Only a week after the Generalitat announced a comprehensive reform of the Servei d’Ocupació de Catalunya (SOC), this Wednesday the Sindicatura de Comptes has warned of “the difficulty of the SOC in managing the resources allocated to occupation policies, coming mostly from of the Spanish State, but also of the European Union”. The control body’s inspection warns that in 2021 the Catalan public employment service only spent 46% of its final budget, leaving the remaining 54% unexecuted.
SOC sources point out that it is normal for one year to be executed less because they tend to be programs that last several years.
The Audit Office warns of the enormous figure in the SOC’s treasury, which is equivalent to 90% of its budget. The organization had so much money accumulated without spending that it was forced to return more than 200 million in the year analyzed.
Compared to other regional employment services, Catalonia’s ranking worsens based on different indicators. In 2021 it has fallen to 15th place from the third place it occupied in 2019. According to the Audit Office, it is evident “the need for the SOC to analyze the situation since the insertion levels that are considered adequate are not being reached.” Last week, the SOC itself explained that the service only mediates about 60,000 offers while in Catalonia around one million employment contracts are signed each year.
The Ombudsman’s report published today also warns that there is “room for improvement” in the management of public subsidies, as the European Union had already warned a few years ago.
