The Canary Islands have a notable deficit in the supply of residential places

File image of a person pushing a dependent in a wheelchair. / C7

The lack of personnel or the negligible coverage of the minimum income keep the islands as the fifteenth region of the country in the DEC index

the note of
social services in the Canary Islands is "irrelevant", a 3.6 according to the classification of the social services development index (DEC) of 2021 prepared annually by the Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services. A) Yes,
the islands, which have improved compared to the previous year, are the fifteenth region of Spainonly ahead of Murcia (3.09) and Madrid (3.07) and very far from the community that leads the DEC, Navarra, with a score of 7.39 out of 10.

A budget "effort"

The association released this index yesterday, acknowledging that
the archipelago has made a budgetary "effort" to improve its social services. «There is a recognition of rights, but despite having a social services law, it has not proceeded to develop its catalog. This is one of the issues that must be improved so that we do not enter into what we call paper rights'. And from the economic point of view in the Canary Islands, we can see that a great effort has been made, increasing the budget by 16.8%, almost 68 euros per inhabitant, and investment reaches 474.5 euros per inhabitant, higher than the state average that it was 446.93 euros,” said Manuel Fuentes, a member of the association's board of directors and co-author of the DEC index.

In the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) that the Canary Islands dedicate to social services, a "remarkable effort" can also be seen because, in fact, it spends 2.71%, a figure higher than the national average (1.86%). And in total spending on social services as well. That of the Canary Islands is 8.72% compared to 7.7% for the state as a whole,” added Fuentes. However, the note obtained by the region is obviously low. "What happen?
Although we have a fairly good economic relevance, the coverage of its services is not. This is what we always say: a high budget does not necessarily mean efficient services and the Canary Islands are an example of this. The economic effort does not translate into adequate coverage," says Fuentes.

less staff

The co-author of the DEC index points to the reasons for the low score of the archipelago as
«the ratio of technical personnel» of the islands, which is «very far from the national average. In the Canary Islands, a professional attends to more than 3,200 people when on average there is one technician for every 2,000 peopleyes, it is a difference greater than 1,000 and that has to affect the coverage and quality of social services. The coverage of minimum income is negligible, only 3.1% compared to 9.3% in the national group. Instead the amount is not. The ratios of residential care in the Canary Islands continue to be very low, only 1.1% compared to 2.7% at the national level, and likewise the ratio of people cared for with home help in those over 60 years of age is lower than the average or telecare, 2.2% compared to 10% in the national environment». Thus, adds Fuentes,
“As a whole, the Canary Islands have very unbalanced social services that make spending especially inefficient and frankly there is room for improvement”.

Fuentes adds that it is the result of the context of "decades" and that changing that "trend" requires a "huge effort" and that it is being done because "the first thing that has been removed is the budget", but "social services are frankly unbalanced for those few coverage.
We hope and wish that the catalog developed by the law will be applied and that all the measures in the field of dependency that the Government of the Canary Islands is implementing will be effective. and that we go to greater implementation of benefits and reduce the long waiting list that the islands have. If the Ministry (of Social Rights) continues this effort, it will change, although it is not a process of one, two or three years, as it happened in Valencia, but we understand that it has begun, "added Fuentes.