Poverty and Social Inclusion Policy Development in Portugal

1. Poverty and Social Inclusion Policy Development in Portugal MSI Project – Phase II INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SECURITY Ministry of Social Security, Family and Child Portugal Belfast, 7th-8th October 2004

2. Main contents • Historical and political context • Policy development: • The actors • The consultation process • The evaluation process • Resources • Concluding remarks

3. Historical and political context • Poverty was not seen as a problem in Portugal until the beginning of the 80’s and therefore it was never a main issue in the political agenda. • There was no specific and coherent set of policies to combat poverty in Portugal. • As Portugal joined the EC in 1986 the problem gained more visibility, and in June 1988 the political debate was set in Parliament. • A subject that was completely absent from policies began to appear and to play an important role in policy making in Portugal.

4. Historical and political context • During the 90’s • social protection systems were developed, • total expenditure on social protection rose, • the range of risks and situations covered was increased and • more people access to services, benefits and assistance.

5. Historical and political context • Since 1995 • Portugal has developed a whole new generation of social policies, aimed specifically at reinforcing the dynamics of inclusion in Portuguese society New generation of active social policies activation of individuals activation of institutions

6. Historical and political context TARGET PROGRAMME /MEASURE Children Social protection in maternity, paternity and adoption Programme “To be a Child” Commission for the protection of children and young people People with disabilities National Action Plan for the Rehabilitation and Integration of People with Disabilities Promotion of the social and professional integration of people with disabilities – POEFDS/ESF Supported Employment in the regular labour market Older People Programme of Integrated Support for Older People Project for Social Private Initiative Drug abusers National Action Plan against Drugs and Drug Misuse Programme Life-Employment Employed and Unemployed Special Vocational Training Social Employment Market Community development Guaranteed Minimum Income Social Network National Programme Against Poverty These policies targeted children, older people, people with disabilities and several vulnerable groups and very poor families and individuals. In this scope important national programmes and measures were developed, such as:

7. Historical and political context • the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion (PNAI) • the Social Network Programme • In recent years • theconstruction of this new and innovative path has been accomplished particularly within the frame of: In different levels, both policies are aimed at making the measures to fight poverty and social exclusion well planed and better targeted, more integrated and thus more effective A new step in the reinforcement of the combat for a more inclusive society

8. Policy Development The political and the policy development process in Portugal is rather centralised and, with some exceptions, the most frequently used level of consultation is national.

9. Policy Development • Partnerships between public and private institutions, at local and national level, are very common and the partnership work is well established. • Such an experience created the conditions for the incorporation of the partnership principle in current management of social policies and increased the participation of representative national organisations in policy development. • However, there is still a long way to go forward to reach a desirable level of participation and involvement on policy decision-making of private entities and especially of the target groups and local communities.

10. Policy development • The actors • The Ministry of Social Security, Family and Child is responsible for the definition, orientation and development of the social protection systems, including insertion, social action and social security policies. • The NGO, Private Solidarity Institutions and Local Development Associations play an important role on the social protection system as well as on the implementation of national social policy measures since they run most of the social equipments for children and older people. • Some private entities as well as local authorities are usual partners of the public local services in the implementation of national policies, such as the Social Insertion Income, andin the development of local anti-poverty projects.

11. The Consultation Process • The consultation involves mainly national representative organizations of social partners, such as: • trade unions • different entrepreneurial associations • national organizations of private solidarity institutions • insurance mutualities • national organizations representing local authorities

12. The Consultation Process • This consultation is formal and within established structures. The examples of such formal consultation structures are: • the Council for Economic and Social Cooperation, (State Central Government, Unions, Social Partners) dealing mainly with economic and employment policies, • the Commission of the Cooperation Pact for Social Solidarity, concerning the definition of social policies. • Within these structures consultation is normally undertaken at the policydevelopment/designstage. However if the first is functioning in a regular basis, the second one has not functioned regularly in the last two years.

13. The Consultation Process • Other national consultive formal structures were created to help in the definition and implementation follow-up of specific social policies, such as: • The NAPincl Interministerial Follow-up Commission • The National Education Council • The National Commission for the Social Insertion Income • The Commission for the Evaluation and Follow-up of Cooperation Agreements • The National Commission for the Protection of Children and Young People • The National Commission for the Social Employment Market • …

14. The Consultation Process • At local level, also exist formal permanent partnership structures, such as: • the Commissions for the Protection of Children and Young People • Local Education Councils • Local Follow-up Commissions for the Social Insertion Income • … • These local structures are very seldom consulted on national issues. However they can be consulted on local problems and projects. Furthermore, a few municipalities are implementing participative budget discussions opened to local populations, following the example of Porto Alegre Forum.

15. The Consultation Process Good examples of more participated decision on policy-making process: 1) The recent discussion of the second Portuguese NAPincl: • At national level - the plan was discussed within national structures: • the NAPincl Interdepartmental Follow-up Commission • the Napincl NGO’s Forum • At local level and in partnership with the Portuguese EAPN - the plan was presented and discussed in several worshops across the country with local organizations.

16. The Consultation Process 2) The Social Network Programme • The Social Networks are formal discussion fora or structures constituted within the municipalities territories with the participation of local governments, local public services and opened to every private non profit solidarity organizations. • In these fora the social problems of the territories are discussed and the partners define the priorities of the intervention and approves Social Development Plans, for a three-year period, by consensus, thus creating conditions for the articulation of all public and private partners action. • The Social Network Programme is now being implemented in 235 of the 277 Portuguese continental municipalities, strongly enlarging the discussion of local social development problems and improving the social intervention.

17. Evaluation process • The most important policy measures and programmes are regularly monitored, but their dissemination is clearly insufficient and does not reach the public opinion. • Usually national and EU programmes are evaluated by external entities (university or private research centres). • Independent research seems to have a very small impact in the formulation of policy. • An information system was created to monitor the Portuguese NAPincl, based essentially on a statistical information drawing on administrative sources. A Working Group is responsible for permanent monitoring and reporting on the progress of the NAPincl implementation. Annually a progress report is prepared to evaluate the advancements made in the implementation of the plan and its findings allow the reformulation of policies.

18. Evaluation process • Participation of target groups in policy evaluation • Since 2002 the Portuguese European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) in partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Solidarity is trying to implement a project called “Participation Activation” to develop processes of participation of people experiencing poverty in the definition, implementation and evaluation of anti-poverty policies. • However, these project remain a unique experiment and their impact is very weak.

19. Ressources • The government communicates the general policy lines through the Programme of Government and its spending priorities through the announcement of the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines the Annual State Budget. Both Programme and Budget are discussed on the national parliament. • The national and EU programmes to tackle poverty have specific lines of financing directed to disadvantaged groups such as people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, children at risk and long term unemployed persons. • Recent governments prioritised measures to reduce poverty and social exclusion. However, in the latest years the practical measures have been limited by the priority efforts to reduce the Portuguese budgetary deficit.

20. Summing up • Consultation on policy development in Portugal is centralised and works within formal established structures, involving mainly national organizations. • Consulting of local organizations only occurs on rare occasions and schemes to consult local communities or the beneficiaries of social policy measures are not previewed.

21. Summing up • However some of the examples presented, mainly the discussion of the Portuguese NAPIncl, the EAPN project “Participation Activation” and the functioning and work of the Social Network local structures show some important ways to increase citizen’s participation and also to improve the transparency and inclusiveness of policy development as well as for a better resources targeting at the most disadvantaged.