One year after his arrival at the Department of Social Rights, Minister Carles Campuzano considers that the most urgent challenges are to increase resources to serve an increasingly aging population and improve efficiency in the management of benefits for vulnerable groups. .
Since October 2022, when he was appointed councilor, progress has been made so far on some issues, but many remain pending. A few days ago, the Taula of the Third Sector recalled that 19,000 people, the vast majority in a situation of dependency, are still on a waiting list to access a residential place or other day care and support resources.
This year has been very intense, we have created, in the field of care for the elderly and those suffering from disabilities, more than 2,000 new residential places and in day centers; In the coming months, another 900 will be activated and, at the beginning of 2024, about 500 more will be launched in mental health. We have made another very important decision, the increase in financial benefits linked to residential service, which had been frozen for eleven years, which means that the number of beneficiaries will go from 11,000 to around 16,000. The objective is to reduce the dependency's waiting lists.
Do you think it is enough?
The effort is insufficient compared to the challenge we have. Another issue we raise is that the promise of 50% co-financing between the State and the autonomous communities of the Dependency Law has failed, which is why Catalonia assumes the bulk of the expenditure (61% Generalitat, 18% families and 21% the State, in 2022). This is unsustainable given the scenario of the retirement of the baby boom generation; between 1957 and 1975 two million Catalans were born who will retire in the coming years and who will live longer than ever
How do you plan to address the care that an aging society will require?
Spain spends between 0.7% and 0.8% of GDP on dependency care; France and Germany are between 2% and 4%; the Scandinavians, more than 3%, and the European average is 1.7%. In a society in which aging will be so relevant, the political discussion in Spain must resolve how we finance it, how we advance at least towards 2% and how we do it so that the autonomous communities do not do it alone as until now. This is one of the fundamental issues of the Spanish legislature that has just begun. This is one of the main questions raised by the Generalitat in the debate on how to confront the fiscal deficit, but Spain will need some final tax to finance this policy.
What budget does Catalonia need to respond to dependency?
We should double it, go from 1,500 million euros to at least 3,000, not counting the investment in infrastructure, only in benefits, in solving the waiting list and improving salaries. And not everything will depend on mobilizing more resources, which will always be limited, but also on improving management, for which it is necessary to deploy integrated social and health care, which must also serve to be more efficient.
It has been known for years that in 2024 Europe will introduce a new food aid plan, in which the funds will be used to distribute wallet cards to the most vulnerable instead of food baskets. But neither the Government nor Drets Socials have specified how this program, which will now be managed by the autonomous communities, will be deployed, nor how the food deficit implied by the new formula will be compensated.
We are waiting for the new minister and what position he takes. The simplest thing is for the State to transfer the economic resources to us and for us, with the town councils and entities, to decide how the wallet card is applied. To guarantee that the citizens who have been served until now continue to be served, we will launch a call for subsidies for an extra 7.5 million euros for the entities.
Although to reduce severe poverty the underlying problem is not the distribution of food.
We have to broaden our view, our risk of poverty rates are slowly tending to decrease, severe poverty remains very stable, which means that our system is not effective enough to reduce it. Food programs correct the inadequacies of other policies. It is necessary for the Generalitat to manage not only the Guaranteed Citizenship Income (RGC), on which this year we will have spent 575 million euros, but also the Minimum Vital Tax (IMV). It does not make sense nor is it efficient that there are benefits with the same purpose and that they are managed by two different administrations. We closed with the Minister of Inclusion the political agreement to sign an agreement that formalizes the assumption by the Generalitat of the management of the IMV, the same as in the Basque Country and Navarra; That should help us be effective.
In 2022, the severe poverty rate in Catalonia was 6.4%, half a point less than in 2021 and at a similar level to before covid. What is your recipe to reduce it?
Improve the degree of coverage of the RGC for families with more members, make housing aid and the RGC compatible and, above all, encourage people who receive it to enter the labor market; now only 4% or 5% are inserted. We have to improve the set of public and private instruments to facilitate labor integration.
Recently, the Government approved the Barris amb Futur project. Which ones will you start working with?
We will know at the end of the month, now we are organizing all the interventions carried out by the Departments of Social Rights, Work, Education, Health and Justice; the town councils, and the entities. The first thing is to see the actions in each neighborhood of all the actors, identify priorities, make a more unified orientation to gain effectiveness. In the most depressed neighborhoods we not only have problems of poverty, but also of integration.
The increase in homelessness is often linked to migrants without documentation and without means of livelihood.
I defend that Spain, like other countries have done, needs a clear policy to document the people who live here and who will not return to their countries. The scenario of citizens in an irregular situation largely explains the poverty we are talking about.
