The fact that the number of dependent people and benefits has increased over the last six years in Andalusia was the main argument of Juan Manuel Moreno, President of the Council, last Thursday, during the government control session in Parliament. He even spoke of “record figures” in this sense and that “we are moving forward with strength”. “We are only missing in 2024 the same services as in 2018,” quips a source familiar with the system, who relies on statistics to remind us that “it is obvious that there are more and more of elderly people”. people, more dependents and more demands.
But the other reasoning, more political, was to reproach the PSOE for the fact that Pedro Sánchez, whom he described as “public enemy number 1 of dependency”, refuses in Andalusia the 50% co-financing that he pays to Euskadi. The truth is that, with the official financing data in hand (accessible on the Imserso website), the percentage of money that the State allocates to the Basque Country is not 50% but 16.05% while it is 16.05% for Andalusia 37.74%. . On this site you can also see the evolution of expenditure: co-financing to Andalusia was 19.67% in 2018, after almost doubling in the last five years. “I don’t understand so much agitation” on the part of the president of the government, he criticized the socialist spokesperson, Juan Espadas, evoking this comparison without supporting data.
The annual certificate of expenditure dependent on the autonomous communities has been collected since 2012, as provided for in Royal Decree 1050/2013, and is sent by the communities once the year is over. In 2023, according to these official data, the Government has invested more than 729 million in Andalusia and more than 152 million in the Basque Country. According to Commission accounts, Sánchez would have to contribute 500 million more to Andalusia than he currently allocates to reach the 50-50 co-financing level in the Basque Country.
A Comparison of Traps
But, as we said, co-financing in Andalusia was 37.74% in 2023 (the highest percentage in all of Spain), while in Euskadi it was 16.05%. In addition, the Council, to make this comparison, looks at its investment for 2024 (and not 2023) which, according to the Ministry of Social Inclusion, amounts to 1,211 million. To establish this rule of three, it would be necessary to wait until the end of the year, as specified in the 2013 decree, which regulated the minimum level of protection established in the Dependency Law of 2006, which establishes shared financing of 50% between the government and the autonomous communities. It was not accomplished, but not when it was in the hands of Moreno himself.
Because it turns out that these 2013 regulations were signed by the former PP minister, Ana Mato, when the current Andalusian president was Secretary of State for Social Services and Equality, reporting to the Ministry of Health. Moreno held this position for just over two years (December 2011-March 2014), before being appointed by Mariano Rajoy as head of the Andalusia PP. The other day in Parliament he said that the Council was undertaking a “structural reform” of the dependency system, at least at regional level. Already when he was Secretary of State on the subject, he said something similar: “We are going to reorganize the model, we are going to make it sustainable over time so as not to collapse.”
The percentage of state funding to Andalusia when Moreno was Secretary of State was 25.47% in 2012, it fell to 22.85% in 2013 and continued to fall to 22.51% in 2014. Already with Moreno as leader of the PP, but with Rajoy as president of the government, the allocation to Andalusia continued to decrease until 19.67% in 2108, at the end of his mandate. Since then, funding towards the autonomous community has only increased to reach 37.74% several times, again according to official statistics.
“They won’t be able to pay for that.”
CCOO emphasizes that Moreno, from the amount he claims to be provided by the Council, “did not deduct what comes out of the pockets of users”, which the union estimates could be “around 400 million euros”. Likewise, as CCOO already expressed last week during a press conference, a new decree is in preparation which would increase by “more than 50%” the user fee that families must pay to benefit from the right to care. . “Many will not be able to pay it,” warned Nuria López, who asked to extend the minimum exemptions from the co-payment.
It will be necessary to see how this decree will be finalized but, according to CCOO, “there is total opacity as to the part financed by dependent people”. The union estimates, based on a CES study, that this is an average percentage of 20%. “The autonomous communities do not provide this data, they do not separate it,” laments CCOO, who unsuccessfully requested the figure from the Junta de Andalucía and Imserso, who asked to require that the communities provide this funding to users . According to the calculations contained in your report, a grade III elderly person benefiting from home help and benefiting from the average Andalusian pension will have a co-payment greater than 25% of their income.
The union has announced mobilizations for October 26, in addition to those planned by the sector itself, this newspaper suggests. CGT union workers stood up on Friday in San Telmo after a march from Malaga to Seville to demand “accountability for Juanma”. “The system of care and protection of dependent people is weakening, and from UGT Andalucía we say that enough is enough. Families are overburdened due to the lack of adequate institutional support and many have had to shoulder the burden of caring for their dependent members,” another union, the UGT, also denounced last week.
When he met with the entities that make up the Spanish Committee of Representatives of People with Disabilities (Cermi) in Andalusia on September 11, he already demanded that the Spanish government “reach 50% of the financing of the dependency of the Andalusian community as C’ is the case in other autonomous communities”, although this situation does not occur in any of them.
Moreno said on September 11 that Andalusia was already “at the peak of its financial capabilities” in health, education and social services. And he said it in his recurring context of political struggle for regional financing, in the wake of the fiscal pact between the PSOE and the Catalan separatists which has been dragging on for months. Since this complaint, the Andalusian president has announced a new tax reduction for the purchase and rental of housing for young people and free nursery schools for students aged two to three.
More benefits, but fewer people in the system
Regarding other figures, Moreno welcomed the 76,120 benefit recipients in Andalusia (“this may not seem like much to you, but it is a reality thanks to the management of this government,” he said in Espadas) and 85,923 additional services. than five years ago (“33% more, look where we started from,” he insisted) and the “138% increase in home care (nearly 90,000 more people)”.
In 2023, there were 420,976 Andalusian people falling under the dependency system, representing a decrease of 0.4% compared to 2022, despite the increase in the number of elderly people in Spain. Of the 289,000 people currently benefiting from the system in Andalusia, 37% of the total current benefits correspond to the home help service (155,969 services), 31.8% to teleassistance (the only service for almost a third of beneficiaries of the system) and 19.6% corresponds to the financial allowance for care in a family environment (27.4% of people recognized as having degree III dependency benefit only from this allowance).
Some 60,000 dependents waiting
And what happens to people who wait for their rights to be recognized? Moreno boasted that, thanks to his leadership, he had succeeded in “cutting the waiting lists in half.” The truth is that the average management time continues to exceed a year and a half, doubling the maximum time allowed by the dependency law to obtain effective benefits. The average waiting time was more than 557 days at the end of 2023, and as of August 31, 2024 it is 603 days despite the fact that there are fewer requests (as reflected in Imserso reports), i.e. -meaning fewer people in the system. despite the fact that the number of elderly people is increasing throughout the country.
The Commission recognized less than a month ago that the average waiting time had increased, which was also assumed by councilor Loles López, who defended the new management of the agency in Andalusia, implemented since March, despite the fact that the wait increases and the benefits decrease. The total waiting list of people waiting to receive their benefits is approximately 60,000 people. As CCOO reported the other day, the administration is focused on reducing the waiting list of people waiting for PIA and providing it efficiently, which is why the list of people waiting for resolution of rating has increased.
Layoffs in Cordoba and Granada
On the other hand, sources from the CCOO union section of the Andalusian Social Services and Dependency Agency have already reported the dismissal of the heads of the Dependency Assessment Service of Cordoba and Granada after months of “ chaos” in the management of the case. “oppose” the “atrocities committed by management with the simplification procedure and without counting on anyone’s opinion”.
According to CCOO, the two workers had requested written instructions not to respect the seniority of the requests for recognition of a dependency situation. “Citizens cannot wait almost two years for a dependency assessment and for us to first deal with the people who presented it a few months ago,” they say from the union, asking the Agency “to stop this crazy project and show common sense”. »
