Inequality in dependency: the Basque Country allocates four times more per person than the Canary Islands

An aide helps a woman in a nursing home, in a file photo Carlos Rosillo /

The unit cries out for help.

State funding continues to stagnate after the cuts and communities are once again bearing the bulk of public spending for another year.

In 2019, the Government allocated 1,386 million euros to this item, compared to 7,221 million of the autonomies (which includes the co-payment of users, estimated at 1,840 million euros), according to the expenditure certification communicated to the Ministry of Social Rights and analyzed by the Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services.

"The contribution of the Executive constitutes the lowest percentage since the approval of the law," explains José Manuel Ramírez, president of this organization, an expert in the sector, who in a statement shows his concern about the "marked territorial inequality."

In the Basque Country they allocated an average of 368 euros per dependent per year, compared to 95 in the Canary Islands.

They are almost four times more.

The contribution of the autonomous communities rose 7.4% last year compared to 2018. However, that of the General State Administration did not.

The Budgets were extended and an increase in funding has not been contemplated by decree-law at this time, as claimed by this association, appealing to the urgency of people in a situation of dependency.

This was the way in which, in 2012, the cut that cut off the financing of this law was articulated.

"The apparent impossibility of serving the most vulnerable people is creating a situation as cruel as the one that caused that decree," explains the association in its note.

If the situation was already worrying before the pandemic broke out, the COVID has further highlighted the need to give oxygen to the dependency system.

The association refers to the 43,275 people who have died this year awaiting a procedure: 27,116 who had already recognized the right to receive a benefit and did not receive it, and 16,159 who died while waiting to be assessed to be recognized or deny a degree of dependency.

According to this organization, this is the reason why the waiting list has dropped in 2020, and not because the beneficiaries have increased.

The Government has announced a contingency shock plan that contemplates improving benefits and services and that includes the injection of 600 million euros into the Budgets (and this Tuesday they have also spoken another 700 million of European funds to promote a change in model, enhancing home care).

But this amount depends on the support of the Congress of Deputies.

“Everything trusts the next accounts,” explains Ramírez.

"It is time to comply with the announcement of the budget increase," the note says.

According to the association, this injection of 600 million will make the General State Administration assume "22% of public financing, still far from the 50% expected."

The dependency law maintains that the financing will be supported equally between the Government and the communities, but the autonomies bear the bulk of the financing.

The association specifies, however, that the investment of 600 million euros would generate 25,000 direct jobs and that returns of 240 million euros would be obtained, through personal income tax, VAT or Social Security, for example.

Only Asturias reduced spending in 2019

The autonomous regions that invest the most in dependency per inhabitant and year are the Basque Country (368 euros), Extremadura (268), and Castilla y León (261 euros), and those that least are the Canary Islands (95), Galicia (142) and the Balearic Islands ( 143).

Those that increased the budget the most in 2019 were the Balearic Islands (32%), the Valencian Community (18%) and the Canary Islands (16%).

Only Asturias reduced this item in the last year, and Extremadura (1.6%) and Catalonia (2.2%) were the communities that increased it the least.

Currently, with a waiting list of 234,000 people already valued as dependents and another 147,000 still pending assessment, "the end result is the impossibility for the autonomies to attend to what they have ahead," according to the association.

His conclusion is overwhelming: the system is in decline.

They insist that a boost to dependency is urgent.

And the note ends: "Until then, the insufficiently cared for, the neglected and those who have not even been valued yet have no choice but to continue disappearing as before, discreetly and in silence."

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