Public services
Public services such as healthcare, social care, education and transport are essential for achieving high levels of social protection, social cohesion and social inclusion. But it is the quality of and access to services that determines their success across a changing social and demographic landscape. The challenge for policymakers is to ensure the design and delivery of health and social services that meet the varied needs of citizens. That challenge has been compounded by severe financial constraints and by increasing demand, driven in part by demographic ageing and, in some part, by the influx of refugees to Europe. In addition to affordability and quality, newer issues are also emerging. These include the opportunities of digitalisation, along with the risk that new digital channels for service delivery may isolate already disadvantaged communities and the potential threat of increasing diversity of service providers on access to and quality of public services.
Find the latest content on this topic below.
Europe’s digital welfare revolution: Progress at what price?
As Europe races to digitalise its social protection systems, the promise of efficiency collides with the reality of exclusion—creating a paradox where the most vulnerable risk being left furthest behind.Working for children matters: An overview of service delivery and workforce in Europe
Promoting the well-being of children and tackling child poverty are key goals of the new European Commission. This report analyses trends and disparities in the accessibility of services for children that must be addressed to achieve this. Moreover, given that staff play an integral role in determining the quality and accessibility of these services, this report describes the state of play of staff working conditions and training opportunities. Good working conditions and affordable high-quality services, such as early childhood education and care, also play a key role in encouraging labour market participation and increasing productivity.
Social protection 2.0: Unemployment and minimum income benefits
This report focuses on unemployment and minimum income benefits for people of working age. Individuals with short or no employment records (mainly young people), the self-employed, those with non-standard working arrangements, and the long-term unemployed are often not entitled to higher-tier, or any, unemployment benefits. No Member State was identified where more than 80% of those entitled to minimum income benefits receive them. Benefit recipients at higher risk of having an inadequate income include those without access to social housing in areas with high housing costs, unemployed individuals whose most recent job was low paid and the long-term unemployed people. The report also investigates the rejection of applications (frequently, around 30% are rejected), the digitalisation of application processes (most common for unemployment benefits) and economic activation requirements (typically, 1–6% of benefit recipients annually are sanctioned for not complying with activity requirements) and service entitlements.
Eurofound examines the needs of citizens generally, with a special focus on young people, older people and those with physical or mental health problems. It monitors and analyses changes in public services brought about by budgetary constraints, changes in policies and advances in technology and digitalisation. Eurofound’s research into public services also examines the perspectives of service providers and their response to changing user needs.
The European Commission’s Social Investment Package, launched in 2013, urged Member States to put greater emphasis on high-quality public services. It highlighted the importance of improving access to early childhood education and care, as well as quality healthcare as a key element in improving overall health and maintaining the productivity of the workforce. In May 2019, the Council of the EU adopted the Recommendation on high-quality early childhood education and care systems to support Member States in improving access to and quality of the services they provide. Following this, the European Child Guarantee was adopted in June 2021 and aims to ensure that all children have access to the most basic of rights like healthcare and education.
Furthermore, the Commission’s Digital Single Market strategy for Europe, adopted in 2015, puts an emphasis on modernising public services as a way to boost competitiveness. Embracing new technologies, online public services and cross-border interoperability are critical to increasing cost-efficiencies and quality of services. The EU Digital Decade, announced in 2021, sets out a vision for Europe’s digital transformation by 2030. It outlines four key areas, one of which is digitalisation of public services.
European Commission: Social Investment Packageopens in new tab
European Commission: Social Protection Committeeopens in new tab
European Commission: European Child Guaranteeopens in new tab
European Commission: Europe’s Digital Decade: digital targets for 2030opens in new tab
European Commission: Promoting our European way of lifeopens in new tab
This is a selection of the most important outputs for this topic.
20 September 2023
Guaranteeing access to services for children in the EU
The European Child Guarantee was established in 2021 to ensure that children in need have access to a set of key services. This policy brief analyses trends and disparities in children’s access to early childhood education and care, education, healthcare, nutrition and housing. This is done using a convergence analysis, which tracks whether Member States are improving in respect of specific performance indicators and whether disparities between them are expanding or narrowing. The analysis, where possible, also looks at the differences between urban and rural areas and between children living in households with different levels of income and risk of social exclusion. The indicators chosen for analysis highlight the links between the Guarantee, the European Semester and the Social Scoreboard.
16 August 2023
Social services in Europe: Adapting to a new reality
This report addresses the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on social services in the EU. While the pandemic negatively affected social services, it nevertheless provided lessons on how to adapt them in response to new challenges and social risks. One lesson, for instance, is that policies should be developed to make better use of digitalisation in the sector, to improve access to new technologies and training for both workers and services’ target groups. And, most importantly, there is a need for clear contingency plans and funding for adaptation in times of crisis.
An increase in public expenditure on social protection, healthcare and education was a critical part of the pandemic response. However, there is uncertainty about the future development of social services in the context of the overarching policy interest and investment in the green and digital transition. This implies that the contribution of social services to the resilience of European societies needs to remain in the policy debate and that policies should be further fine-tuned.
7 September 2022
Access to essential services for people on low incomes: Energy, public transport and digital communications
In collecting information on essential services, the European Commission requested Eurofound to provide input on certain aspects of existing and planned measures in the Member States to improve access to essential services in reference to Principle 20 of the European Pillar of Social Rights. For this exercise, the scope was on energy services, public transport, and digital communications, and the focus on people at risk of poverty or social exclusion (in most cases in practice, people on low incomes). This paper provides an overview of the measures in the Member States based mainly on the inputs from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents, collected in February–March 2022. The paper reviews the measures across the entire EU by clustering the major types or targets of the measures to make essential services accessible, and by succinctly listing main country-level examples. It provides information for understanding the diversity and similarities of the measures applied and suggests pointers on areas where policy action could be developed.
30 September 2021
COVID-19: A turning point for upward convergence in health and healthcare in the EU?
The impact of COVID-19 has moved public health up the EU social policy agenda. As the EU directs its efforts towards establishing a European Health Union to guard against future health crises, this policy brief examines the extent to which the EU achieved upward convergence in terms of health and healthcare outcomes, as well as health expenditures and delivery, prior to the pandemic. It also examines convergence patterns in infections and deaths from COVID-19 and in the mitigating measures adopted by the EU and national governments.
The findings indicate that, from 2008 to 2019, the health of EU citizens improved overall, and Member States converged in health outcomes, but disparities in government expenditures and delivery of health services continued to widen. Against this background, the COVID-19 pandemic caused further divergence, with death and infection tolls varying greatly across countries. The policy brief stresses that a European Health Union would ideally not only reinforce the crisis preparedness of the EU but also ultimately enable convergence in health and healthcare indicators across its Member States.
14 December 2020
Long-term care workforce: Employment and working conditions
The long-term care (LTC) sector employs a growing share of workers in the EU and is experiencing increasing staff shortages. The LTC workforce is mainly female and a relatively large and increasing proportion is aged 50 years or older. Migrants are often concentrated in certain LTC jobs. This report maps the LTC workforce’s working conditions and the nature of employment and role of collective bargaining in the sector. It also discusses policies to make the sector more attractive, combat undeclared work and improve the situation of a particularly vulnerable group of LTC workers: live-in carers. The report ends with a discussion and policy pointers on addressing expected staff shortages and the challenges around working conditions.
8 October 2020
Access to care services: Early childhood education and care, healthcare and long-term care
The right of access to good-quality care services is highlighted in the European Pillar of Social Rights. This report focuses on three care services: early childhood education and care (ECEC), healthcare, and long-term care. Access to these services has been shown to contribute to reducing inequalities throughout the life cycle and achieving equality for women and persons with disabilities. Drawing on input from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents and Eurofound’s own research, the report presents an overview of the current situation in various EU Member States, Norway and the UK, outlining barriers to the take-up of care services and differences in access issues between population groups. It pays particular attention to three areas that have the potential to improve access to services: ECEC for children with disabilities and special educational needs, e-healthcare and respite care.
Researchers at Eurofound provide expert insights and can be contacted for questions or media requests.
Daniel Molinuevo
Senior research managerDaniel Molinuevo is a senior research manager in the Social Policies unit, having joined Eurofound in 2010. His research on health and social care has focused on the quality and accessibility of services, their digital transformation and the working conditions of staff. His work has mainly focused on services for children, both at Eurofound and at UNICEF, where he worked in 2021 supporting the preparation of the European Child Guarantee. He is a member of the Young Ireland Advisory Council and the EU Working Group on early childhood education and care. He was also a member of the EU Working Group that contributed to the review of the European targets for participation in childcare that took place as part of the European Care Strategy. He studied sociology in Salamanca, Spain and at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He has an MA in European Political and Administrative Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges and an MSc in European Social Policy from the London School of Economics, where he also worked as a researcher.
Hans Dubois
Senior research managerHans Dubois is a senior research manager in the Social Policies unit at Eurofound. His research topics include housing, over-indebtedness, healthcare, long-term care, social benefits, retirement, and quality of life in the local area. Prior to joining Eurofound, he was Assistant Professor at Kozminski University (Warsaw). He completed a PhD in Business Administration and Management at Bocconi University (Milan), after working as a research officer at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (Madrid).
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