The Conselleria de Asuntos Sociales contributes 29.515.715 € and the IMAS, 26.980.604 €.

The investment is conditioned to the increase of professionals to attend to the population

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The Consell de Mallorca, through the Instituto Mallorquín de Asuntos Sociales (IMAS), and the Govern de les Illes Balears, through the Conselleria de Asuntos Sociales y Deportes, have signed today with the 40 municipalities of Mallorca and the Mancomunitat del Pla the agreements that define the budget allocations to finance municipal social services in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

The total contribution that will be used to develop the Basic Community Social Services (SSCB) at the local level will be 56,496,319 euros; 29,515,715 of which will be provided by the Regional Ministry of Social Affairs and Sports and the remaining 26,980,604 by IMAS.

The councillor for Social Affairs and Sports, Fina Santiago, the president of the Consell de Mallorca, Catalina Cladera, and the island’s councillor for Social Rights and president of IMAS, Sofia Alonso, today formalised the signing of the agreements with the mayors of the local councils of Mallorca and the president of the Mancomunitat Pla.

This year it should be noted that this money will also be used to progressively increase the number of professionals in the municipal social services, as they will have to increase from the current two (one social worker and one social educator) for every 7,500 inhabitants to two for every 5,000 in 2024. The Department of Social Affairs already established in the last SSCB financing plan that compliance with these ratios would be a condition for receiving the investment.

Thus, for councillor Fina Santiago “it is important that with this three-year agreement we have taken the Council and the Government to stabilise the areas of care for people, not only in terms of temporal and administrative stability but also in terms of budget increase”. The councillor highlighted the role of the mayors: “it is not just about caring for people, they play a fundamental role in democracy: to fight against social inequalities and compensate for them. Social services are designed for this, and fundamentally community services because they are the first services of proximity. In these forty years of democracy, of social services, we have seen a very important evolution in social services. Any of us can go to social services without having the stigma of going to a place where poor people are cared for because we all have a grandparent or a mother with a dependency, a child with a disability, a situation of supervening economic vulnerability. For this reason, social services have made democracy and have also democratised aid relationships”.

For her part, Catalina Cladera stressed that “with this firm commitment to strengthen public services and by signing agreements with local councils for the next three years, we are giving financial stability to municipal social services and at the same time increasing resources so that they can invest, expand or improve services that have been essential in the pandemic and are now once again essential to cover the needs arising from the war in Ukraine, which affects a large part of the population,” explained Cladera.

The event, held in the Plenary Hall of the Consell de Mallorca, was also attended by the director general of Planning, Equipment and Training, Juan Manuel Rosa; the second vice president of IMAS, Magdalena Gelabert; and Àngels Candle, island director of Territorial Support, the department responsible for managing and distributing the budget of the agreements, which, for the first time, are valid for three years. This means more stability for the local councils, who know what funding they can count on and can better plan their services.

“We are providing continuity and guaranteeing fundamental services for so many of Mallorca’s citizens. Our priority is to work to improve the care and welfare of people with dependency, those who are going through difficult times and are at risk of isolation or social exclusion. Every person matters, this is the meaning of our work”, stressed the president of IMAS.

Of the 56.4 million euros that IMAS will distribute among all the municipalities of Mallorca, the Department of Social Affairs and Sports will contribute 8,944,644.54 euros in 2022 and 15% more in 2023 and 2024, bringing the total to 10,285,535.37 euros each year. For its part, IMAS will allocate 12,616,730.72 € for 2022 and the same amount of 7,181,936.85 € for 2023 and 2024.