Cómo aplicar un enfoque mediacional en la escuela.

There is a profound challenge to give traction to the developmental welfare state to deliver the policy priorities and the actions associated with the high level goals in Towards 2016. The recession is putting a strain on the public services with budget reductions, staffing restrictions and reductions in take-home pay. Despite the more limited resources, the challenge is to reorganise and restructure institutions to meet the new challenges of supporting people.103 _{The economic crisis is an opportunity to ‘put}

flesh on the bones’ of the developmental welfare state as a new, progressive, supportive and productive way of providing services, income supports and activist measures. Those working in the policy arena and in the delivery of programmes and services, along with service users, hold the knowledge and expertise to meet these challenges. They must be enabled to deliver a reform agenda by having a clear vision of the type of society we are working towards as well as systems which support new ways of doing things. The community and voluntary sector has a role to play in supporting the design and delivery of services, in supporting innovative and flexible approaches to support disadvantaged communities and in advocating the needs of disadvantaged people.

Integrated, cross-cutting offices at central level have been established,104 _but

challenges of delivering a person-centred approach to the service user remain. Many of these challenges were identified in the developmental welfare state report (NESC, 2005a) and have been part of the detailed study by the OECD on moving towards an integrated public service (OECD, 2008a). The subsequent task force report and associated government statement (Transforming Public Services: Citizen Centred-performance Focused. Task Force Report on the Public Service, 2008; Government Statement on Transforming Public Services, 2008) have set out proposals for moving towards a ‘citizen-centred’ and ‘performance-focused’ public service. Implementation of many of the task force’s proposals would be an indispensible step towards the implementation of policy actions identified in this social well- being report. For example, there is a recognition that the citizen rather than the provider must be at the heart of the planning and delivery of public services. Operationalisation of this commitment will require deeper engagement with the citizen as a service user if services are to be appropriately targeted. This sentiment is very much in line with understanding and supporting individual well-being and with a ‘tailored’ approach to service delivery.

While the developmental welfare state does not prescribe how such an approach should be implemented (as this is dependent on the circumstances, expertise and knowledge of those who are receiving and delivering services) it does set out a broad framework and principles (see NESC, 2005a). This framework and principles are complemented by the ‘well-being test’ proposed above. Part of this work will require the establishment of agreed standards for services and income supports delivered to all citizens with additional supports ‘tailored’ to reflect individuals’ needs. The ‘tailored universalism’ approach, central to the developmental welfare state, is in line with the well-being findings of this report where individuals are identified as having unique combinations across the six well-being domains, leading to diverse and particular needs according to their circumstances. ‘Tailored universalism’ means that mainstream providers, as far as possible, adjust their services to accommodate a more diverse public, including a public whose individual members have different requirements if they are to have an equal opportunity to benefit from the service (NESC, 2005a: 203).

Examples of a tailored approach include individual needs’ assessments for people with disabilities, home care packages for older people and an active case management approach to people of working age in receipt of social welfare benefits. While some progress has been made in each of these areas many challenges remain in agreeing and supporting integrated citizen-focused packages with the capacity and resources to improve the quality of life and capabilities of the individuals involved.

104. For example, the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, the Office for Older People, the Office for Disability and Mental Health, and the Office of the Minister for Integration.

There are aspects of service provision which point to the need to strike a better balance between national rationality and local autonomy. For instance, a curtailment of funding in one area may have unforeseen consequences in another area. In the present financial circumstances some ‘across the board’ reductions in budget lines are inevitable. But there is something to be said for devolving some aspects of these decisions to the local level. Even within a broader national framework, when decisions are informed and influenced at a local level, there is a greater sense of control and ownership. This approach also allows for an element of local experimentation and innovation, facilitating the possibility of new approaches to addressing current crises. These ideas are very much in line with the recommendations of the OECD report on moving towards an integrated public service.

5.9 Policy Monitoring

This social report has also been concerned with policy monitoring. Chapter 3 outlined the linkage between policy development and policy monitoring, emphasising the need to focus on outputs and outcomes and to align these better to high level societal goals. Social indicators can inform and support this process and in each of the policy framework chapters – on the well-being of children, people of working age, older people and people with disabilities – examples were provided as to how diagnostic, baseline, performance and systemic indicators can inform strategy, inputs, outputs and outcomes.

An observation from this work is that theories and understandings of well-being can help us to understand the importance of context and circumstances on people’s well-being. The extent to which we can assess this context and these circumstances can be measured, at least to some extent, using social indicators. These measures can be compared to desirable policy goals and policy outcomes. Although many factors come into play in designing and delivering policy, understandings of well-being can inform the policy process, both in terms of the indicators used for measurement and in the policy goals and outcomes sought. The input of users of services and practitioners working at local level is vital in informing us of the outcomes of policy and how they can be improved. Institutions at the centre can collate the information and provide feedback to the local actors through periodically revised performance measures. This approach can contribute to the ‘performance dialogue’ proposed by the OECD with a view to increasing transparency and accountability whilst at the same time working towards the achievement of improved outcomes. Key elements of such ‘performance dialogue’ are envisaged as: sharing a common language and understanding of performance by the bodies involved; a focus on delivering agreed societal goals; shared agreement on appropriate performance targets, performance indicators and metrics, which are informed by users and providers of services; and the capacity for continuous improvement through feedback loops.

Data availability is a fundamental building block for policy monitoring. Many improvements have been made, particularly by the CSO, in recent years. In addition, the National Longitudinal Survey of Children (Growing Up in Ireland) and the Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing (TILDA), both currently underway, will provide important longitudinal data which will allow us, in time, to chart aspects of people’s well-being across part of the life course. Even though improvements have been made data shortcomings remain, especially in the areas of disability and equality. How data are used to improve policy performance is important and further work is required in this area. The Office for Social Inclusion, through the Technical Advisory Group, are tasked with developing the type of data required for monitoring progress on the life cycle approach.

Finally, a number of disaggregations of data should be provided as standard. Ideally, it should be possible to disaggregate data by age, gender, nationality/ethnicity, socio-economic status, marital status, family status, disability, membership of the Traveller community, sexual orientation, geographical area (urban/rural), religion, educational level, and whether or not a person has a medical card, although it is accepted that data in some of these areas are difficult to collect and analyse. However, many of these variables are now available in CSO datasets, and the SLÁN data provide very useful breakdowns.