2024 has to “be the year of social policies,” said the Minister of Social Rights, Carles Campuzano, this afternoon, in the presentation of his department’s budget in Parliament. An announcement backed by an increase in spending (3,612 million euros) to achieve improvements in care for the elderly, children, the disabled, mental health, poverty…
A budget, according to Campuzano, that provides 290 million more than the last year. It is an increase, the minister repeated, of 8.7%, “when the increases in spending in the rest of the Government’s departments are, on average, around 7%.”
The opposition emphasizes, however, that this budget increase announced by Campuzano is less than what is reflected in its accounts. So given this disagreement with the numbers, some of the deputies chose to take with a certain amount of sarcasm so much triumphalism and good wishes for 2024. “Ambition is always positive,” was heard from the ranks of Junts.
The truth is that the scope of action of Social Rights – the third ministry of the Government with the most budget, behind Health and Education – is very wide. The main item, 60% of the total item presented, will be allocated to the chapter named by this Department as “Promotion of Personal Autonomy”.
This includes a change in the residence model. Campuzano is committed to the option of “living at home.” But that does not mean an abandonment of the creation of new places. In fact, it is announced – if these budgets are approved, which now only have the clear support of the PSC – the creation of a thousand places (it is planned to build four new public residences in Catalonia) for the elderly, disabled and mental health.
Another proposal is to create some 460 places for young people with intellectual disabilities who need a place in a day center when they finish school at the age of 21.
And they also want to reduce – this is a repeated announcement – ??the dependency waiting list. In this section, Carles Campuzano has once again criticized the failure of the Government of Spain to fulfill its aid commitments. These dependency aids, he recalls, “had to be distributed 50 to 50 and we are still very far from that promise; they only cover 24%.”
Carles Campuzano has many open fronts. Added to the challenge of the aging population is the problem of the arrival of young migrants (many minors) to Catalonia without being accompanied.
The councilor admits that “the situation in Catalonia due to this reality is already very tense.” He has announced that he is going to travel to the Canary Islands, shortly, to meet with authorities of those islands and coordinate strategies for the arrivals and distribution of these people, most of them men and minors. Campuzano asks, on this issue, for help from the State.
The situation, if the figures are taken into account, is worrying. Last February, according to Government data, 300 unaccompanied minors and young people were welcomed. It is a continuous flow of arrivals from the Canary Islands, which overwhelms the Catalan social services due to lack of space.
Poverty is another issue to which we want to continue paying close attention and to which this budget presented yesterday allocates 852.70 million, 4.9% more than in the previous year. Although the poverty rate in Catalonia “has been reduced,” according to Campuzano, that rate is still, according to his numbers, at 18%. “We have to lower it more,” insists the councilor, who has among his challenges expanding the guaranteed income for the most vulnerable and needy.
The provision for shelter and protection of the nearly 9,000 children and adolescents who live under the umbrella of the administration is also increased by 2.9%. This section includes 30.3 million euros to equate the benefit for foster care with another family to that for foster care with an extended family; or the 22.3 million that are planned to be allocated to benefit coverage for young people who have left care.
The CUP and En Comú groups have no intention at the moment of supporting these budgets, which they describe as “insufficient” and “continuing”. In the case of En Comú Podem, a child benefit of 200 euros per month is requested in the Guaranteed Citizenship Income, something that Campuzano considers “impossible” with the money available.
