of participation in general, and especially the Councils and Institutes at a general and regional level. (Councils are advisory mechanisms on a regional or sectional basis that are extensive providers of information and advice; they are able to receive proposals; Institutes have their own legal personality, as well as responsibilities on general and/or sectional Social Services and a degree of independence in terms of decisions and economic-administrative and technical management of the area. They combine decision-making, execution/management of agreements and participation.) Firstly, the Social Services Centers of the region, and their scopes, were identified. Afterwards, 50 interviews were carried out with the staff of the city councils, and with groupings of municipalities of the region. In-depth interviews were carried out with 22 participants. The actors were interviewed at several points in time. They were selected to represent the composition of the participation mechanisms--politicians, professionals, and social and neighborhood organizations. In order to achieve a non-biased representation of the opinions in existence, the diversity of the participants of the mechanisms of participation was taken into account, especially when dealing with politicians (the government and the different political parties of the opposition parties), staff (relevance, heterogeneity, responsibility and direct implication) and associations (qualification and contrast of opinions, diversity, highest representation and permanence as members in the participation mechanism).

The final report resulting from the process of analysis of content was presented to two discussion groups formed by qualified members--politicians, professionals and representatives from social organizations--who were not the interviewed participants. This process of research and analysis provided us with valid, reliable and ethically verifiable information about the factors that would help to improve the public policies of social welfare.

The methodological approach used for this study was essentially based on qualitative techniques. These allowed us to collect the opinions, suggestions and interpretations of the main players involved in processes of citizens' participation on the matter of local social policies. This case study, specifically related to the Municipal Councils of Social Welfare, allowed for the approach of key figures that participate in the construction of every-day life, which enabled us to get over issues with descriptive or accountability, and explain the events that lead to certain situations. At the same time, this method allowed us to produce relevant knowledge using a combination of techniques and from a participative context of different players.

Taking into account the complexity of the phenomena we were studying, several techniques were used for data collection in order to increase the efficiency and solve the problems that presented by the complexity of causality. Mainly, the implemented tools were the interviews conducted with the people in charge/staff of all the local corporations of the region, the in-depth interviews with the main actors, and the group discussions with strategic participants. This way, a strategy of methodological triangulation has been developed--within-method triangulation--in views of increasing the analytical capacity, data reliability and validity of research, avoiding methodological biases. In order to achieve the necessary estimation for validation, the most usual processes have been considered, namely, technique triangulations, saturation of proofs and evidence and contrast with other...